The months of June, July and August are for many a time to get away, relax and find a few weeks to go on vacation with the family, but for college basketball coaches, these are some of the busiest and most demanding months of the year. Many think when the season is over, the schedule slows down, but in reality there is very little downtime for coaches in today's culture of college basketball.
Many times, the work is just beginning when the season ends. There’s a saying in the industry that recruiting is like shaving -- miss a day and you look like a bum. This has never been more true. The summer is no vacation!
Below is a checklist of 12 critical things coaching staffs do at a time of year when the program is less visible to fans and supporters:
1. Ensure admission, eligibility and housing are taken care of for players
Making sure your signed prospects have registered with the NCAA clearinghouse and filling out their admissions paperwork and housing applications are priorities for the recruiting coach in June. All the paperwork must be filed, and official transcripts must be sent to both the clearinghouse and the admissions office. It is important that the prospect is admitted before the start of summer school so he can participate in summer conditioning and workouts.
2. Organize team camps to evaluate high school prospects
NCAA rules permit coaching staffs to run one-day team camps, and coaches have increasingly been recruiting AAU programs, in addition to high school teams, to attend these camp. This is a way to spend quality time not only with the prospects, but also with their circles of influence. The camps give staffs a chance to get prospects on campus for an unofficial visit and to get a better evaluation of the players going into the July recruiting period.
3. Arrange unofficial visits for underclass prospects
June is an important time to get underclass high school prospects on campus. The players are already on campus and involved in conditioning workouts and classes -- giving prospects a chance to watch practice, interact with the current roster and spend quality time with the coaching staff is very important in terms of making a first impression on the prospect, his parents and his and circle of influence.
4. Organize the eight-week summer workout schedule
Head coaches spend a great deal of time organizing their summer workout schedules. These include on-court exercises, strength and conditioning and voluntary shooting workouts. Executing on this schedule is made more difficult during the July evaluation period, as coaching staffs are on the road during a three-week period when they go 21 straight days without a day off. Although coaches are on the road, they are continually communicating with the players on campus -- that communication is especially important with the incoming freshman classes as they transition to college. July puts a great deal of responsibility on the directors of basketball operations as well as the strength and conditioning coaches and managers. Having managers who connect with players is valuable. Because of the time restrictions, it is the managers who generally assist players with optional shooting workouts.
5. Implement the eight-week summer workout schedule
Recent NCAA rules allow coaching staffs to work with their teams two hours per week for eight weeks during the summer, as long as the participating players are enrolled in summer classes. Most coaches break that time up into three 40-minute workouts per week. Some coaches do one of the workouts as an individual workout to spend more quality time with a small group. In this case, the other two workouts would be team workouts, designed to lay a foundation for the next season. Most are skill- and concept-driven, and this time is valuable. It gives the incoming players a better understanding of what a college practice is all about and helps upperclassmen develop valuable leadership skills.
6. Devise team-building activities
The summer is a good time to have different team-building activities. Coaches can build trust, respect and a collective responsibility with team competitions in the weight room, nights out at the bowling alley or the movies or acts of community service, like visiting a children's hospital. Getting players to work together outside of the season can pay huge dividends come February and March.
7. Attend to personal growth and improvement
Most staffs take some time in June, July or August to pursue self-improvement and growth opportunities like self-help clinics or meetings with an inner circle within coaching. I had a group of coaches I met with every year to share ideas about the game and culture of college basketball. It is those same coaches I would call upon to bounce things off of during the ups and downs of a marathon season. It is important for the coaching staff as a whole to grow, so most head coaches assign each assistant an area to study during the summer months. I thought it was beneficial for my assistants to work on coaching and teaching and not just recruiting. I did not want to put them in a small box but rather to help them prepare to be head coaches. By broadening their horizons and studying something new, they were also teaching the rest of the staff. These summer projects were valuable to the entire staff, not just the coach doing the research.
8. Perform nonconference scouts and self-scouts
During the summer months, the coaching staffs will prepare preliminary scouting reports on next season’s nonconference opponents. They will also research new coaches in their league to get a handle on their style and system. This is important, as there might be an element needed in a master preseason checklist or summer and fall workouts.
Self-scouting is very important as well. Coaches must take the time to look at their teams, see what they did well last season and why, as well as what they need to improve on. The summer months allow coaches to objectively evaluate themselves, their team and their players. It is good to go back and watch practices in which coaches implemented and taught as well. Coaches can always find better ways to communicate and get ideas across.
9. Plan and execute on the three weeks of the July recruiting and evaluation period
The July recruiting period is a whirlwind for coaching staffs. Starting on July 8, coaching staffs will leave their campuses at dawn (some leave late Tuesday night to ensure they reach their destinations on time), and from Wednesday at 5 p.m., when the NCAA allows them in a facility with recruits, to Sunday at 4 p.m., when they must be out of the facility, they will crisscross America evaluating the underclassmen or baby-sitting the prospects they have offered. It is not uncommon for coaches to go from the West Coast to the East Coast in the same week, hitting the key events and camps. Planning where the head coach needs to be during this period is pivotal.
10. Participate in fundraising initiatives
June is an important month for most athletic departments. It is a time when the fundraising arm of the athletic department dispatches the key coaching staffs on campus to meet and shake hands with influential boosters. Sometimes it is an individual meeting, and other times it's a meeting with a large group in a particular area that fits the university’s geographic footprint. Donors and season-ticket holders want to meet and interact with the coaches, and most of these events are full-day affairs. A head coach might be asked to do as many as 12 of these during this time. That is 12 more days away from his team or recruiting and preparing for the season ahead, but it is important to the big picture.
11. Oversee facility enhancements and projects
The summer months are a time of change on campuses and a time of the year when coaches are looking to upgrade facilities. It might be the locker room, players’ lounge, video room or offices. The reality is that recruiting is an arms race, there is a cost of doing business, and facilities are a key element in the process. These projects need to be planned and executed during the summer, so when the players arrive back on campus in August, they see a tangible change -- another form of the commitment to creating a championship culture.
12. Build a game schedule
One of the most important responsibilities for a coach is scheduling, and it is not as easy as one might think. Working with the athletic department to find dates that fit both teams’ holiday and finals schedules, getting a balance of home and road games and accounting for TV games makes scheduling a puzzle that is most times not finished until August. Some coaches use the July period to connect with coaches, and some recruiting events even have a scheduling board for coaches to list the types of games they are looking for to fill out their schedules (i.e. guarantee games, home-and-homes or single-game opportunities).
What many fans might consider a leisurely time of year for coaches is, in fact, a critical period in ensuring a program's success for the coming season and into the future. In many cases, the difference between fulfilling teams' goals and falling short of them hinges on the work done not in the cold days of winter but the dog days of summer.