For Boerne Champion High School volleyball player Marissa Drange, it was set up to be her shining moment. She would’ve had a national stage to display her skills and abilities to college coaches from all over, hoping to grab both their attention and scholarship offers.

The opportunity, though, never truly materialized. The venues where Drange would’ve plied her craft have remained empty the past few months. The coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the United States, with one model projecting 200,000 nationwide deaths by October, claimed another victim — the recruiting process.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, high school athletes such as Drange would normally at this time be preparing to attend camps or compete in national tournaments. Most events, including the USA Volleyball national championships scheduled for June 25-July 4 in Dallas, have been canceled.
The NCAA, the governing body of collegiate athletics, extended its recruiting “dead period” — a time frame when college coaches are not allowed to have in-person contact with prospects — until the end of July. June 15 was the first day that Division I and Division II volleyball coaches could contact athletes who have completed their sophomore year in high school, including making verbal offers. Division III and NAIA coaches can contact prospects at any time.

“It’s definitely difficult that we were unable to compete in these big tournaments,” said Drange, a 5-foot-11 outside hitter who as a sophomore in 2019 recorded 498 kills, 313 digs, 41 aces and 27 blocks as Boerne Champion advanced to the Class 5A third round. “It’s hard not being able to showcase in front of them. At least I still have my junior year. It’ll be a lot easier to tell who’s really interested. I think everybody will be committed to getting their name out there.”

Four months ago, the club volleyball season was taking off with key events in Missouri and Las Vegas. It was at the beginning of a crucial stretch of recruiting, but the COVID-19 pandemic turned things upside down. Instead of club teams attending tournaments in Colorado, Philadelphia, Dallas or Houston, they were left sheltered in place, unable to practice or play.

“It’s definitely a totally different ball game,” University of Incarnate Word volleyball coach Samantha Dabbs Thomas said. “You can still make the phone calls; you can still have the FaceTime — which is great because it helps establish relationship. As coaches, a huge part of recruiting is getting out to the club tournaments. With a lot of those being canceled, it’s tough.
“You’re like, ‘Well, that’s tournament’s canceled. That’s tournament’s canceled.’ I’m not really a homebody. I love traveling, and I love recruiting, and so do my assistants. For us, that was kind of hard that we had to stay in one place. As a coach, you’re always on the go.”

Thomas and UTSA volleyball coach Laura Neugebauer Groff had secured their recruiting classes for 2020 and had turned their focus toward identifying future prospects when the pandemic reached full force.
A process that was already tough enough with limitations on when and how coaches can contact a prospect, had more hurdles added. Besides missing out on evaluation time on the club circuit, coaches also had to cancel summer camps — a crucial time in affirming potential targets or discovering a player who was under the radar or might be coming back from injury.

“Look at Michael Jordan,” Neugebauer Groff said. “The guy was a nobody (as a sophomore in high school), and then he grew four inches, five inches. You just never know. Some kids, they can jump out of the gym. But can they perfect a skill? It’s a puzzle. What do you need? And how does each kid fill in? They’re trying to keep us from offering way out because people were offering kids way too young. We were turning into a sport like some of the other sports where kids commit, and then they change their mind, or the coach changed their mind because the kid changes or they find someone better. It’s kind of hard to visualize what a kid’s going to be when they’re a freshman or sophomore.”

The task, for players and coaches, isn’t likely to get any easier. A 2016-17 study indicated there were nearly 450,000 high school volleyball players in the U.S. Roughly 6 percent of them earned a scholarship, and a little more than 1 percent played at the Division I level.

The intensity of the process will likely become heightened thanks to the depth and talent of the 2022 and 2023 classes — which are strong on local and national scales — and recent NCAA rulings that pushed back when a college recruiter can make contract with a prospect and pushed up when an athlete can begin making official visits to college campuses.

“It’s definitely a lot harder to get recruited these days,” said Monica Ramon, a local club coach who played on Churchill’s 2013 and 2014 UIL state tournament teams and collegiately at Southeastern Louisiana and St. Mary’s. “When I was still playing, film was just starting to become a thing. You really had to try really hard to perform as well as you could in every moment because you didn’t know who was watching. That’s why these (canceled) tournaments are so big for us. This is really a crucial time for them. It’s a tough situation.”

terrence@terrencesports.com
Twitter: @SA_terrence1

COVID’s impact
A rundown of how the novel virus has upended the recruiting process:
Football: College coaches lost out on spring recruiting visits and having prospects on campus for events such as “Junior Day” because of the pandemic.
Baseball: The high school season seemingly ended before it started, with a large chunk of area teams not even beginning district play. With the extension of the recruiting dead period and the cancellation or delay of summer competition, underclassmen and uncommitted seniors had their options limited.
Basketball: The spring showcase tournaments were shuttered when the NCAA canceled its men’s and women’s national tournaments in early March. This affected the prime recruiting periods (April 17-19 and April 24-26) because of an implemented recruiting dead period.
Soccer: A key recruiting season, which occurs during the spring and summer and includes camps and ID tournaments, was halted by the COVID-19 outbreak. For graduating seniors hoping to make a late impression, it was a lost opportunity. For underclassmen, there is still a chance to get recognized during the fall.
Softball: The high school and summer travel seasons are the prime recruiting periods. Both were canceled or delayed because of the pandemic, which especially impacted seniors that were aiming to garner a late offer.
Swimming: With pools closed and competitions canceled during the shutdown, athletes have missed out on an opportunity to train. Most of the top underclassmen have already been identified, but the summer is still a crucial time for development and enhancing scholarship prospects.
Tennis: Recruiting rests heavily on rankings and performances in a prospect’s age group during United States Tennis Association tournaments throughout the year, so the cancellation of the high school probably won’t have as big of an impact as it might for other sports. The USTA announced earlier this month that it would leave the decision to play events at the discretion of local health experts and USTA regional officials.