As a key feature of the four-year college sports career, the teams are constantly changing as old students graduate and move on, and new incoming players are brought in to take their places. The NCAA held its national signing day on Nov. 12, which marks the first day that prospective players for Division I and II sports can commit to a college and receive scholarship acceptances.
Michigan Tech has announced multiple acquisitions already, and with the variety of athletics the school offers, it also has a multitude of recruitment techniques. Certain teams have scheduled recruitment events through the signing season, while others rely mostly on prospective athletes signing up online and of their own volition. The alpine ski team, for example, uses a hands-on tour approach to get students interested in the program. “What that typically looks like is they’ll come here, they’ll do a full campus tour with MTU admissions, and then we try to build in some fun activities with the team. So they have an opportunity to see both the academic and the athletic side of the experience that we offer here for our student athletes. So, we’ll take them out and go and run around the Michigan Tech trails and show them that venue or ski if they come and visit in the winter, and then try to do a meal or two with the team and the coaches so that they’re getting to spend quality time with each” said head coach Thomas Smith.
MTU so far has been doing well, with the women’s soccer team signing six players on the first day. The cross-country team has also been successful. Losing three people from the women’s team and four from the men’s due to graduation, they’ve already recruited four women and three men to fill out the roster. The disparity will soon be completely filled, according to the head coach, Robert Young, who expects to add from one to three more athletes per team in the coming months.
“We’re really excited about the quality of athlete we’ve been able to recruit recently and what that means for our competitive outcomes. Our sport is one where the impact of a recruiting class is delayed as so much development happens during their college careers. Some athletes can step in and score right away, but generally we won’t see the fruits of these high quality recruiting classes for at least two to three years,” said Young, when asked about the outlook of the season.
