First class: Recruits fly high
Recruiters take to sky enticing potential Horned Frog athletes
By David Dunai
Staff Reporter

This July, associate head women’s basketball coach Larry Tidwell plans to hop on a commercial plane and do some recruiting.

But on this particular trip, he doesn’t plan to go to California or Indiana or some other state. He’s flying to Mozambique, Africa.

Women’s basketball head coach Jeff Mittie said that a big portion of the coaches’ jobs and the program’s budget is to find the best recruits possible, even if they have to go overseas.

David Dunai/STAFF REPORTER TCU’s twin-propeller plane arrives with men’s basketball head coach Neil Dougherty last week at Meacham Airport in Fort Worth. The plane was bought in 1984 for recruiting purposes for the athletic department.

“You just have to realize that the world is a lot smaller than it was 25 years ago,” Mittie said.

Although TCU is fortunate to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and close to Houston, two of the best places to recruit from in the nation, recruits from abroad tend to be more appreciative of the opportunity to play and study here, Tidwell said.

Toni Gordon, a senior tennis player from Spain, was an all-conference player in singles and doubles action for the Western Athletic Conference last season. He said former men’s tennis coach Michael Center traveled to his hometown, Barcelona, Spain, and recruited him after seeing him play in 2000.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has very strict rules about the days coaches can visit recruits or vice-versa, said Marc Evans, director of athletic compliance.

NCAA made rigid regulations for recruiting in order to create a fair environment for universities with different budgets when it comes to selecting athletes, Evans said.

“For example, an institution cannot transport a prospective recruit by limousine or helicopter,” Evans said.

To use the available time most efficiently, besides cars and commercial flights, coaches also use TCU’s twin propeller airplane to bring in recruits from areas where there is not a commercial airport nearby, he said.

TCU purchased the airplane in 1984, said Larry Kissinger, athletics travel coordinator and former pilot of the plane.

However, the plane is used only in approximately 10 percent of all the travels related to recruiting, Evans said.

Mittie said the women’s basketball program used the TCU plane once in the past three years, when they had to pick up a recruit from Iowa.
Evans said that top 100 universities in the nation all have airplanes for recruiting purposes.

In comparison, the University of Texas has five airplanes and Baylor University has one, he said.

David Dunai
d.r.dunai@student.tcu.edu

credits

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002