For women's hoops, recruiting is a cutthroat business

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Raising the stakes
After Jolette Law was hired as Illinois women's basketball coach in May 2007, recruiting expenses for the program increased significantly. A look at the amount spent on women's basketball recruiting since 2002:
2008: $153,570
2007: $80,431
2006: $95,444
2005: $93,688
2004: $107,926
2003: $63,200
2002: $42,477

CHAMPAIGN – Like any good salesman, Jolette Law is always pushing her product.

It's why her wardrobe mostly consists of orange and blue attire. It's why she's only half- joking when she says she talks to pregnant mothers about her program. It's why her travel schedule looks like a display board at O'Hare.

And it's why it was hardly surprising when during just her second season as head coach of Illinois' basketball program – a program that hasn't made the NCAA tournament since 2003 – she snagged a recruiting class that, by some accounts, was the No. 2 group in the country.

Law has always been a talented recruiter. For 12 years, she helped C. Vivian Stringer build Rutgers into a national powerhouse. And in that time, the recruiting game has transformed into a cutthroat business.

The media and fan demand have turned men's basketball recruiting into an industry that remakes young student-athletes into national icons. And the changes in recruiting on the men's side, both good and bad, have slowly trickled to the less prominent women's side.

"I've seen the recruiting change so drastically, that's why we're here every day working on the 2011, 2012, 2013, because kids are committing early," Law said.

"Eighth-graders already committing to a university. Sometimes I think that's a little too early, but I think on the men's side, they get them so at eighth and ninth grade, they pretty much know where they want to go. I think with the women, over the last five or six years, kids are committing early, they're making their visits early. They want to make their decision early, get it out of the way, not waiting until their senior year for their official visits."

Though the differences between the two are stark, the similarities in recruiting are apparent and, at times, troubling for coaches on the women's side who are wary of the recruiting getting out of hand.

Even legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt has noticed a shift. Summitt credited the changing culture to an increase in the talent pool, which has resulted in more parity within the sport and more programs eyeing national titles.

"We're experiencing what the men have experienced for years. It can be cutthroat," Summitt said.

Boys versus girls

For all the concerns about the women's side inching closer to the men's, one of the biggest differences may be how coaches approach their targets.

"Girls want to play with great players," Penn State coach Coquese Washington said. Like Law, Washington came to the Big Ten two years ago after spending time as a top recruiter in the Big East. "Guys are cocky. They think they can put the world on their shoulders and don't need their teammates. Girls are not as confident in themselves so they want a chance to play on a great team."

Chris Mennig, the event operator and a national evaluator for Blue Star Basketball recruiting service, said team chemistry plays a larger role on the women's side.

"On the men's side, if you can drop 25 a night, you're getting the ball," said Mennig, who was an assistant at Illinois under former coach Theresa Grentz. "But in girls, if Susie talked to my boyfriend during class, then I won't pass it to you. That's the biggest difference is the relationships (off the court). The social piece is a major part of it."

When she was being recruited by Grentz in high school, Illinois All-Big Ten center Jenna Smith remembered the time she spent with the players as one of the most influential factors in her decision to come to Illinois.

"We did little, fun activities. One day we sumo wrestled on the Quad," Smith said. "All the teammates barbecued or did races, and it was all just kind of fun and brought the inner kid out of you."

Smith sees similar strategies used by Law when she brings high school players for their official visits.

"We did different activities," she said. "With Coach Grentz it was kind of random stuff but here it's like, if a girl likes to bowl, we try to do some stuff she's interested in, make her feel like we like those things."

More money, more problems

Despite the wide margin of difference in revenue between men's and women's basketball, recruiting expenses for both sports have grown at surprisingly similar rates. According to the NCAA's 2007-08 Gender Equality Report, the average school spends $46,700 on women's basketball recruiting, the fourth-highest recruiting expenditure. Men's programs spend $74,700, second only to football. This despite the fact that women's programs tend to lose more than $500,000 annually, whereas men's programs generate about as much as the women lose.

"I think institutions try to give both staffs equal treatment to recruit at the highest level," Illinois associate athletic director Kent Brown said. "Athlete recruiting is the lifeblood of any program. Sports are looking at budgets to save for travel and equipment right now in this economy, but I don't think recruiting will ever be shortchanged."

Illinois is well above the national average for recruiting expenses. However, the greatest disparity is in how much the program is spending now that Law is the coach. From 2002 until Grentz retired in 2007, the most the women's basketball program spent on recruiting was $107,000. During Law's first full year recruiting, those numbers skyrocketed. In 2008, the program spent $153,000.

"You trust each coach to oversee their budget and spend money wisely," Brown said. "It doesn't do a coach any good to travel across the country time after time if it's not reciprocal.

"In recruiting, finishing second is the same as finishing eighth."

Unfortunately, that mentality also has led to coaches tiptoeing the line between unethical and illegal.

"It's the nature of the beast," Mennig said. "Overall, yes, there are dollars involved. I had a situation where a coach said, 'If you want a player, it will cost $5,000.' On the men's side, though, it would have cost $50,000."

Law herself is frustrated with coaches cutting corners and has heard, but not seen, other programs using money to lure athletes.

"I think that right now, I don't see people working as hard as they did in the past," Law said. "You outworked your opponent or the institution you're going up against. I don't see that right now. I see a lot of people crossing the lines, cheating, finding the easy way to get it. If there's a rule, it becomes 'How can I get around that rule?' instead of trying to do it the right way."

Another problem in the cutthroat arena of recruiting is coaches whispering in players' ears about the faults of other programs, instead of talking about the positives of their own.

As a young coach still learning game management and the X's and O's, other coaches could use Law's decision-making against her to push top-tier players away from her.

"I see a lot of people bashing schools, saying 'Why would you want to go to this school, they don't have this?' or 'Why would you want to go play with this coach, this coach doesn't have this?' instead of selling your product, selling your school, not what the other school can't provide," Law said. "That I'm not happy with it because I see a lot of it now on the women's side, more than I have in the past, and I've been doing this for a long time. It's getting really bad out there."

Bret McCormick, who runs the recruiting service All-Star Girls Report, agrees with Law and talks to high school players about coaches who use those kinds of tactics.

"If you're talking to Illinois and you're hearing from Iowa and they're only talking about their competition and not themselves, that's a red flag. And it happens," he said.

But most troubling, McCormick said, is much of the cheating goes unnoticed and unreported. He even went so far as to hint the top programs would never be punished by the NCAA because of what it would do to the sport's image.

"If Tennessee or UConn get caught cheating and get sanctions, that hurts women's basketball," McCormick said. "You can't throw the book at them, so you just give a slap on the wrist."

Summitt said her program is clean and disputed any allegations that the NCAA isn't as strict on the top schools. But she has heard rumors the NCAA isn't as stringent on the women's side as the men's.

"Some people have suggested that in the women's game that because we don't generate the revenue in the men's game, they're more focused on what's going on in the men's versus women's, but I don't know if there's truth to that."

Young and restless

When Smith committed to Illinois, she remembered receiving congratulatory letters from some of the schools that were recruiting her, wishing her luck in her college career.

But she also recalled getting phone calls from persistent coaches hoping she would back out of her commitment.

"When I verbaled, some people were still on me about 'Why? Why not play at our school?' I still hadn't signed so they thought they still had a chance," Smith said. "I think when I verbaled, people thought that was my No. 1 choice but I'm still open to other options."

Just like in men's basketball, players are being recruited as early as middle school and are committing to programs as early as their freshman years. The reason, Law said, is stability. Parents like the safety of knowing their daughter already has a scholarship in case they don't develop as expected or get injured before graduation.

It forces coaches to make decisions that won't affect their program until three or more years down the line.

"As a coach, you need to know who you want to offer as freshmen, certainly by their sophomore year," Washington said.

But a player who orally commits as a freshman could continue to improve and hear that she should consider another school. Without formally signing a letter of intent – which players can't do until their senior year – a player can continue to be recruited by other programs.

Such was the case with Eric Gordon. At one point, Gordon was the prize of Bruce Weber's recruiting class. But he was wooed away to Indiana before signing with Illinois.

The Gordon saga is known all too well in these parts, but similar scenarios happen on the women's side. Summitt said those kinds of problems cause "fireworks" in coaching circles.

For her part, Law just wishes players honored their commitments.

"If someone commits to me, I hope other people back off. But today, it's like people's word is not their word anymore," Law said.

"How do these kids feel if I recruit you, and then I go out there and find someone better and suddenly I don't want you anymore?"

Building a program

Law won't know the fruit of her labor until the players she brought in come to campus and begin the next step toward building a program: winning. Illinois is far from being the next Tennessee or Connecticut, perennial powerhouses that have combined to win 10 of the last 15 NCAA championships. But that's where young coaches like Law and Washington have their sights set. To get there, they'll have to continue to play the recruiting game and deal with the grueling process.

For Law, the reward justifies the means.

"In three years, my vision is we'll be right there in the top tier and stay at the top," Law said. "I want people to say Illinois is the team to beat in the Big Ten. Getting to the top is easy, but maintaining that is not. That's why I'm always following what UConn is doing, or Pat Summitt and Vivian Stringer. I don't want to be a program that wins one Big Ten championship."

For coaches attempting to turn a program around, bringing in the right players is an important first step. Sooner or later, though, good recruiting classes need to translate to wins, especially if they don't want other coaches chirping about their lack of ability to produce on the court.

Even still, the recruiting game itself never ends, even for a coach who has won more than 1,000 games and eight NCAA titles.

"You constantly have to sell," Summitt said. "These youngsters and athletes, they have choices. Some might come to Tennessee because we've led the sport for so many years. You're on the biggest stage in women's basketball. Some people might say 'I don't want to go to Tennessee; I want to beat Tennessee.' There's enough talent to go around and you have to find the players that fit into your system."

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