The Kee to Coaching Blog Post 1

I hope all is going well with you all. When I first launched my website, I committed myself to doing a weekly blog. So far, I haven’t held up my end of the bargain. As you all know, I recently took a job as an assistant coach at Bridgewater College in Virginia. Bridgewater plays at the Division 3 level, and competes in the ODAC Conference. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Division 3 landscape, the ODAC is usually the most competitive and well-regarded league in Division 3. The head coach at Bridgewater, Shawn Postiglione, is in his first season, and all members of the staff are new to the school. “Coach Post”, is a great leader and somebody I am learning a lot from. Post was one of my first mentors in the coaching profession. I first met him when I was a 20 year old college senior at Hampton University. Post was the top assistant at CNU, and I was hired to be a student-assistant coach. The other assistant on staff is Steve Enright. Over the last two months, I’ve learned a lot from Steve. He was the Assistant Director of Operations at the University of Rhode Island and has worked at the Division 2 and Division 3 levels, additionally.

Since arriving at Bridgewater in June, our primary concern has been finding players who fit our coaching style and team vision. We worked all connections we had, and were able to land a number of high school seniors, as well as Division 1 and Division 2 transfers. We are still working on a few more leads, but our first roster is beginning to come together. In a league as competitive as the ODAC, it is tough to have a rebuilding year. We feel that the strong core of returners we have along with a talented group of newcomers, should lay the foundation for our ultimate goal of winning an ODAC championship.

After spending a good deal of time focused on graduating seniors and transfers, we then moved our focus to “rising seniors”/members of the class of 2016. As a young, eager coaching staff, we have hit the road hard so far! Personally, I have been on the road at least five times a week, trying to find and evaluate as many players as possible. Building relationships and contacts with coaches and players are crucial to recruiting, and our coaching staff has worked hard to maintain and establish relationships along the east coast. My prime recruiting area is the DMV. I have spent the majority of June and July inside of various summer leagues and AAU tournaments in pursuit of future Bridgewater Eagles! Over the last three weeks, I have worked camps with the Hoop Group at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. These camps have been great for me from a networking standpoint and have allowed me to evaluate kids, while getting paid a small stipend. Working camps are a great way to coach potential recruits and build relationships with kids who may be able to help your program.

With the last AAU evaluation period coming up, we will meet as a staff today to come up with a strategy to approach the last few events we will be attending. Our staff will be dispersed across the country, and we are identifying whom our priority recruits are, and which kids will be playing at certain events. Fortunately, we have three full-time coaches who all have access to our organized and extensive recruiting database. We are able to familiarize ourselves with all of our kids with weekly recruiting meetings, and by attending as many events as we possibly can together.

I will be posting again next week, and look forward to updating you all on our progress. We have spent countless hours on the road and in different gyms. It was great getting a couple of hours of sleep last night. I’m hoping to bank as many hours as possible to get myself through one last sleepless weekend. If anybody will be in the Greensboro, North Carolina area this weekend, please shoot me a text or give me a call!