Part 2 will follow and will focus on the perception of Seton Hall and the Big East on the recruiting trail and then touch upon the players we are involved with.
Eric Bossi, the Journey
By Colin Rajala
For college basketball coaches the recruiting trail is an arduous process full of peaks and valleys with prospects, long flights and loads of time spent in gymnasiums across the country away from family, friends and their team, but in the end it is a necessity to build a successful program.
That process is not much different for college basketball recruiting analysts as they are on call 24/7 gauging the players’ talents and potential, coaches interest in the prospects and what it all means for the collegiate landscape. For these analysts the necessity of the process is also tied into their passion, a passion that rarely competently rewards the hard work inherent in the job.
Eric Bossi, National Basketball Analyst at Rivals.com has been involved with collegiate basketball scouting and recruiting for the last 17 years and has seen the landscape change dramatically in that time frame.
Bossi graduated as a communication studies student from the University of Kansas in the late 1990s and his fervor for the sport led him to take vacations from his full time job to go to different recruiting events throughout the country to network his way into other writing opportunities.
It is not something that is easy to do and for better or for worse being around at the beginning of all this stuff helps me and hurts me,” Bossi said. “I see young men trying to get into it today and they think there are all these awesome jobs, but it’s not like that at all.”
Bossi's hard work paid off as his first break came covering an event for the now defunct PrepStars.com, which was known at that time for its recruiting handbook, which Bossi described as “the bible for hard core recruiting people.”
As he created relationships and built up contacts he found that college coaches were
interested in a subscription scouting service, which prompted him to make freelance
writing and a scouting service his full time gig.
Bossi would later work for Scout.com before joining Rivals.com, providing coverage for Jayhawk Slant. He would go on to work under National Recruiting Analyst Jerry Meyer in 2010 before taking over as the lead analyst for the site in 2012.
As Rivals' national analyst he travels the country covering national events, tracks, logs and breaks commitments from players and is responsible for the site’s final prospect rankings.
From his humble beginnings to his present position Bossi sees the amount of information on prospects and their abilities available to coaches as the main difference in recruiting today as opposed to his early years in the business.
He noted that “there is way more information available to coaching staffs then ever before as they are privy to more data on recruits via videos and highlight tapes, scouting services, extended networks, social media and high profile shoe leagues that pit the best talent against each other."
The amount of information available allows coaches to make “more informed decisions” about young high school talent than they could have previously, but it is a double edged sword for coaches because the information does not necessarily make it any easier for them to make an immediate judgement on a 15-year-old student athlete that may not know quite what they want in a college or basketball program, according to Bossi.
If a coach sees the recruiting videos of a sophomore and has interest, but not to the point where his program is going to spend significant time and resources watching him play at that early age that could end up hurting the recruitment because they did not develop a relationship early on like some other coaches may have, according to Bossi.
"There is a lot more exposure available to the players, which is a good thing, but there is also over exposure, which is a bad thing,” notes Bossi. “Its good to get exposure but its bad to get exposed.”
Bossi has seen that with the increased publicity of the teenage student athletes. More kids “count offers” in what appears to be attempts to drum up interest in their name and talent. This contemporary concept has made it tougher for coaches to determine if they need to offer a scholarship to a student athlete.
Coaches must decipher if an offer will be viewed appropriately as legitimate interest or if the 'offer' is just so the prospect can pad his resume Bossi said, noting that coaches not deciding to offer a kid can also be a detriment as the student athlete can hold it against them down the road.
The other significant change in the recruiting landscape over Bossi’s tenure is the amount of people involved in the process. When he first started covering basketball recruiting the process usually involved the student, the parents and the high school coach.
Now more people are involved in a player’s recruitment than ever before. Advisors, handlers, assistant coaches and relatives are adding their names to the process. These additional people often are looking for some form of compensation or benefits.
In the past this usually pertained to highly touted recruits but now it has trickled down to middle-tier prospects leading Bossi to say, “It is so overblown at times coaches have this dilemma where they know it's out there and they have to assume there is going to be more people that they have to deal with who may not really be involved in the process. As a coach you have to be careful not to get duped by these individuals.”
"Truly the recruiting landscape has gone through a major transition in my time as an analyst. And that no doubt has a lot to do with the incredible money involved is college spurts now".
Eric Bossi, the Journey
By Colin Rajala
For college basketball coaches the recruiting trail is an arduous process full of peaks and valleys with prospects, long flights and loads of time spent in gymnasiums across the country away from family, friends and their team, but in the end it is a necessity to build a successful program.
That process is not much different for college basketball recruiting analysts as they are on call 24/7 gauging the players’ talents and potential, coaches interest in the prospects and what it all means for the collegiate landscape. For these analysts the necessity of the process is also tied into their passion, a passion that rarely competently rewards the hard work inherent in the job.
Eric Bossi, National Basketball Analyst at Rivals.com has been involved with collegiate basketball scouting and recruiting for the last 17 years and has seen the landscape change dramatically in that time frame.
Bossi graduated as a communication studies student from the University of Kansas in the late 1990s and his fervor for the sport led him to take vacations from his full time job to go to different recruiting events throughout the country to network his way into other writing opportunities.
It is not something that is easy to do and for better or for worse being around at the beginning of all this stuff helps me and hurts me,” Bossi said. “I see young men trying to get into it today and they think there are all these awesome jobs, but it’s not like that at all.”
Bossi's hard work paid off as his first break came covering an event for the now defunct PrepStars.com, which was known at that time for its recruiting handbook, which Bossi described as “the bible for hard core recruiting people.”
As he created relationships and built up contacts he found that college coaches were
interested in a subscription scouting service, which prompted him to make freelance
writing and a scouting service his full time gig.
Bossi would later work for Scout.com before joining Rivals.com, providing coverage for Jayhawk Slant. He would go on to work under National Recruiting Analyst Jerry Meyer in 2010 before taking over as the lead analyst for the site in 2012.
As Rivals' national analyst he travels the country covering national events, tracks, logs and breaks commitments from players and is responsible for the site’s final prospect rankings.
From his humble beginnings to his present position Bossi sees the amount of information on prospects and their abilities available to coaches as the main difference in recruiting today as opposed to his early years in the business.
He noted that “there is way more information available to coaching staffs then ever before as they are privy to more data on recruits via videos and highlight tapes, scouting services, extended networks, social media and high profile shoe leagues that pit the best talent against each other."
The amount of information available allows coaches to make “more informed decisions” about young high school talent than they could have previously, but it is a double edged sword for coaches because the information does not necessarily make it any easier for them to make an immediate judgement on a 15-year-old student athlete that may not know quite what they want in a college or basketball program, according to Bossi.
If a coach sees the recruiting videos of a sophomore and has interest, but not to the point where his program is going to spend significant time and resources watching him play at that early age that could end up hurting the recruitment because they did not develop a relationship early on like some other coaches may have, according to Bossi.
"There is a lot more exposure available to the players, which is a good thing, but there is also over exposure, which is a bad thing,” notes Bossi. “Its good to get exposure but its bad to get exposed.”
Bossi has seen that with the increased publicity of the teenage student athletes. More kids “count offers” in what appears to be attempts to drum up interest in their name and talent. This contemporary concept has made it tougher for coaches to determine if they need to offer a scholarship to a student athlete.
Coaches must decipher if an offer will be viewed appropriately as legitimate interest or if the 'offer' is just so the prospect can pad his resume Bossi said, noting that coaches not deciding to offer a kid can also be a detriment as the student athlete can hold it against them down the road.
The other significant change in the recruiting landscape over Bossi’s tenure is the amount of people involved in the process. When he first started covering basketball recruiting the process usually involved the student, the parents and the high school coach.
Now more people are involved in a player’s recruitment than ever before. Advisors, handlers, assistant coaches and relatives are adding their names to the process. These additional people often are looking for some form of compensation or benefits.
In the past this usually pertained to highly touted recruits but now it has trickled down to middle-tier prospects leading Bossi to say, “It is so overblown at times coaches have this dilemma where they know it's out there and they have to assume there is going to be more people that they have to deal with who may not really be involved in the process. As a coach you have to be careful not to get duped by these individuals.”
"Truly the recruiting landscape has gone through a major transition in my time as an analyst. And that no doubt has a lot to do with the incredible money involved is college spurts now".
