Story/ Article #2 Final Draft
Katy Hackworth
Story/ Article #2
Final Draft
There are more than twenty varsity sports offered at Morningside College. Each student athlete at Morningside has gone through some kind of recruiting process to be apart of Morningside athletics.
Alisha Steckler and Dakota VanHauen, two Morningside coaches, as well as Morningside athlete, Samantha Stark, talk about how recruitment is a team process, individual to each athlete, and different at every school.
“The recruiting process changes every year” Alisha Steckler, the dance coach, continuously hits is the importance of a team. Alisha use to be the dance coach at Briar Cliff University. A major difference between Alisha noticed between Briar Cliff’s and Morningside’s recruitment process is that it is a team effort. Unlike Briar Cliff, Morningside’s admission team is very helpful through the recruitment process. If Alisha really wants an athlete on her team she can side with admission to see what they can do to make a difference to help get the athlete to come to Morningside. When Alisha recruited at Briar Cliff she had to prepare the process and figure out how much scholarship money she can give the athlete without anyone helping her. Working as a team is very beneficial when it comes to recruitment.
Getting to know the athletes you want to recruits essential. Dakota VanHauen is the Cheer coach at Morningside college. He sends out emails to over 200 people every two weeks, after receiving lists from admissions, to get to know each athlete and give out information about everything Morningside cheer team has to offer. Dakota also goes to college combines and high school competitions to set up a booth for athletes to come and talk to him about Morningside cheer and to get the word out about Morningside.
After athletes become interested, Dakota invites athletes to come and be a part of game day with the actual cheer team. “I like the athletes to have a feel what the atmosphere is like and to see large crowds, and seeing the difficult stunts we put up.”
Dakota said if he really wants someone on his team he contacts them every week to check in on them and their process on finding a college. Dakota likes to set an individual meeting up with the athlete to gain a relationship. Dakota says “It is really hard to get in contact with high school seniors over email or phone if you have no relationship. Once you gain that relationship they are not scared to contact you back”
Samantha Stark is a dancer at Morningside. Before committing to Morningside Samantha was interested in Briar Cliff’s dance team because she liked the coach, which was Alisha Steckler at the time. “I just really liked the coach and how nice she was. I could tell she was passionate about dance, and cared about her athlete’s every time I talked to her over phone or email.”
Once Alisha was offered a job at Morningside Alisha had to reach out to Samantha and recruit her to come to Morningside. Samantha, then visited Morningside and decided she liked Morningside’s campus, faculty, and atmosphere better once she visited. Samantha was happy with the decision she made and glad Alisha recruited her to dance for Morningside college.