I follow college football and basketball recruiting pretty closely. I particularly pay close attention to recruiting by Utah State's basketball and football programs. It's interesting to me because college sports are very similar to businesses, and coaches are like salespeople when it comes to recruiting. Coaches have to sell the program, themselves, the fans, the university, etc. As fans we see the actual games, which are without a doubt the most enticing part of college sports, but no team has a a chance of sustainable success if a coach is not a good recruiter, or salesperson. Vaughn Autry is currently a high school player who had given a verbal commitment in August to play on Utah State's basketball team. Recently, it was announced that Autry's scholarship offer was not valid and shortly thereafter it was revealed that he would be playing on scholarship for Montana.
I recently stumbled upon an article discussing the recruiting process Vaughn Autry went through in relation to Utah State. The article mentions Autry made a verbal commitment to Utah State after an assistant coach told him he would be a starter on the team and told him he could have a scholarship. Autry started filling out paperwork to be able to visit Utah State on a recruiting visit, but fell out of contact with the coaches because, according to him, they did not return his phone calls or emails. Autry was soon informed by an assistant coach that an official scholarship offer was never made and that Utah State had decided to go in a different direction. By this point, a lot of the schools who were previously interested in him had lost interest and Autry had to start looking to for another school who would offer him a scholarship. He eventually settled on Montana. Stew Morrill eventually called Autry's father, Steve. The following is an excerpt from the article, in Steve's words:
"He said, I'm sorry, we're going in another direction, going after a junior college kid," Steve said. "I told them to stop offering so many guys."
Steve claims Morrill accepted some of the blame and said that he had already told his assistants to stop offering 15 kids.
"He told me, we didn't mean to hurt Vaughn," Steve said. "I told him, it's the principle of the whole thing, of being honest.
"I understand they want to get the best player, but they should've been honest with us."
Steve claims Morrill accepted some of the blame and said that he had already told his assistants to stop offering 15 kids.
"He told me, we didn't mean to hurt Vaughn," Steve said. "I told him, it's the principle of the whole thing, of being honest.
"I understand they want to get the best player, but they should've been honest with us."
This article demonstrates the importance of open and clear communication. In defense of Stew Morrill and his assistants, the article seems quite biased and only gets the Autrys' point of view. However, whether there were misunderstandings between the Autrys and Stew Morrill's coaching staff, it is obvious to me that the root of the problem was poor communication. I don't know exactly what happened in this situation, but I imagine neither party had ill intentions, and if more effective communication was used, the problem probably wouldn't have happened.
The problem I have with what Morrill did in this case is that he completely ignored the kid and strung him along for about a month. When Autry committed to Utah State it was published in a great number of paper and on basketball recruiting site. Go ahead and Google Autry's name and Utah State and it was plastered every where. Unless Morrill was cloistered away in a cocoon of silence he knew what was going on and he chose not to contact Mr. Aurty and say hey I think we have a miss understanding here. Morrill kept him in limbo for over a month. Why? Because Morrill wanted a fall back positions. This is more than a communication problem.
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