NCSA recently had the chance to interview Coach Matthew Beisel, Head Track Coach at Concordia University in Illinois. Here are some of his answers to our questions:
1. How would you describe yourself as a coach?
My relationship with Christ is my primary focus, because I’ve learned that when I keep Him as the focus, everything else falls into place. I do not believe God is a god of mediocrity, but of excellence. I take the responsibilities that have been given to me very seriously, and invest large amounts of time, energy and thought into helping our teams and our athletes as individuals to have the environment that is needed for everyone to be successful. I value individuals no matter what they bring to the table, and again that comes out of my personal beliefs that God doesn’t play favorites, but loves everyone equally. I hire assistant coaches who share my point of view, so we work just as hard to help potential All-Americans and Olympians achieve their dreams as we do with the athletes who will perhaps never score a point at our Conference Championships in four years of collegiate competition. I am all about the importance of team, and know how to build it.
2. What is unique about the experience at your school?
We are a Christ-centered school and team that have a huge emphasis on team-building activities outside of practice that most schools do not have. Because of mandatory weekly Team Time, where I draw upon years of working as a camp counselor and youth group leader to bring our athletes together over time, and the many informal team activities that our captains and other athletes plan, we have one of the most tightly-knit teams that I’ve seen. Throwers are friends with distance runners, distance runners are friends with jumpers and sprinters, and so on. Go here to see an example of our team spirit at Indoor Conference: http://www.youtube.com/user/CoachBeisel#p/u/71/XT7aWZO3JJ8
3. What do recruits need to know about you?
Maybe not so much about me, since I’ve hopefully given a clear picture of that in question 1, but about what college will be like at our school. I have found that student-athletes who come here and do track need to have three things, or they won’t cut it long-term: 1) academics must take first priority, no matter what; 2) they have a passion for track & field/cross-country; 3) they have to care about the team as a whole and not have everything be about themselves.
I know nobody sits there and says, “Well, I really could care less about academics and I hate track and it’s really all about me as an individual and I could give a rip about the team, so I think I’ll post a profile online and go compete somewhere.” However, I have recruits every year who would have never heard of us if I hadn’t responded to their recruiting profile. They posted a profile asking to be recruited for track! After months of talking with them, getting them here for a visit (sometimes from half the continent away), they come… and then show up on campus in the fall and either 1) drop the ball on grades and flunk out or become ineligible after one semester; 2) tell me that they just don’t think they want to do track anymore; or 3) hate all the team-building activities we do, think they are a waste of time, and are unhappy, and then transfer out after a year of dragging their feet.
I know not every high school student has these things figured out completely and sometimes you just have to go and try something to find out what you really want, but honestly if you want to be a successful collegiate athlete, especially at an NCAA Division III school like ours, you need to be able to keep these things in the forefront.
4. What do you look for in recruits?
I pretty much just answered that above. In order to get a better sense of whether an athlete cares about academics, cares about track/cross-country, and cares about others, I usually ask questions like, “What is your GPA, your ACT score, your specific short- and long-term performance and outcome goals (performance being a time or distance you want to achieve, outcome being a place you want to get or a meet you want to qualify for), your personal bests in each event”, and then I ask them to describe what is most important to them about their team and their coach. It really sends a red flag to me if a recruit doesn’t have immediate answers to these questions. Students who don’t know their GPA or ACT are probably not good students or are hiding something. Athletes who don’t set goals and don’t know their best performances in their key events don’t take track/cross-country seriously enough to cut it in college. Or, at least, in our program. If an athlete doesn’t have much to say about their teammates, they may not be a team player.
5. What is the one thing every recruit needs to do with the recruiting process?
Keep their mind open. Be realistic. There is a huge myth out there that NCAA Division III isn’t as “good” as Division II or I. Granted, those schools can sometimes attract the blue chip athletes because they have some athletic money to give, but just like there are great Division I/II/NAIA programs, there are fantastic Division III programs like ours where we take it very seriously. We have kids who got serious Division I attention competing for us because they wanted more personalized, hands-on attention in the classroom, primarily, and didn’t just want to be a number. We are Division III, but we compete against strong competition in the Chicagoland area so you will get plenty of solid competition to go up against. If you are so good that even Chicago becomes too small for you, we will set up trips to bigger venues out of state if need be.
About being realistic, I’ve talked to many recruits who have pretty good marks, for the state they live in, but they write me or tell me that they’re sorry, they are looking to get a full-ride athletic scholarship from a Division I school. I am very gentle about this, or sometimes I don’t say anything at all, but a lot of times their state champions in their state might not even make it to finals in Illinois. It’s unlikely they will get a full-ride scholarship at Division I, but they have good ACT/SAT and GPA so they could get over $10,000 a year from us for academics. Money is money. Some recruits don’t realize this or are being told by well-meaning people at home that they are better than they are.
6. What sort of questions do you really like to hear from recruits?
Recruits are often very nervous and have trouble thinking of questions to ask, and I understand this.
I usually say to a first-time contact, “OK, most people want to know about four broad topics: 1) how much does it cost, what kind of scholarships can I get, how will I pay for whatever scholarships and grants don’t cover? 2) what is Chicago like/the neighborhood where our campus is located like/is it safe? 3) what is your track/cross-country program like? What would you like to know about training, travel, competition schedules, balancing academics and sports, specific details about workouts, team building, atmosphere, etc. 4) what is the campus atmosphere like? What are the professors like, the strengths of a particular major, what have you? Then I ask them, “Which of these topics would you like me to tell you about, to start off with?”
This usually gives them stuff to think about and ask questions about. I think what I DON’T like is when they DON’T have questions, because that seems to indicate a lack of interest or lack of thought.
I am very impressed when I have a young man or woman who has a list of prepared questions for me. It’s about 1 in 100 who do.
7. What turns you off when you are recruiting a student athlete?
1) Emails with foul language/drug culture/sexual references in the address, like bigpimpinho@yahoo.com or something like that. Seriously, get a more grown-up email address before you start the recruiting process.
2) When a recruit responds to an email, especially a first-time contact, with a one line minimal response, not indicating that they read anything I sent them. Example: “I got your email thanks.”
3) When a recruit responds to an email with typos, misspellings, poor grammar. Here are two examples from the same person:
a. “i didnt get in for real!!!!!! this freakin suckz i had my eyes on this college and i didnt get in…. i wasnt accepted this really suckzzzzzzzzz”
b. “oooook i will do that track is ok im not doin it this year tho cause i have to do more stuff so i dnt have time for it…..i well be at the up coming invented this time and well the track team be there??? my favorite class so far is mi art class cause my teacher is cool and mi english class the one i cant stand is my crimal justice is just aint fun no more and he always got use writting about a crime scene and thing its really boreding me. i well have the school send another one off 2 u in the mean while keep me up dated on my track team lol”
4) When a recruit acts cocky and puts on a show of how much they know. I love it when athletes know stuff, but when they interrogate me on, “Well, do you do THIS? Do you do THIS? Do you do THIS?” it makes me wonder what the coach-athlete relationship will be like. It may be more tone of voice than anything else.
5) When an athlete writes and asks me how good the party scene is. I delete their information immediately.
8. What do you think your program is the most successful at?
We are successful at many things. We are very successful at taking any athlete, wherever they are in their ability level, and developing them not only as an athlete, but as a person who is also a true teammate. This pays off, because if everyone is being supported this way, they perform their best when it counts and we win championships like we did this past year.
9. Why should a recruit consider your program?
I think question 1 and 2 answered this adequately. Here’s what my byline says on every email I send: Concordia University Chicago cross-country/track & field programs are designed to win championships while keeping Christ-centered values and team unity the highest priority. Winning and team success are thoroughly enjoyable, but are actually the icing on the cake of an already successful season. Team cohesiveness backed up by solid recruiting are the foundations of conference and national championships. Care to join us? We hope you will.
10. If a recruit is interested in your program, how should they reach out to you?
Email is the best way. I am not allowed to text or Facebook recruits based on NCAA regulations, but I can email and call recruits as early as their freshman year in high school (although I tend to focus on juniors and seniors). I check email constantly and am very efficient about getting back to recruits in that way.
