Competitive balance in Ohio sports: Recruiting, the 'trigger word' of high school athletics

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth in a five-part series examining the competitive balance issue in Ohio high school athletics. Miss the first three parts? Click here to read about the long quest to address the issue in Part 1. Click here to read about how private schools attract athletes to their programs in Part 2. Click here to read about how open enrollment has benefited public schools in Part 3.

Recruiting.

It’s one word. However, it’s one word with a massive connotation surrounding it in the world of high school athletics.

“That’s a shifty word here,” St. Vincent-St. Mary girls basketball coach and assistant athletics director Carley Whitney said with a chuckle. “It’s a trigger word.” 

How it triggers one often depends on the school affiliation. A school that wants to see itself as a victim when a star athlete leaves to go to another school may be triggered to anger. 

The flip side to that, however, are the schools being accused of recruiting athletes. There’s a good chance a private school or an open-enrollment public school enjoying lots of success in a sport or two, hears that charge thrown at them. 

Every person in every part of Ohio could probably list in their own head the schools — public or private — they believe fall into that category. And every one can run off ways they are doing it. 

“You can send postcards,” Northwest High School Athletics Director Jason Hathaway said. “You can make phone calls. You can contact people directly. It’s not even gray. It’s black-and-white.” 

What is recruiting in high school athletics?

It may seem like it to many, especially in the public school sector, but it’s not as black-and-white as it seems. Many of the accusations are more anecdotal or rumor than actual fact. 

Even the OHSAA acknowledges the misconceptions in what is truly recruiting. For the association, the challenge of enforcement of its recruiting bylaws has only grown more difficult due to staffing numbers, the rise of social media clouding what is or isn't really recruiting, as well as determining true intent.

"Student movement is more often than not the result of parents who are school-shopping for their children,” OHSAA Director of Communications and Special Projects Bob Goldring said in an email. "They are unhappy with playing time, unhappy with a coach’s philosophy or believe going to a more successful program is going to land their child a scholarship. So the parents are the ones trying to look for a ‘perceived’ better situation for their children. … So ‘recruiting’ in the illegal sense — as mentioned previously — is probably more parent-driven rather than initiated by an individual associated with a particular school." 

That’s not to say there aren’t situations in which recruiting does take place, even in great programs. This past spring, Walsh Jesuit was cited by the OHSAA for violations tied to donor-funded sports scholarships for 11 athletes, specifically within the girls soccer and wrestling programs. 

The violations cost legendary Warriors girls soccer coach Dino McIntyre his job. Wrestling coach Dave Mariola Jr. was suspended for a stretch of the season as well. 

“We were not accused of anything,” Walsh Jesuit President Karl Ertle told the Akron Beacon Journal at the time. “We discovered an issue and immediately brought in a third-party group so that we could have a full and thorough investigation. We want to be good partners with all of the other schools in the OHSAA. 

“... We deeply apologize to all of our competitive schools and friendly rivals. We will be in complete compliance going forward.” 

Recruiting misconceptions

It is the subject of scholarship for sports which is a point of contention even for private-school individuals. To them, it’s one of the great misconceptions they have to battle against, regardless of the size of the private school. 

“The definition, by the OHSAA, is anybody that influences that is connected to that school,” said Canton Central Catholic Principal Dave Oates, who is also two-time state championship boys golf coach at the school. “OK, so one of our kids playing with someone in the summer can’t talk to a kid about coming here? A parent or a family member can’t say, ‘Hey, I went to Central, you know it was a great experience. Go check it out. They’ve got this and they’ve got that.’ I mean, I don’t see an issue with that kind of stuff. 

“Now, if I’m calling or coaches are calling kids, that’s a completely different story.” 

For a number of programs, especially the ultra-successful ones on either the public or private side of the equation, it’s like Goldring acknowledged. At some point, the program’s success draws in talented athletes, much the same way talented athletes get together to play in college or the professional ranks. 

In the day and age now of social media shrinking the world in many ways, it’s no longer amazing to find athletes on opposite sides of a county who are friends. That’s commonplace. 

Now, it’s even common to see athletes on opposite sides of the country in the same boat. 

“It’s like college recruiting, think of it like that,” said Chris Lovett, who, along with co-coach Joe Burke, stepped down after the 2020 season following nine years coaching volleyball at Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame. “You can’t tell me these kids who have played football or basketball aren’t being aware of what other kids are going to the same school they’re going to go to. … I think it’s the same way in high school.” 

Youth sports programs can influence high school choices

In individual-type sports, particularly swimming and wrestling, often it has nothing to do with a "influencing" one to go to a specific high school. In many instances, what happens is a family will put a kid in a youth program that is an off-shoot of a local high school program.

The athlete essentially trains with this program, even competes with them as they're going up through grade school and even, at times, junior high. Once that athlete reaches high school, it's almost become an expectation to actually attend that school instead of their "home" district.

"The majority of the kids coming up through have been in our youth club or our junior high traveling club," Perry High School wrestling coach Brent McBurney said. "I'm not saying that they're all Perry kids, I'm not saying that at all. I think it's a little different when you build a relationship with the family and the kid at an early level. They want to go to a program that wrestles a really good schedule … that gets the exposure to the next-level coaches, to the college coaches."

That’s not to say the accusations won’t fly on message boards and social media. That’s not to say there won’t be a kernel of truth, maybe, within some of those accusations. 

The problem, even in those instances, lies in a fundamental need for burden of proof. That’s what make even cases where suspicion of recruiting does exist tough for schools to actually file a complaint with the OHSAA. 

“It would take the right blend of circumstances because you’d have to have a student and family admit that they were never thinking about (transferring) until they approached us,” Manchester High School Principal Scott Ross said. “So what I’m finding is that kids that leave come back with such a scripted answer. It’s really difficult to believe that that’s not being said, and it’s in those cases where you know you’re going to be one fighting against three. That is a tough battle.” 

Almost as tough is the battle against perception. Few public schools have garnered that perception like Massillon has, at least in football. 

Long before private schools became the boogeyman to some in high school athletics, the Tigers filled that role. There were accusations of — and, maybe, some truth to — players’ dad getting jobs in the town’s steel mills. Twice in the last two-plus decades, in 1999 and 2016, the OHSAA has accused Massillon of recruiting violations, but in both instances, the players involved ended up playing at least a portion of the season. 

Paul Salvino knows all of the stories. After all, before he was Massillon’s superintendent, he came over to Massillon as a student from neighboring Perry in the mid-1990s. 

For Salvino, when he first returned to the district as the Washington High School principal in 2017, those comments made him bristle. A year later, he was promoted to superintendent, which is when he decided to take a different approach. 

“I finally said, Nope, I’m going to harness my energy on Massillon and Massillon only,” Salvino said. “We’re going to put every bit of our energy into telling our own story and writing our own book and making sure we’re following the rules set forth by various organizations, including the OHSAA. We’re going to do everything at the highest level we can do it and let it lie where it lies. I would love if the perception is what we know the reality is, but I’m never going to be able to control that script. I don’t know if anyone ever can.” 

Next: So what is the future of competitive balance, if it’s even possible to achieve such a thing? 

Reach Chris at chris.easterling@indeonline.com.

On Twitter: @ceasterlingINDE