Sports recruitment for a small liberal arts college is difficult enough. Recruiting talented athletes who also satisfy Hillsdale’s academic requirements is even harder.
“At Hillsdale, we need good grades and a sky-high ACT,” said women’s softball coach Joe Abraham. “That’s hard to find sometimes. When your average ACT is a 29 or a 30 and you’re trying to compete with Grand Valley, recruiting is — to put it mildly — very difficult.”
But next year’s class of freshman athletes holds precisely this sort of promise. The Charger football team, with 29 incoming athletes, has reaped the benefits of recent renovations to the Sports Complex. According to head football coach Keith Otterbein, the facilities help nudge talented prospects our way.
“The recruits have been very impressed with the upgraded weight room downstairs,” Otterbein said. “There’s kind of a ‘wow’ factor when they walk in and see the new gym and the state-of-the-art equipment and efficiency of it all.”
This was seconded by Jeff Lantis, Director of External Relations for Athletics, who affirmed in an email that the new facilities would give Hillsdale a leg up as it competes to attract the attention of strong athletes and continue to develop a competitive Division II program.
“Having an academic profile that is higher than any other [Division II] college in the country requires our coaches to recruit harder and more broadly as we do battle with the Ivy and Patriot League colleges as well as the military academies,” Lantis said.
John Tharp, head men’s basketball coach, has only brought three freshmen into the program this year, but looks forward to growth of Hillsdale’s athletic program in years to come. This year’s recruits, including a point guard and a scoring wing, committed to Hillsdale College even before the renovations were complete.
“It’s such a beautiful facility,” Tharp said. “It really shows well. I think it’s something that young student athletes will be excited about. It’s going to be much easier for us to show the facilities than when I first got here years ago, and we’re all very thankful for that. Campus is already so beautiful and the reputation of the college is such an advantage, so it’s nice to have the facilities finished.”
Additionally, the freshman basketball players have good reason to work hard during their first season as Chargers.
“This was the first year we didn’t make a GLIAC tournament since we’ve been here,” Tharp said, “so these kids are highly motivated to make it back.”
The softball team anticipates bringing three new players into the program, two outfielders, and an infielder. But, according to head softball coach Joe Abraham, the new facilities have done little, if anything, to benefit the softball team’s recruitment and practice resources.
“The new facilities haven’t done anything for softball,” Abraham said. “We have half the space we used to. When you don’t have a good place to practice, it makes recruiting more difficult.”
Andrew Towne, head coach for men’s and women’s cross-country and track and field, said that, despite the difficulty of recruitment each year, the type of student and athlete attracted to Hillsdale will regard the renovations as an added benefit to an already appealing program.
“The nice thing is that when we find someone who fits that mold, once they’re on campus and they see how we’re different, there aren’t many places that offer what we offer,” Towne said. “They’re a little hard to find, but once we find them, they fit.”