Coach Stanley Fite or more commonly known as Coach Skip by his players has been a head coach at the University of West Georgia for over 38 years. He started his coaching career at the University of West Georgia as an assistant coach and later took a head coach position at Brewton Parker. He was also the head coach at Augusta State University before returning to the University of West Georgia where he retired. As his career comes to an end, he shares his advice to coaches and recruits on how to be successful in the recruiting process while in a pandemic.
Although recently retired, Coach Stanley Fite is one of the many college baseball coaches that have witnessed the challenges that the coronavirus has brought to the game and the recruitment process. The coronavirus pandemic has changed the college baseball recruiting process for both coaches and recruits. Covid-19 halted college baseball recruitment and college baseball which began early this year, February 14, 2020.
From his time as a coach, Stanley Fite explains that recruiting is one of the most time-consuming yet one of the most important parts of being a coach. He said, “One of the key things to success was being able to recruit the right people.”
Over the years, recruiting techniques have transformed from telephone calls and mailed letters to social media, emails, and portals provided by the NCAA. Although many things have changed in the recruiting process, some things such as coaches going out to see and meet future players in person are still commonplace except during the COVID 19 pandemic.
As a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, the NCAA, National Collegiate Athletic Association, suspended all in-person recruiting for division 1 Sports until August 31, 2020. The suspension was made effective on June 25, 2020. This meant that coaches were not able to meet in person with recruits or perform any official or unofficial visits to the recruits’ games or practices. This suspension hurts high school seniors, high school juniors, and players transferring from other colleges. In the NCAA’s open letter to their student-athletes, they said, “To our fellow student-athletes and everyone else in this country, thank you for making an enormous sacrifice. Your sacrifice is not in vain; it protects millions of people around the world, including our family, friends, and loved ones.
The NCAA recommends that students use the time to research athletic programs and coaches. Coaches were also recommended to stay in contact with recruits via text messages, cell phone calls, and emails during the coronavirus pandemic
“Although COVID has inconvenienced many, including myself, the high school senior should not waste the time they have been given. They should be working out; baseball players need to be strong and fast.”
Coach Skip urges recruits and players to continue to work out even when there is no gym or weight room to do so because recruiting is still happening. Coaches have become creative in the ways that they are recruiting players. They have replaced in-person campus tours with virtual tours and visits to the recruits’ game with game tape analysis. The Portal is one of the more widely used ways to recruit players according to Coach Skip. He says that “The portal is an online portal, thing, that coaches use to look at the stats and other information about players and to meet with them too.”
Coach Skip knows that baseball is not the only sport that has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the NCAA suspension but hopes that all sports and recruitment will begin soon.
He says, “I’ve been coaching and playing this game for a very long time and this is just another bump in the road for us.”