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| Jim Ulrich, Fredonia's Head Track and Field Coach from 1974 - 1998 |
On this blog, I've called John Crawford the best coach Fredonia has ever seen. Crawford says that honor belongs to Jim Ulrich.
No coach in any sport had won a SUNYAC title in Fredonia school history when Ulrich took over the track and field program in 1974. But by the time he retired in 1998, Ulrich won the title 35 times (men's and women's), including 20 in a row.
His success is an embodiment of his personality, which he describes towards the end of his short, 104-page book, Effective Coaching: "Throughout my career I could be characterized as an "A" type personality. I was driven to do everything perfectly (and probably expected perfection from my athletes also). This resulted in sleep not being one of my major concerns ... the standing joke was that by the time everyone was waking up, I would have been at the all-night diner for hours working on meet scoring and eating my third breakfast."His personality spilled over to his recruiting approach, sending massive amounts of recruiting mail, "... even though the percentage of returns was terribly low," and scanning newspapers daily for names of high school athletes who might help Fredonia's program.
It was an industrial sort of approach, one that worked well for him through the 70's, 80's, and 90's. What's striking is that Ulrich's description of the challenges of recruiting to Fredonia could have been written by a coach today, as colleges across Western New York are seeing declining enrollement:
Recruiting to Fredonia
"We needed student athletes badly, so recruiting became a first priority. However, Fredonia had a number of serious disadvantages. First, it was located in the very corner of the state (only an hour to Pennsylvania and Ohio, but over eight hours to New York City). Enticing out-of-state students was nearly impossible since out-of-state tuition costs were prohibitive. The long travel across the state to the major populated areas, namely New York City and Long Island, was certainly a disadvantage. Try as I might to recruit the many outstanding athletes from that area or even getting them to visit a small liberal arts school noted for little other than it's music major that far away was a serious challenge. Eventually I learned that equal amounts of effort at closer metropolitan areas such as Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse was much more productive.
Our conference included State University campuses at Buffalo, Albany, and Binghamton, all of which had student bodies that were three to four or more times larger than ours, another disadvantage.
The reputation as a school that had little or no success in athletics was also a factor. High school coaches and parents alike like to brag that their student athlete is attending an excellent program, both athletically and academically. Fredonia for the most part had neither. But changes for the better were in the future.
Another factor in recruiting is the school's athletic facilities. They can very tremendously, and when a prospective athlete visits a school, the quality of those playing and practicing facilities can weigh on a student athlete's decision. When I came to the campus, we had poor facilities. This was another disadvantage.
I visited many high schools and contacted guidance counselors to get them to know me. I sent hundreds of cards to high school coaches introducing myself and asking them to send me names of their athletes that might be interested in our school. Even though the percentage of returns was terribly low, it was a start. I also got names of good athletes from newspaper articles around the state and from the sportswriters' news. I would contact any athlete (hundreds) that I thought could be even remotely competitive in our program and at the level the program was at, that was a huge number.
[...]
One key in contacting athletes is to have a good brochure explaining your program to get them interested. Initially I couldn't brag about our success, but that did help later. But the key to the whole recruiting process was to get athletes to visit our school, preferably with their parents. I would spend an inordinate amount of time with each athlete that visited, giving them a personal campus tour, setting up interviews with the department chairman of the major in which they were interested, with the admissions director, taking them to a meal or meals on campus, introducing them to the athletic director, showing them our athletic facilities, and if they were staying overnight, to get them housing. They would always be impressed with the strong interest I had in them and the time that was spent on them. The result was that an extremely high percentage of those who visited would eventually attend and compete in our program."In today's internet-based connection economy, where social media and recruiting websites make it easier than ever to self-market your program, to tell a compelling story, would Ulrich still be recruiting the same way?