The Strategy of Recruiting “Good Kids”
Summary: Both UNC and Duke have the leverage in recruiting to be selective about skill AND personality. This strategy, despite it’s short term consequences, leads to exclusive rewards, such as delayed defection to the NBA. This is an exclusive competitive advantage other programs can’t execute on that allows the handful of elite programs to protect their positions of power. In the past decade, both UNC and Duke have experienced great windfalls from this strategy.
If you follow recruiting, you’ve noticed that UNC and Duke pass on elite talent quite often. On the surface, it seems that someone would have to be crazy to pass on the in-state recruits like Roy has recently. (He’s practically developing a rep for it since NC has been so talent laden…)
Coach K does this too, but it is often overshadowed by the notion that academic standards or cultural differences steer recruits away from Duke. In fact, it is Duke that probably steered away first.
No matter which program you are talking about, you can rest assured that if a kid has certain warning signs, whether it’s attitude, personality, or environment, then the programs eventually shrink away from the situation, although they will continue to monitor it quite closely in case there are developments in a positive direction. They watch and wait for the chance to jump in if the risk level (however “risk” is individually defined by them) recedes.
It’s not the recruits’ fault, of course. They aren’t “bad kids.” They just haven’t demonstrated that they can offer stability in the way the program has chosen to define and maintain organization and strategy. These recruits were raised by their parents, friends, and community. They simply grew into the template their environment asked of them. There is no “good” or “bad” when speaking of personality, just correlations to behavior trends. It’s something that organizations bearing the responsibility of performance and growth must pay attention to in their execution, lest they lose their place as market leader.
So the next time you wonder how the hell UNC or Duke got all those star players to stay an extra year in college, remember seeing Coach Williams or Coach K sacrifice short term gains by passing on a future NBA lottery pick. They know there are extra rewards from using leverage in this way to develop a high-character brand. It all falls into place when the perfect recruit comes along bringing both skill and attitude to the table. Those recruits seem to understand they belong at UNC or Duke, and they come to campus and win championships. Hell, sometimes they even stick around for the celebration.