CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — YouTube is the home for “how to” videos on tying a tie, formatting an external hard drive, and reading body language.
The video-sharing website has millions of videos that cover essentially every topic known to man, which is why Tod Kowalczyk was searching for a yoga lesson on a recent Thursday in July.
The Toledo men’s basketball coach is a creature of habit. He has the same morning routine — yoga and three eggs over easy. His afternoon schedule doesn’t vary. He eats lunch at Beirut and returns to his spacious office at the Chapman Basketball Complex to prepare for the 2019-20 season and pinpoint the best recruits for the Rockets.
So when he traveled to the University of Illinois for the NCAA Basketball Academy Camp in July, a YouTube yoga tutorial would have to suffice.
“You’re eating bad. I don’t like it,” Kowalczyk said of the whirlwind summer lifestyle for basketball coaches. “I try to do yoga in the mornings for a half-hour power session. If I have some time off in the afternoon, I try to walk. I just try to have a lot of fruit and water. My goal is always to lose weight during that period. I exercise every day and try to eat properly.”
The summer camp tour is equal parts exhausting and invigorating. Coaches are flying across the country, leaving their hotels by 8 a.m., watching basketball games all day, often eating unsavory meals, returning to their hotels after 10 p.m., and doing it all over again the next day.
The buzz of activity is all about evaluating recruits and unearthing unheralded prospects. The Blade traveled to Champaign, Ill., with Kowalczyk to get an inside glimpse at all the hoopla and tension in the hypercompetitive world of recruiting.
“Our best downtime and family time is the month of May,” Kowalczyk said. “Once our summer basketball camps start, which is in the middle of June, essentially our summer is over. We go right to our camps to July recruiting, and this year we had some weekends in June recruiting. There’s been a little less downtime than normal. It’s a busy time. Hopefully in August we’ll get some more downtime.”
On the road again
If relaxation is what Kowalczyk searched for in Champaign, he didn’t find it. The courts inside the Ubben Basketball Complex, Activities and Recreation Center, and State Farm Center were ringed with head coaches and assistants from Ohio State to Michigan, Toledo to Akron, Central Connecticut State to Purdue Fort Wayne. Dressed in team-issued polo shirts and khaki shorts, it was as if an NCAA coaches golf outing was scheduled.
Kowalczyk departs from Toledo in his Chevy Tahoe before 10 a.m. and arrives in Champaign about five hours later. Assistants Justin Ingram and Walter Offutt are already in town watching games. Back home in Toledo, director of operations Jordan Lauf mans the travel calendar, keeping up to date on any logistical hurdles that might unexpectedly appear.
Kowalczyk’s schedule is set by assistants who fill him in on where to be and when. Ingram and Offutt have everything memorized to the smallest detail. Organization is just as important as coaching acumen for assistants.
After a quick staff meeting in the lobby of the I Hotel and Conference Center, Kowalczyk and Ingram walk briskly to Ubben — Kowalczyk’s long strides could be confused for a giraffe’s gait — and Offutt heads to the ARC.
“The first day of an event, I always have a billboard T-shirt on — bright colors, says Toledo on it,” Kowalczyk said. “Later in the week, I’ll wear a Toledo polo. But I want to stand out and let kids and their parents know I am there.”
True to form, Kowalczyk wears a T-shirt with “Toledo” emblazoned in large, bold font across the chest. He will watch four games on this day and chat with old rival Nate Oats, who left Buffalo for Alabama; Iowa’s Fran McCaffery; Green Bay coach Linc Darner; Ohio State assistant Ryan Pedon, a former UT assistant under Kowalczyk; and Hillsdale coach John Tharp, a close friend who lives near Kowalczyk’s lake house in Hillsdale County.
VerbalCommits, Rivals, and 247Sports list point guard Wendell Green (2020); forward VonCameron Davis (2020); point guard Mason Madsen (2020) and twin brother and shooting guard Gabe Madsen (2020); guard Tony Perkins (2020); point guard Kaden Metheny (2020); point guard Luke Brown (2021); and forward Foster Wonders (2021) as UT’s top targets. The Rockets don’t have any commitments for the Class of 2020 and likely will sign four players.
“In an ideal world, we’d like to fill our slots with high school guys in the fall, and if we have scholarships open up during the year, use the spring signing more for transfers,” Kowalczyk explains.
The evaluation process
When evaluating recruits, Kowalczyk first identifies if the player can shoot. UT runs an NBA-style offense that’s predicated on 3-pointers and high-percentage jump shots. If you struggle getting the basketball in the hoop, your chances of becoming a Rocket are greatly diminished.
Kowalczyk tells players they will be coached how they’re recruited — as a priority. He covets players with a high basketball IQ, closely monitoring how they see the floor and if their passes are crisp. And how they respond to adversity reveals character and toughness. Kowalczyk wants players who treat teammates, coaches, and officials with respect.
“How they compete oftentimes reveals their character,” he said. “If they aren't up to Toledo's standards, we immediately get out of it.”
Ingram has already spent two days in Champaign, so Kowalczyk has him return to Toledo after dinner. Kowalczyk and Offutt stay behind to watch the night session. If they aren’t watching a game, chances are they’re on the phone texting or calling a recruit or parent.
This was the first year for the NCAA camps, which were conducted from July 22 to 28 in four locations: Champaign, Phoenix, Houston, and Storrs, Conn. They were created to help reform a sport that’s been in the headlines for federal corruption investigations for two years by deemphasizing camps operated by sneaker companies.
Nearly 300 campers from the classes of 2020, 2021, and 2022 competed in the Illinois camp, which consisted of 40-minute games, individual instruction, skill development, and educational and life skills seminars. The NCAA spent $10 million (each player and one parent or guardian were provided with round-trip airfare, a free hotel room, and three meals per day), but the results were mixed, largely because of inferior talent compared to the AAU circuit.
“There needs to be some reform in college basketball,” said Kowalczyk, who’s the chair of the Division I Men's Basketball Ethics Coalition. “I think they’d get more and better reform with harsher and swifter penalties. The NCAA has great intentions. They want these camps to work.”
The first night ends with Kowalczyk, Offutt, and Pedon catching a late-night snack in the hotel restaurant and sharing laughs. They swap stories about their playing and coaching careers and Pedon reminisces about his days in Toledo.
Nine hours later, they’re back in the gym watching games.
“There’s obviously an evaluation process,” Kowalczyk said. “But the 2020 guys, we know who we want or guys might already be committed. So we’re babysitting. They need our face time and know we’re following them around. This is a relationship business. I'd like to think loyalty matters. When a head coach is following around a recruit, that means more and I think it means more to the families.”
‘I take it personally’
High school games are the best evaluation tool, Kowalczyk says, because you get the truest in-game and team experience. He believes AAU games are the second-best indicator of how good a potential recruit is.
July 10 through 14 was the biggest recruiting weekend of the summer. UT had its entire coaching staff in a 300-mile radius in the south — Offutt was in Birmingham at the Adidas Camp, Ingram was in North Augusta, S.C., at the prestigious Peach Jam, and associate head coach Jeff Massey was in Atlanta at the Under Armour camp. Kowalczyk traveled between each city.
“My staff knows that I have to go to Augusta every year, because I want the pimento cheese sandwiches,” Kowalczyk said, with a wry grin.
The recruiting calendar shifted this year, with new periods at the end of April, beginning of May, and mid-to-late June, the reduction of two weekends in July, and camps organized by the NCAA and the National Basketball Players Association.
“I think it favors Power Five schools a little bit,” Kowalczyk said. “They say they give us more days, but some of those days are going to the NBA Top 100 camp, which none of our recruits are invited to. So that’s two days right there that are completely irrelevant to mid-majors. There are two high school weekends, and I think the state associations will grow into those roles and get better at it. The NCAA camps, it’s the first year so it’s hard to be critical. But the competition level was not very good, so guys could stand out a little more easily.”
After the morning session ends on the second day, Kowalczyk and Offutt, a former Illinois graduate assistant, walk around campus and eat lunch at Maize Mexican Grill. Over chips and salsa, Kowalczyk lays out an itinerary a recruit could expect on an official visit: a barbecue at the Kowalczyks’ Ottawa Hills residence on Friday, a campus tour, a peek at the basketball facilities, and a tailgate Saturday before a football game.
“To be honest, it’s work for my wife,” Kowalczyk said. “I’m very fortunate to have a great wife [Julie] who enjoys it. She doesn’t look at it as work. She enjoys entertaining and meeting people. That’s so helpful. And my assistant coaches’ wives are fantastic. They do an unbelievable job of trying to show the family aspect we’ve built at Toledo.”
At this moment, Julie is at the Kowalczyks’ lake house with their son, Race, and a few of his buddies. They frequently check in with Kowalczyk via FaceTime. Missing family outings is difficult on him, but it’s an unfortunate reality for college coaches.
Recruiting is the lifeblood of every program, and Kowalczyk embraces the opportunity to compete and develop relationships with potential players. After all, this is the guy who traveled 30 hours to Australia to meet with a recruit, spending 14 hours in the country, and then flying back to the U.S.
If you think losing a game affects coaches, imagine how hard it is to be rejected by someone after devoting a year’s worth of time.
“Losing a recruit is 10 times harder than losing a game,” Kowalczyk said. “When you lose a game, I don't want to say it’s never not personal, but it usually isn’t. When you lose a recruit that you really want and you invest an unbelievable amount of time, energy and resources into, and they don’t pick you, that hurts. It’s personal.
“I love my profession because I have a chance to impact young men’s lives. But I truly love having a chance to compete on the court and in recruiting. I enjoy it, but I take it personally. I get consumed by it.”
First Published August 10, 2019, 1:00 p.m.
