Landscape is changing
How coronavirus has impacted recruiting for every high school sport in the Orlando area
The sports world came to a virtual standstill in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, dramatically altering the recruitment of high school athletes. Campus closures and the NCAA’s ban on in-person recruiting through at least May 31 have drastically changed the landscape for college coaches and prospects. Here is a breakdown of the impact on every sport played by Orlando area high schools:
now is left to hope that summer showcases will be reinstated or rescheduled.
“College coaches are watching a ton of video, but they all pretty much say they want to see a kid play live before they offer,” Griseck said. “April is the month you get on the radar. July is the month that usually seals the deal. If July gets canceled, that is really going to hurt. I know there’s been talk of moving it back to August or maybe even September. That would be weird, but the kids need something.”
September typically tips off a contact period that allows college coaches to stop by high schools to talk to players and see them work out. That’s also when recruiters typically schedule in-home visits to families and when most players make their official visits to colleges.
All those elements remain up in the air. and field rosters (and scholarship limits) by the NCAA.
It is played only as a club or intramural sport on college campuses, with no NCAA scholarship opportunities.
College football coaches from all over the country flock to Florida in April and May to watch prospects during high school spring practices and exhibition games.
The Florida High School Athletics Association shut down high school spring football workouts and the NCAA suspended recruiting visits to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, altering the normal recruiting calendar.
The changes have impacted high school football players in a variety of ways.
Seniors who were on the verge of not qualifying for college despite already signing letters of intent should benefit from relaxed NCAA entry requirements and more lenient rules for online high school courses.
The most talented freshmen, sophomores and juniors already were on the radar of college football programs and have enjoyed a surge in attention via phone calls and videoconference sessions.
The athletes who were hoping to show off their progress and their development, however, are hurt the most by shutdown spring practices.
Mount Dora Christian coach Kolby Tackett, whose sister has recovered from COVID-19 after contracting it in March, said safety Kevon “K.J.” Ellis had drawn interest prior to the shutdown. But others on the team aren’t as fortunate.
“With some of our guys who already had offers going into this break, it really hasn’t slowed down with the offers coming in — I think KJ has picked up four in this down time,” Tackett said. “But where it hurt was with the accessibility to see them at practices. That’s such a big thing when you get those college coaches on campus. It’s big for your players who don’t necessarily have an offer.
“A lot of times you have them in to watch one kid and they discover another kid.” a feel for a player beyond a number on a card.
“Instead of just looking at his score, you can learn a ton about a player,” Deacon said.
The pandemic already has canceled two premier events — this month’s Thunderbird International Junior in Phoenix and the U.S. Junior Amateur, set for late July at Hazeltine National Golf Club, site of the 2016 Ryder Cup.
Deacon would have been among the more 150 coaches on hand but said the golfers are the ultimate losers.
“For a lot of players, it was their final year playing as a junior golfer. They’re missing out on all those experiences,” Deacon said. “It’s really a shame.”
Even so, top golfers will not miss out on future opportunities at the next level.
Lake Mary’s Izzy Pellot, a rising junior for one of the state’s top girls program, has established a reputation and resumé to weather the uncertain summer ahead.
“But the ones looking to build their reputation definitely have been affected and we still don’t know how much this summer,” longtime Lake Mary coach Dennis Burchill said. “They just won’t have those events for college coaches to see them in person.”
With college and high school lacrosse seasons overlapping, June and July give recruiters the chance to attend showcase tournaments and evaluate players. Under normal circumstances, coaches would be preparing to scout players from the class of 2022.
Those opportunities will be limited with the June tournament schedule essentially wiped out.
“We’re kind of re-evaluating where we’re going to go with that. I think that’s the big elephant in the room, or the big question,” UF women’s lacrosse coach Amanda O’Leary said. “Obviously, I don’t have a crystal ball, don’t know what’s going to happen. But I think that June will be a wash and we will certainly see what July brings.”
Potential recruits can be contacted starting Sept. 1 of their junior year, so coaches use the summer tournaments to set their recruiting framework.
O’Leary said the bigger challenge for lacrosse programs will be accommodating college players who will utilize the extra year of eligibility they’ve been granted by the NCAA due to the pandemic.
“I think it’s the fifth-year situation that’s going to throw a wrench into everything,” O’Leary said.
Jacksonville University men’s coach John Galloway agrees. He said it’s going to come down to finances.
“Next year, the ability to budget essentially five classes into our scholarship budget that’s traditionally built for four is going to be really tricky, and we’re going to have some tough conversations because of it,” Galloway said.
Schools such as FSU and UCF have club programs that do not award scholarships.
Some soccer coaches are hopeful the pandemic will bring changes they welcome to the recruiting process.
The annual recruiting season for girls soccer revolves around the NCAA offseason, which takes place in the spring and summer. But the coronavirus pandemic has halted the usual showcases where young players can show off their skills.
Despite the challenges, UCF women’s soccer coach and former U.S. women’s national-team player Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak said the pause in recruiting could benefit players, who she believes are pressured into committing too early in their young careers.
California standout Olivia Moultrie made headlines in 2017 when she accepted a scholarship to North Carolina at the age of 11.
The NCAA has created age restrictions on unofficial campus visits and mandates coaches don’t communicate with recruits by phone until they reach their junior year. Still, unofficial offers persist and it’s common for players to commit to colleges as high school freshmen and sophomores.
“I think it’s good that it has slowed down for them,” Sahaydak said. “I think it needs to be slowed down in general. I don’t think they realize what their priorities are until they are a little bit older. But because there’s a rat race for scholarships, it becomes this vicious cycle.”
Boys soccer recruiting, meanwhile, previously centered around top club and academy team performances.
Those teams travel heavily to participate in showcase events that have been shut down or significantly limited during the pandemic, adding new value to high school boys soccer programs.
Many college teams also had loaded their rosters with international talent that may be harder to land amid travel and visa restrictions.
Now college coaches could be looking closer to home in the fall to help round out their teams.
“The high school season is gonna be vital to players to get the exposure they need,” DeLand High boys soccer coach Chris
Dowdell said. “A lot of [college coaches would] just skip over high school and they don’t pay a lot of credence to the high school game, unfortunately. But now, I think that they’ll make more effort there.”
The softball recruiting process consists of two parts — high school ball and the travel team season.
Hagerty High coach David Stone says travel team showcases have become a “one stop shop” for college softball recruiting. These events typically take place during the summer. College coaches can’t contact players until their junior year, so the summer before is a particularly critical period.
The pandemic has already forced the cancellation or postponement of many of these showcases, disrupting the recruitment process for coaches and players alike.
“When they lose the summer, then it makes it a bit more challenging to try to find something,” West Orange coach Todd LaNeave said. “I worry about my juniors who are really good ball players. This would have been a big, big summer for them, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Typically, if players haven’t received offers through club play, they’ll rely on high school teams