Better lucky than good
Better lucky than good
By Ricky Nelson
It's better to be lucky than good. In putting his team together, Brian Schaefer, head coach of the UW Oshkosh women's volleyball team, has taken that adage one step further. He has been lucky and good with recruiting.
Schaefer's roster is a mixture of players he recruited and players who turned up at tryouts just 11 days before the season opener. Such is the norm in NCAA Division III athletics, where coaches can't offer scholarships and often have to wait for recruit commitments. But with the quality players Schaefer got as a result of luck, it's a wonder he doesn't win the lottery every week.
"There's some luck," Schaefer said. "There are people you go after, and some people, they just fall into your lap."
Schaefer said his typical recruiting process starts in a player's junior year of high school. Since he can't see many of his recruits play during the school year because high school and college volleyball seasons overlap, Schaefer relies on what he sees on the club volleyball circuit in spring.
In that way, getting star senior middle blocker Leah Rosenbaum in a Titan uniform was a stroke of luck. How does a 2006 American Volleyball Coaches Association first-team All-American fall into a coach's lap?
"Leah was someone who contacted us," Schaefer said. "She was a basketball player. She didn't play club volleyball, so we really didn't know anything about her when it came down to that. She decided to come here to try out in July. So, that was more of a lucky type thing that we got her."
After follow-up recruiting by Schaefer, that "lucky type thing" has resulted in Rosenbaum leading the Titans to a combined 112-23 record in her three-plus years as a starter. She is the hitting leader for a team that has won 22 straight matches and is currently ranked No. 7 in the nation.
Another kind of luck is when a Division I coaching staff bungles the recruiting process, leaving a player like freshman Christina Cahoon searching for a school. Cahoon was a three-time Wisconsin Volleyball Coaches Association all-state player at Watertown High School.
"She got offers, but she wanted to play two sports," Schaefer said. "Her mom was really involved in the recruiting process, and her mom knew when things weren't really working out schools were kind of snowing her. She went on a campus tour at a D-I school, and they went through all this stuff and they ended up not even having physical education, which is what Christina wanted."
Cahoon, who ranks second on the Titans in service aces and third in digs, will play for the Oshkosh softball team this spring.
Schaefer said multisport athletes like Cahoon are welcome on his team, thanks in part to his relationship with fellow Oshkosh coaches. If not for those relationships, players of Cahoon's ability could go elsewhere.
"I encourage two-sport athletes," Schaefer said. "We have a good rapport going right now with the softball coaches here and the track and field coaches. There's a lot of people who don't want to play D-I and get stuck playing only one sport. So, that's how we're getting some players."
Senior left-side hitter Rebecca Masephol is a product of Schaefer's relationship with the Oshkosh track and field coaches. Besides being a solid player on the volleyball team, Masephol might be better known as a two-time NCAA All-American hammer thrower and member of Oshkosh's national champion track and field team.
"Rebecca contacted me and it was more of a track thing," Schaefer said. "She was a good volleyball player, too. So, that was more of a (Oshkosh throws coach) Pat Ebel type thing and me getting in there at the tail end and her deciding to play two sports."
Sometimes luck comes in the form of getting a WVCA all-state player to Oshkosh sans recruitment.
Starting libero Samantha Schmidt, a 2004 honorable mention all-state selection from Waupun, simply decided to come to Oshkosh in September of her final prep season. Schmidt has fit in nicely by setting the Oshkosh career digs record earlier this season.
The current Titans who played their way onto the team during tryouts are freshmen Sara Pannemann, Christina Breitlow and Abby Halverson, a 6-foot-1-inch right-side hitter who could be a starter next season.
"Abby was someone I didn't know anything about," Schaefer said with a laugh. "She just decided to come here. After our first open gym I went, 'Oh, good. Maybe she's playing here.'"
With luck a contributing factor in getting an All-American (Rosenbaum), a D-I caliber star (Cahoon), a record-setting digs machine (Schmidt) and a contributing left-side hitter (Masephol) among others, Schaefer's team would win a lot of games. But to take the team from good to elite, Schaefer did his share of recruiting. For every story of luck, there is another story of Schaefer's hard work resulting in commitments.
Kim Vail, a senior right-side hitter from Madison, is a player Schaefer recruited. She is a 2007 All-American candidate after being named AVCA All-Region last season. Because of a late start in the game, Vail slipped through the recruiting cracks.
"I watched her play in club, and she didn't play for a great club," Schaefer said. "Madison is kind of a weird (school) district because they don't have 7th- and 8th-grade volleyball. So, Kim really wasn't all that great as a freshman (in college). She just really got good as a sophomore and beyond."
Schaefer's diamond-in-the-rough is hitting well over .300 this season and is second on the Titans in both kills and attempts.
The two Titan setters, starter Leah Stumpf and backup Katelyn Vara, were also heavily recruited, although not without incident.
"Before Katelyn decided to come here, I told a setter she was probably going to make the team in November," Schaefer said. "Then we got Leah Stumpf to commit in December. And Katelyn decided to come here during her Odyssey Day when she was scheduling for classes. Well, Katelyn and Leah are very good, so the other girl didn't end up making the team."
All told, Schaefer initiated the recruiting process with 11 of the 18 Titans on the current roster. A one-inch thick stack of "No letters" on Schaefer's desk has started the 2008 recruiting process. Now that the program has capitalized on its luck and reached elite status, Schaefer has been receiving more letters from recruits than usual, resulting in the estimated 150 rejection letters Schaefer will send out before the recruiting process begins in earnest.
Rosenbaum, Vail and Masephol are out of eligibility after this season. But even if Schaefer does not get lucky with in-state players again this recruiting season, he has his eyes on hitting the lottery outside of Wisconsin, where all of his current players attended high school.
"Now, we're kind of nationally known," Schaefer said. "It seems that more private schools get out-of-state recruits like New York University, Emory and Washington because they're elite academic schools. But there's no reason to think that Oshkosh can't be that school with some of our majors like nursing, business and education. We're pretty known for those things. So, there's no reason to think that someone wouldn't travel five, six hours or maybe eight to nine to go play."
And there's no reason to think that Oshkosh, with or without recruiting luck this season, will fall from elite status anytime soon. Fifteen of the 18 current players, five of whom were all-state high school players, have eligibility remaining after this season.