As part of an attempt to increase the national exposure of University athletics, the Physical Education Department has made a series of changes to its recruiting process. Chief among these was a decision last spring to create and institute a new departmental position, Recruiting Coordinator for Athletics, currently held by Head Coach of Men’s Lacrosse John Raba. Though he will continue in his role as head coach of the men’s lacrosse team, a position he has held since 1997, Raba has discontinued his role as an assistant football coach due to the increased time requirements.

“I suggested John Raba be assigned…this responsibility for a number of reasons,” explained Director of Athletics John Biddiscombe. “They include his outstanding success in recruiting top-flight lacrosse players to Wesleyan, his organizational skills and his keen understanding of how to creatively use technology in the recruiting process. John also has an engaging personality that is a plus in working with the Admission Office and his coaching colleagues.”

The athletics recruiting process is a complex one. Prospective student-athletes first receive “pre-reads” from the Office of Admission to evaluate their academic credentials, a process that, according to Associate Dean of Admission Chris Lanser, allows coaches to measure a prospective athlete’s competitiveness in Wesleyan’s applicant pool.

“While the coaches have the expertise to evaluate an athlete’s ability at this level, they do not necessarily have the expertise to evaluate an academic record,” Lanser, who has served as the Office of Admission’s liaison to the Physical Education Department since his arrival at Wesleyan in 1995, wrote in an e-mail.

Lanser stressed that, while the collaboration between coaches and himself adds another layer to the admission process, all students applying to the University are ultimately evaluated based upon the same standards.

“As coaches identify potential athletes, we work together to evaluate their admissibility,” Lanser wrote. “By looking at basic, measurable academic data such as curriculum, grades and standardized testing, I can determine if a student athlete will be competitive in Wesleyan’s pool….That early look does not determine whether or not the student will be admitted (again, these candidates go through the same process as all other applicants and the other information in the application is vital to a well-considered decision) but merely gives the coach feedback on whether or not it is worth pursuing their candidacy.”

Lanser added that any information a coach gains during this process is meant to better inform their decision-making, and is not shared with the prospective student under consideration.

The approach taken by Wesleyan differs from some of its peer institutions. Wesleyan does not have any specific cutoff points for a recruited athlete’s GPA or standardized test scores, but rather evaluates a prospective student-athlete’s application no differently than any other.

“We have no minimum requirements or cutoffs for any applicant to Wesleyan and so do not have a specific bar for a recruited athlete,” Lanser wrote. “Prospective student athletes are evaluated and admitted/wait listed/denied in the same way as all other applicants to Wesleyan.”

One area in which the eleven conference schools do not differ is their adherence to the NESCAC Statement of Common Admissions Practices, a document dated September 22, 2005. It lists a series of guidelines which all of the member institutions must follow, including a requirement that a prospective student-athlete’s application be received in its entirety before an admission decision is made. This constitutes a moratorium on athletic scholarships, a requirement of all NCAA Division III members. Lanser sees such policies as helpful in achieving a balance between academic and athletic accomplishment within the admission process.

“The current NESCAC policies around athletic recruiting and admission grew out of a Little Three initiative,” Lanser wrote. “We work to insure that our student-athletes are both representative of our student body as a whole and do not comprise a disproportionate percentage of the entering class. We weigh the combination of academic achievement and athletic potential in making these decisions.”

The document also notes that all NESCAC schools except for Amherst and Williams have both Early Decision I and II programs. About one-half to two-thirds of recruited athletes enroll through Early Decision, according to Lanser.

Lanser, who will soon enter his 14th season as an assistant women’s basketball coach, stressed the importance of free-flowing information between the Office of Admission and individuals working within athletics when discussing potential University student-athletes.

“The role of athletic liaison boils down to communication between admission and athletics, whether that is with the Director of Athletics or a particular coach,” Lanser wrote. “We work together to have as part of each entering class a group of talented student-athletes who can contribute towards a goal of excellence in all we do….Coach Raba’s new role has not changed that but will streamline much of that communication and should make us more efficient in that relationship.”

Raba concurred with Lanser’s sentiments.

“The biggest thing is the importance of recruiting in general, and the communication between Admissions and the athletic department is really critical in this process,” Raba said.

In addition to communication, Raba says his responsibilities include identifying and disseminating innovative ideas throughout the department.

“It’s getting ideas [from Admission] and then sharing them with the rest of the department,” Raba said. “Is it the letters they send out? Is it the conversations about recruiting? Is it about how they set up visits? Things like that. We want to be able to share those things as a group.”

Raba also noted that the changes to recruiting practices are part of a larger effort to expand Wesleyan’s visibility nationwide.

“We already have almost 5,500 kids in our [recruiting] database,” Raba said. “Some of those kids have never heard about Wesleyan. But now…they’re getting a lot of information about Wesleyan. It’s going to open their eyes to a school like us.”

In addition, Raba noted that the presence of an individual within the athletic department who is in constant contact with the Office of Admission will prove to be mutually beneficial.

“My position is to try to find which are really the main concerns and try to work on those problems—try to figure out what we could do to really make sure that we’re showing Wesleyan at its best and focus on the things that we think have hurt us over the years and make them into strong opportunities to help promote us,” Raba said. “So that’s really what the position comes down to.”

Raba also noted that his position is crucial given the recent turnover in head-coaching positions. Since June 2007, three sports (men’s basketball, women’s ice hockey, and women’s crew) have changed head coaches. Only one—interim women’s crew coach Brian Dawe ’70—was involved with the program in an assistant-coaching capacity prior to becoming head coach.

“They’re still learning their way about Wesleyan’s admissions process,” Raba said. “This is helping them accelerate and…foster that communication [with] admissions. Sometimes I’m the sounding board for our coaches to get some points across. And it’s the other way around, too, with admissions to me…Those are the things that my job entails. It’s that in-between, almost, to deal with both departments.”

Ultimately, Raba hopes that his work within the new position will further help both departments understand and assist one another.

“One of the first things we did when I came in [as Recruiting Coordinator] was [ask], ’what kind of innovations are we going to make in our department?’” Raba said. “This is how we pull it all together. This is how we unify things. Instead of having all these different thoughts, we want to integrate as much as possible so we can have a common language. That’s the big thing.”