In The Huddle
The world of US college sport is both expansive and exciting, and international student-athletes are signing up in their droves for their shot at a scholarship opportunity.
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In The Huddle
EP#50 More than just running with NCAA Division 1 Women's Track/XC Coaches at St Mary's College of California
Prepare to be propelled into the dynamic world of college athletics as we sit down with Marty Kinsey and Mark Kaiser from St. Mary's College of California. Discover the enduring bond between Australian athletes and St. Mary's sports programs, a journey that started on the basketball court and has since sprinted across the track and beyond. From the festive celebration of Australia Day to the strong sense of belonging these athletes find on campus, we explore the cultural exchange that's become a hallmark of St. Mary's community.
Unlock the secrets to standing out in the competitive arena of student-athlete recruiting with our insightful guests. We'll share top-notch tips and tricks for making that unforgettable impression on college coaches, coupled with the vital importance of authenticity and informed questions during recruitment conversations. And we go further, dissecting the potential red flags that may signal an overemphasis on performance over well-being, underscoring the significance of a supportive and holistic team culture.
But all work and no play isn't the ethos at St. Mary's, as Marty and Mark recount the entertaining and unifying activities that bind the teams together. Imagine shared pancake breakfasts, cultural potlucks, and even karaoke nights!
We wrap up with a guide to navigating the intricate NCAA communication rules for recruitment and a peek at the exciting prospects . So, gear up for a wealth of knowledge, spirited stories, and a glimpse into the future of St. Mary's College's athletic and international alliances.
In the Huddle was created to give student athletes, parents and coaches an inside look at the journey through US college sport and all that comes with it the demands, the experiences, the excitement and the opportunities available to our student athletes from around the world Study and Play. Usa facilitates a comprehensive, customised approach for student athletes and families for their whole journey, from their high school preparation years right through to US college graduation.
Claire Mulligan :Welcome to another episode of In the Huddle presented by Study and Play USA. Today I'm very excited to chat with two people who I had the pleasure of meeting in person in September of last year Marty Kinsey and Mark Kaiser from St Mary's College of California. They are the track and cross country coaches at this college. Thank you so much for joining us, marty and Mark.
Marty :Yeah, thank you for having us Very very excited.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, I could tell. As soon as I met you in person in September I was like we have to get you guys on the podcast. It was such a pleasure to chat with you and I could tell that both of you really enjoy what you do and I think you're perfect for our audience of In the Huddle listeners. So I wanted to get started before we kind of launch into generally what you guys do on a day-to-day basis and a little bit about your college. For those listeners who don't understand the connection between Australia and St Mary's, is it possible for one of you to chat about the unique connection?
Marty :Yeah for sure. It started about 20 years ago with our basketball program and it was kind of on a whim. There was a recruit who someone knew and recommended to the coach and they just kind of rolled the dice. The coach was just starting out back then and looking for talent and it turned out that this particular individual Daniel Kickert was his name ended up being one of the best players we had and he loved his time at St Mary's and he really enjoyed being in this area in California and so he started messaging his friends and saying you need to check this out, and it created a pipeline.
Marty :20 years later it's now expanded beyond basketball into almost every sport that we offer. It's pretty big. Even this last Olympic cycle, three of the boomers who won bronze for the basketball team they all were on St Mary's basketball team at one point in their career, so it's pretty cool to see. So now it's trickling into the other programs and what's unique about St Mary's is we really foster the connection quite a bit. On Australia Day, we've had the ambassador come to campus and we hang the Australian flag at our basketball games and sporting events, and so it's something where a lot of the Australians feel like this is their second home, they can come here and it's not like they're alone on an island somewhere and lost um amongst a bunch of us kids. They're like they're like with a bunch of people who, um, not only are from their country, but they're well supported and uh, so, yeah, so we're really excited about like kind of opening those doors and keeping that going for track and cross country as well.
Claire Mulligan :Awesome. After I met with you guys, I went to the merch shop and I started walking around and I was like, oh, I think I can get there on my own and realized I was going the wrong direction. So I asked the first person I saw hey, just checking, am I going the right way to the merch shop? She was Australian and she said, oh, you have an interesting accent. And I was like, oh, I'm actually visiting from Australia. And she's like, oh, I'm Australian. And I said, oh, are you an athlete here? And she said, no, actually I just moved here three weeks ago, so that was very random, just a coincidence, to talk to the first person I saw on campus who was an Australian.
Marty :It's pretty great, you know, and through using your services, obviously, obviously we have an athlete on our team and she seems to be really enjoying her time here, and so, yeah, it's a, it's a nice home away from home. It's easy to get here too. You know, you can get a direct flight from SFO. I mean, it's a long flight, but it's not, you know, five layovers and yeah, so it's pretty nice not, you know, five layovers and yeah.
Claire Mulligan :So it's pretty nice, awesome, and I know that we have a lot of guys listening to this podcast who are rugby players. So, mark, I know you played rugby for St Mary's back in the day. Can you chat with us a little bit about your experience with that?
Marc:Yeah, we actually just made it to the semifinal of the national championship. So this weekend they're playing BYU, which is one of the other um kind of top programs, so they're one game away from the national championship right now. Um, it's, it's a huge sport on campus. Uh, we don't have a football team, so we have basketball with a bunch of aussies on it and that's kind of our flagship sport. Um, the other sport is rugby. So we've had two really big games the last couple weekends playoff games that have you know five, six thousand people at it.
Marc:Um, the rugby team is like top notch. There's a bunch of guys that play on their, their, um, their home country teams. We have guys from all over the uk, um, kiwi guys, a bunchers. So it's like it's kind of like the athletic department as a whole, though there's a bunch of international athletes on that team and just on campus, like you saw, even just random students that aren't athletes. So it's kind of it's a really cool place to go for an international student, where you're not at a random state school, where it's like you know, I go to Iowa State and 95% of the kids at the school I'm at are from Iowa, it's like, no, you get to see tons of different athletes from all over the country, different students from all over the world and, you know, make friends with them, and you get to travel to their home places over Christmas, over Thanksgiving. If you don't fly home, you generally get adopted by another player. So, yeah, it's fun.
Claire Mulligan :That's awesome. Yeah, I noticed when I was walking around with you guys doing the tour there's a bunch of people that knew each other just walking around and I feel like that's not the case on every campus. You don't have people that literally recognize faces of everyone that they're wanting past and walking past and yeah, so it's awesome to see. I could very, very much tell it's a very close-knit community of people. The student body, even the coaching staff or the athletic department as well, is, yeah, really, really good to see. So, for students who are starting this journey by thinking about potentially wanting to come be a track or a cross-country runner, the question we get a lot is what's the difference between track and cross-country at the US college system? How does it work with seasons? Do you run both, if you're like a middle distance or a longer distance? Do you run on the track? Do you run out in the wild for different events?
Marty :How does?
Claire Mulligan :it work, so it would be great if you guys could chat about that.
Marty :Yeah, of course. So cross country is the first sport in our school year. We start in late August, early September and that's cross country season. It's really a short season. It only goes about two months, two and a half months. Women race 6K, men race 8K and 10K, but yeah, it's for the middle distance and longer distance people. During that time our sprinters and whatnot are not really racing. They're doing different training and the races are. There's only about five of them. So it's a short season.
Marty :The races are also outdoors, on usually golf courses or parks. It's not as hard as some of the international courses with lots of hills or like bales of hay you have to jump over. It's pretty flat. It's kind of like a long track essentially. But yeah, it's definitely more team focused. There's a more emphasis, a higher emphasis on scoring points for your team and doing well against the competition.
Marty :As a university Track is a little bit more individualized. So we go from cross country right into indoor track and that starts in December and goes through March and indoor track is a lot of fun indoor track. So we train outdoors because we typically have good weather, but we fly to places like to Washington and to Idaho and to various places that have indoor facilities and we compete. There are team scores, but really it's individual based on indoor track. So that's a fun travel opportunity for at least our kids. And then that goes right into outdoor season. Outdoor season starts in the beginning of March and goes up until about June, so that's a little bit of a longer season.
Marty :I think track is, you know, track's kind of the gold standard of our sport. We don't have Olympics cross country. It's track and field is where the Olympics are and it's a lot of fun because people can specialize in their event and the races are much smaller than cross country, which might have 200, 300 people in one race. You know, you have 12 people in your race, you're competing to win and that's a lot of fun. So cross country season is very important to St Mary's, so we definitely put an emphasis on it and and want people to come here and compete in cross country. But track is definitely, you know, that's, that's the, that's kind of the, if it were. You know, for us track is, just like I said, the gold standard. So it's fun to compete week in, week out, and that one's definitely more travel, more races.
Claire Mulligan :We compete probably up to 12 to 13 times in a track season and yeah, hopefully that answered your question. That's why Coach Kinsey was talking about August being the beginning of the year starting. So for athletes who graduate in November usually like high school, october, november they have the option of coming to an American college in a January entry period or an August period. So I think that's something that I've spoken to you guys a fair bit about Generally. We have athletes that are really open to you guys a fair bit about Generally. We have athletes that are really open to a January start and we also have athletes that would prefer to have a bit more time off and then go in August. So I think that's a really exciting thing about being an international.
Marty :Yeah, especially, you know, from Australia it's definitely it's. We have athletes who they just want to wait until August. Definitely. We have athletes who just want to wait until August, have some time to kind of go on holiday and vacation, and then those that want to get started. So for this year we're working with Luna, and she's a freshman. She started in January, so we're actually going to redshirt her at some point.
Marty :So she came early, so we're going to redshirt her. What that means is she'll still compete in the season. She just won't compete for St Mary's. She'll do it unattached, so she'll still practice, she'll still go to the races, she'll still do everything. She just won't score for our school and that gives her an extra year of eligibility. So she's going to come back for kind of a fifth year and finish with the girls who are joining in August, this upcoming August. So she's already here, she's getting a head start on her career, and so there's lots of options for Australians who are coming. They can wait, they can come early. So it's kind of nice the schedule that they're on.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, exactly, I think I was saying to you guys as well when I was there that a lot of Australian students, I feel like, have a big sigh after they graduate high school here and they're like, okay, I'm done, ready for the next stage, and they're a bit exhausted, whereas I feel like I graduated high school in the US and I was like, yep, pumped, ready for the next stage, let's go, let's do it, ready just straight away to go to the next thing.
Claire Mulligan :So I've noticed that that's a little bit of a difference. So, with the indoor, what you're talking about seasons, with indoor and outdoor and weather, I know a lot of people that we speak with are obsessed with coming to California. So I'm sure you must get lots of interest from people looking to come to California, looking to come to a school with a great reputation and a good location. So when you're chatting with recruits whether that's on email or WhatsApp or video calls and things like that when people are reaching out to you or you are reaching out to them, what are some green flags that you notice when you're speaking with a recruit and what are some red flags that you kind of make you think this person might not be a great fit for us?
Marc:Yeah, one of the things definitely is. If you know you're going to be having a call with the coach, it's definitely nice if you have some questions for the coaches. You know we want to tell you all the stuff about St Mary's or whatever other school you're talking to, like the coach is excited to talk about it. But it can be kind of awkward when you're like this, this, this and that, and then you're like do you have any questions? And they're just like no, like it's nice if it's a lot easier to have a conversation when you're like oh, you know, how many miles do the women run? Or where do you guys usually train? Or how do students balance their sport and their studies? You know, is there somebody who helps them figure out their classes? All those are general questions that are great to ask. It's also really good if they do some research about the school. You know it makes us like, feel like, oh, this student is more interested in our school and it just kind of like we feel better when a student knows that the school is in, you know, a general geographic area, if they know it's a relatively small school, if they know, you know that we have, you know we're more focused on distance stuff. Or you know if the school has a football team. You know, don't ask oh, how does your football team like? We don't have a football team. You need to kind of done some research to figure that stuff out. So, definitely having some concept of the school.
Marc:Obviously, we're excited to answer tons of random questions that aren't necessarily on the website, but it doesn't hurt to go check out a school's website. Look at, you know, their current athletes on the team. Where are they from? You know, take a look at the school's Instagram. You know I'd expect an athlete like lots of times we have athletes that will be like oh, we see there's tons of trails on your Instagram photo. Do you guys always run on the trails? You know that's a good question, that's specific to us and then we're excited to share. Yeah, we run on the trails, you know, most weeks twice a week.
Marc:So, yeah, do a little research that's definitely good and find a place kind of like where we are, especially if it's a video call, someplace where there's not like a ton of distractions. I know sometimes something can happen. You know you can, your cat can jump up or something and that's not a big deal. But if you're like sitting in a room looking off, like kind of playing on your phone, like in between questions, not paying attention, you know that sometimes doesn't feel great as a person talking to you. So, um, yeah, I'd say, just be engaged and have some, some background on the school to be able to come up with some good questions specific to the school and just specific to recruiting in general. Most coaches will help with general recruiting questions. It doesn't just have to be about the school. So, um, don't be afraid to ask a question. Um, you know, we'll either know the answer or go look it up, or yeah.
Claire Mulligan :Anything you want to add there, Marty?
Marty :I think just to expand a little bit. Just, you know we're looking for someone who can contribute to our team in a positive way and can be, you know. So if they're not prepared, it's a little bit harder for us to be enthusiastic about that particular recruit, because what's is that? Their day-to-day routine? Is that what they're going to be like as a, as an athlete, here on campus? We're going to invest, like we're looking to go big in investments and bring in athletes with, you know, a big athletic scholarship, and so we're it's kind of like a job interview. You know, it's like we're interviewing them, they're interviewing us. But at the end of the day, if it's, if, if there's, we see a red flag where it was like this person wasn't really prepared or they they didn't seem really into it, Then that just that.
Marty :You know we're we're talking to 200 recruits to fill about seven spots, and so we want to make sure we're finding the right fit. So I think it's important for the recruit to be as professional and like motivated as possible. Show us your personality. That's a green flag. We want to know, like a little bit something, what makes you unique. You know we have, we have 30 women on our team and they're all really fun and unique and they have great personalities. So, like, let that shine through in your interview. I think that's important.
Claire Mulligan :I like that, both of your answers. That's something I always say to the athletes is if you're just kind of sitting in the call and you're just talking and you're not really showing who you are, generally, the coaches might just kind of blend you in with everyone else that they've spoken to that week or that month or that year. So I always say that whatever you feel like you can bring to a team, so I always say that whatever you feel like you can bring to a team, it's important to let that shine through so that the coaches can see oh awesome, I really do want to recruit this person and have tell that both of you very much want a great culture for your team. So I noticed that naturally, you're recruiting really genuine, nice people because that's the culture that you want to perpetuate with your cross-country and track team. So would you say that that's also the case at other universities or would you say that there's things that people should look out for?
Marty :if that may be not the case, I would say one thing to look out for is if the university is purely focused on what the athletes' performances are. If they're only caring about how fast you're running, that'd be something. To me that is a red flag, because a lot of universities you know there's just Division I athletics alone there's over 350 universities and some of these programs, their focus is it's cutthroat to win, win, win, win and they will. You know they're okay with cutting someone if they're not doing well and it's all about performance. So I would say that's a red flag. As far as you know, what we usually look for is someone who you know has good grades. We want to make sure that they're academically sound. We want to make sure that they're academically sound. We want to make sure that they're someone who seems is putting out that genuine person field there. They want to come here and contribute. They want to have a good experience too, Like our athletes, have a lot of fun.
Marty :We make sure that we're not just focused on running all the time. It's like go, have fun, make sure that you know you have four years to be here. It doesn't mean go crazy, but it means like you need to be a well-rounded person. And so and why we are invested in it so much is because we like to go to practice Like we. We enjoy being there around these, these, these ladies, because they bring us up, they're fun, they're, they joke around with us. But when it comes down to like, okay, it's time to work hard on this track workout, let's go, or this hill workout or whatever we're doing, it's really fun to see that switch and they go into like workout mode and they're doing everything they can, and so for us, you know, that's the type of person we want Someone who can do well in the classroom, someone who's a positive teammate and someone who is willing to work hard and is coachable.
Marty :I think that's another one too someone who's willing to take the instruction from us. But as far as looking at other schools, the biggest red flag is if they're only focused on time. Some of our best athletes we've ever had were athletes that no one, ever, no other schools, were even interested in recruiting. But they came here and we developed them and they were. They had all those traits and they ended up being, you know, some of the best runners we've ever had. So, yeah, I kind of went off track there a little bit, sorry.
Claire Mulligan :Oh, it's okay. I love a good tangent. Mark, do you want to add anything?
Marc:Yeah, I mean I think, like Marty said, if one of the like I would say red flag for a student is if you're talking to a coach and they're like, oh, you ran a 440, 1500. Like, call me when you run 435. Like those are pretty close, I'm going to have a conversation with that athlete and see what their training looks like, because there's a lot of athletes who run 440. They could easily run 445 if they're doing X, y and Z. You know, maybe they also play field hockey, maybe they also.
Marc:So, like I want to get to know an athlete, if an athlete or if a coach or another school is just you know, what events do you run and what time do you run. And they didn't ask you about, like, do you like surfing? Do you have, you know, a cousin who likes running with you? Do you have, you know what pets do you have? Like they, the coaches should also kind of show some of that stuff that we're expecting. We want to see some of that fun personality and stuff. Um, if it's just the checklist, the coach is like how fast do you run? What events do you want to run? Um, are you willing to run cross country? Um, when can you get here Like okay, you know, I mean maybe it's an okay program, um, but like it also might not be.
Marty :Yeah, but for an international recruit you want to go somewhere that like you feel supported. And we see a lot of international athletes in the transfer portal because they weren't supported where they went. And you know lot of international athletes in the transfer portal because they weren't supported where they went, and you know. Those are all things, I think, that can help navigate the waters there a little bit and finding a place where you feel like when the going gets tough, you know, are you supported or are you left out on that island. You know, and you're by yourself.
Claire Mulligan :And you know St Mary's is obviously what is not that at all. So yeah, or just New York, or national championship winning programs. And our first response to that normally is what are you looking for as a human being with your four-year experience? What are you looking to get out of it? Who are you hoping to be coached by? What are you hoping to do with yourself when you're not doing your sport at that university?
Claire Mulligan :And I think it's a big reflective process as well. So I think people learn a lot about themselves in the recruiting process talking with a huge, huge, huge range of coaches and, like I said before, I could tell immediately when I came on campus I was like you guys care a lot about your jobs and you care a lot about developing athletes, and I could tell that immediately. And I think recruits that chat with you can tell that as well. And I think some people that go through the recruitment process are a bit too narrow-minded with where they're looking and I think it's important for them to hear this conversation, to hear how important it is to think about all that other stuff that actually has nothing to do with their sport as well. So all the development, all the coaching, all the fun stuff, and which brings me to my next question what kind of stuff do you guys do as a team for fun when you're not training?
Marty :We try to revolve a lot of that around food. We try to revolve a lot of that around food. We've done in years past, we've done quite a bit of after Sunday long rounds. We'll do, like pancake breakfast. We haven't done one this season. We're going to do one soon.
Marty :Athletes, we had a potluck where basically everyone brought a dish a food dish of something that represented their culture or something that was from their home or something that they liked, and all the women got to enjoy a meal with, you know, enjoying the foods from each other's culture, which was really fun, and so that was good. We do. We do a few in the beginning of the year. Well, we took them to a big escape room. It was like a virtual reality escape room, um, so we're always looking for fun things to do. Um, we did a big ice cream Sunday, social in the fall, um and uh, that was a lot of fun. So, uh, those are some things that we do.
Marty :Uh, as we try to do as a team, it's really important to us to keep expanding. That, too, we're trying. The team doesn't know this yet, but we're hiring this company that is going to do karaoke and do this like singing, and we're going to bring in a bunch of food and the team's going to get together. So it'll be. It'll be kind of like a fun um night of music and um, that'll be a fun way to kind of kick off the or finish the year. Um, we also have a fun kickball game. We do a kickball game. Um, it gets highly competitive, um that, and so yeah, just like random things, that that the team can kind of relax and not focus on school and and and their sport and just get to be friends with one another and and hang out, and during races too, we generally try to.
Marc:I mean, we travel a fair amount um just with our sports. So generally when we go to a race we try to find something fun to do. Um, we raced up in was earlier this year. Um, we went to our rival. Um, it just happened Our basketball team was up there playing our rival, so the team went to the basketball game. They got to cheer and have a good time at a way game.
Marc:Um, then we also asked the athletes, like we gave them a couple options. Um, idaho was pretty close to where we were and so a group of our mostly international kids were, like can we go to Idaho? Like we just want to check a state off. So we like hopped in the car and drove 30 minutes to some random park in Idaho so they could get pictures with the Idaho sign. So we just generally like, when we go on a vacation you know it's supposed to be a business trip we want to run fast, we want to do all that good stuff. But if there's 15 hours to kill after the race, like, we want to do something fun. We want to go to the beach, we want to go to, you know, go bowling. We want to go to a cool restaurant, so we generally try to mix that stuff in with um with our race schedule as much as we can, as well.
Claire Mulligan :Would you say that that mindset is something that is typical throughout your division?
Marc:It's a good question to ask.
Marty :Maybe that's a good question it could be. We try to post a lot of that on our Instagram because it's fun, it's good content and the team loves it on our Instagram because it's fun, you know, it's good content and the team loves it, and like they're they're. So we went to San Diego recently and we had a big beach day and, uh, oddly enough, it was like raining, which it never does in San Diego, um, but either way, they got to go to the beach and got to go to this really fancy hotel and it was just kind of fun to drop them off and they just we just said go, we'll see you in a few hours, and then we did some work on our own and, um, so, yeah, so I don't see it a whole lot on other teams instagram pages, but I gotta imagine there's some coaches out there that are doing something. I mean, you know, we we want to reward them for all their hard work.
Marty :They're doing like we, we demand a lot of them, we're pushing them really hard in practice and they go out and they race and they, they do a really good job of competing and it's like all right, now let's go, have fun, you know, and I think that I think they really appreciate it. And, um, you know, we want to have fun too. We're on the trip, you know. We, we want to go to, we want to go to the beach or go check out some fun stuff.
Claire Mulligan :So, yeah, that's awesome, because I know that not every division, one program will view that in the same way, and I know some are very much. This is a basically a job and you need to perform and you will get caught that kind stuff. So I think it's good to acknowledge that for people listening who've never even spoken to a coach yet and this is their first time hearing a coach talk, that that's a good thing to pick up on is that you guys have a very balanced program and you want to reward your athletes for working really hard and yeah, so I think that's just good to acknowledge. I did really like the food comment as well, with having lots of team bonding around food. That speaks to my soul, so that's great, and often I have to share this story.
Claire Mulligan :But I had an adulting dinner that I hosted with my sister where we said bring a dish that makes you feel the most adult, and six people out of 15 brought the exact same dish and five of them were. It was a frozen meal and one of them had made it fresh, but it was all the exact same thing. It was like the spanakopita, the spinach and cheese things and, yeah, five of them were frozen. I heated them up and then one person had homemade them.
Marty :Well, if there's going to be an overabundance of something that's not a bad one to have, I'd say that's so good.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah is if someone is in grade 9 or grade 10 or even grade 8 and they're listening to this podcast, thinking, okay, I really would love to run cross-country or run track when I'm older in the US college system. What pieces of advice would you have for those athletes?
Marc:One I would have, not just for track athletes, but any kid who wants to do any sport in the US would be. Your grades matter like a lot more than you think. I think. A lot of kids think like, oh, if I'm the best, I'm the best runner, I'm the best rugby player, I'm the best tennis player, like they're going to want me.
Marc:You know there's we're talking, like Marty said, we're talking to hundreds of kids. There's there's a lot of best tennis players in the world. There's a lot of best runners in the world. So if we have a couple of scholarships and you know we're talking to a girl who runs a five minute mile and you run a five minute mile but you have a 4.0 and she has a 3.0, like we want to offer the scholarship to the person with the better grades, like we want to offer the scholarship to the person with the better grades. So I think a lot of kids don't think about that when they're younger and some of that stuff can actually be harder to fix later. You know, if you're slow as a ninth or 10th grader, you know we actually I'd rather you be slow when you're ninth and 10th grader and then I see, oh, you know, junior year they started focusing on track and then they became really fast. Like it's easier to make up athletic space than if you got a 2.0, your freshman and sophomore or your nine, 10 grade year. If you got bad grades it's hard to make that up. So definitely focusing on your grades I think is important.
Marc:International kids, I think do a little better than some of the US kids. We want to see kids doing other things. You know, sometimes I think athletes are really excited to tell us they've been running just track since they were 10 years old. That's not necessarily something that every coach wants to hear. It's not necessarily something that every coach wants to hear.
Marc:I'd much rather hear a student who's like oh, I ran track for my middle school team, for my, you know, my grade seven group for a couple of weeks, but then I also played rugby, I also did rowing. I, you know, I played footy, I did. You know, we want athletes doing a bunch of things, so don't think that you need to like, specialize in just running. Starting year eight, um, you know, we again good coaches, or coaches who are kind of looking at like a whole athlete, um, you know, if I'm talking to, like we said, a girl who's running a four, 45, 1500, but she also plays field hockey and is on the rowing team, like, I'm way more excited to talk to her than a girl who runs 435 but all she does is track for the last 10 years of her life. Um, so, yeah, don't be afraid to do other things. Um, and share that stuff with coaches when you're allowed to talk to them.
Claire Mulligan :I think he went away do you want to add anything to that?
Marty :yeah, I think the I think it's important to what he's trying to say is diversity. It's okay to do other things, um, you know, obviously when you get to grades nine and ten, you're a little bit more focused on your whatever sport you've decided to do um.
Marty :You there, kaiser, um, but yeah, we want to hear that um. You know it's someone's that's been focusing on running since they were in um. You know they were 10 years old versus someone who's like running pretty equal times, but they've been doing all these other sports. To us, that's something that we're like actually more interested in because they have a sense of what it means to be on a team. They understand like it's like it's a competition you're trying to win.
Marty :You have developed some sort of even strength in your body doing different sports and you bring that to track and cross country and also, if you're interested in running track and cross country at that age, to begin racing it at that age if you haven't been doing it, because I know cross country is a little bit different in different parts of the world, so it's nice to get some. If you're someone who's like I just want to run the 800, it's actually good for us to see you do a 1500 and a 3k and do some cross country races, cause we can kind of see your. You have some diet, you have some range, um, and we we value that uh, diversity. If we see someone with just 800 meter marks and that's it. It's a little bit scary for us because that's only one event and there's a lot more events in track and we also are interested in having athletes do cross country. So, um, try to diversify your event.
Claire Mulligan :Uh, focus as well mark, are you back with us?
Marc:yeah, I disappeared, but uh, I think it sounds like I got my point across. Play sports, yeah, get good grades.
Claire Mulligan :Yes, now, that's a very succinct way of summarizing it, and both you guys made really good points with that, and that's what we say as well. The American system is very, very holistic and I've noticed in Australia there's a lot of emphasis on concrete numbers and marks, whereas I just remember growing up in the US was very, very much what are your interests, what are things that you enjoy doing? What kind of things can you provide and share with a team? And I really like what you guys said about the different sports that you can play growing up and different activities that you do to teach you different things and help your mindset and your body is able to do different things that you might not be able to do with just the one sport or something like that. So that's good.
Claire Mulligan :Is there anything that you would say to people who are deciding what they might want to do in grade 12, like middle of grade 12. So if you had a senior in high school in Australia right now, they're about halfway through grade 12 and they're just now starting to think about the US pathway, so they have the option of naturally going in January or August. And I saw you started laughing, marty, but I laugh as well, because it's very late, and I use the word late but a lot of people here don't understand why that's late. So can you touch on timelines of how recruiting kind of works in the United States, because I feel like I say it every five minutes but I feel like it's better coming from you too?
Marty :Yeah. So we start recruiting grade 11, or what we call juniors here. We start aggressively recruiting them sometime in December of their grade 11 year. So for us that's halfway through their junior year. So someone who's waiting halfway through their senior year or grade 12, that's a year late. So we've already developed the relationships, we've already gone to see them compete, we've already offered them. You know, they know financially kind of where it's going to be. So by the time they start their senior year which again for us is that August, september date most of them know where they're going to go and have already accepted offers. And the reason why it's funny it's not funny, but the reason why it's tough for an international student deciding at that time frame, is because the pot of scholarship money that we have it's not unlimited. We only have a certain amount of funding each year that frees up when the senior class leaves. So we start making those offers and, as those athletes say, yes, it's locked up. And so right now, you know, if someone was interested in us and barring they were, maybe like an Olympic caliber type runner we don't have funding right now for that particular athlete because we've already had all our athletes committed for fall or our incoming 2024. So, yeah, so that's kind of important.
Marty :I would suggest, if you are in that position and you find yourself, you know, arriving to it a little bit late, get on the recruiting path as soon as possible. Start talking to coaches as soon as possible, Cast a wide net and, you know, shoot for the star wherever you really want to be. But you might have to make some decisions on maybe not going to your top choice just because the funding might not be there for you. So that's what I would say. I'd say get on the recruiting, get on it as fast as possible.
Marty :The other thing, too is now that we're seeing is the transfer portal is becoming more popular in the US for NCAA athletes and so with that too, there's throughout the year these transfers come up and so coaches are offering their money to these kids and they're signing quickly. So it's it's it's a fast moving game. So for us, we like to get to know the recruit Pretty much. We start the conversation somewhere in December of their junior year Again, that's midway through for us and by the time the season for us rolls around their senior year starts in September we're ready to make commitments. We had seven athletes commit, I think by October this year.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, that's a great way of explaining it for everyone listening who is not familiar with how the recruitment cycle works and the speed and, I would even say that, the timing. If someone's an athlete here that's younger, can you speak to the rules of communication. So if you have someone who's in grade 10 or grade nine, can you guys explain to people who don't know about the rules of communication with a coach?
Marty :So grade 9 and 10, we're not allowed to have much recruiting contact or interaction. So if someone sends us an email, we're technically not supposed to reply to say a grade 9 and the the main thing for us is it really opens up August 1st of what their junior during their junior year and their 11 year. So at August 1st we're allowed to start I'm sorry, yeah, august 1st. So we're allowed to do phone calls. We're allowed to start. I'm sorry, yeah, august 1st. So we're allowed to do phone calls. We're allowed to do video chats. We can do written community, send letters. We can actually come to Australia and watch that person compete and have in-person contact. But prior to that it's limited, we're not allowed to do that.
Marty :So if someone is in grade nine thinking I'm going to start contacting all these coaches and they're going to be a little upset when they don't get all the responses because it's an NCAA violation for us to recruit that young, but starting August of that junior year we're able to begin communication. So, yeah, does that answer your question? Like, at that point it's kind of it's um, it's all good, they can come as a junior too. They could if the interest, if the athlete was interested in coming to the U S and visiting. We can do on-campus visits, um. We have two types. There's an unofficial visit where they just come on their own and they pay for everything on their own, um. And then there's official visits where when they get here, we can have them stay in the dorms overnight and pay for their food and take them to events and stuff. So yeah, that's kind of the timeline. Does that make sense?
Claire Mulligan :Yes, that's very helpful, I'm sure, for everyone listening about how that works. And I think some people get confused when I personally talk about the recruitment process starting way before grade 11. And I think people don't always understand what you are allowed to do and what you should be doing and what you can do before you're allowed to start talking to coaches. And I was speaking to a coach the other day who said that they get Christmas cards like a one-way communication Christmas card from athletes in like grade seven, grade eight. Like hey, coach, I know you can't speak to me yet, but here's my family's Christmas card, so there's definitely targets.
Marty :Yeah, we get those too, and I haven't got a Christmas card yet, so if anyone wants to send one our way, that'd be very nice. But we do get emails from people saying, hey, you know, just want to update you on my progress, and those are great too, because that shows us that they're really interested in us. And the more interested they are in us and show us that we're going to engage with them more we're going to engage with them more we're going to we're definitely going to think, hey, this person is already like someone who we would love to have on the team, because they're engaged with us, they're updating us on their performances, whether it, whether it was good or bad, or what happens. Um, you know, they're telling us about things that happened outside of their sport and there's a relationship being built. And, yeah, those are all really important because that's who we want on the team. We want people who we can get along with and we know that we want to come here and be a part of what we're doing.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, I love that Mark. Anything you want to add to that?
Marc:Just with the emails and stuff. I know it's definitely really helpful when they have like some guidance from y'all about how the process works. But for the ones just randomly sending out emails, definitely don't just put a list of 10 colleges on an email. We get those sometimes where it was just like a form thing, where they like spammed, like the 15 Division I colleges in Northern California. Like I don't, I don't, I deleteia. Like I don't, I don't, I just I delete those.
Marc:I don't even read it. Like if there's 10 other coaches on it. Or if they're like oh, I'm really interested in the university of san francisco and like I'm not the university of san francisco, um, I may read it and see if you're really good and give you another shot. But like try to like make sure you're doing your homework on that stuff, that you're like proofreading your stuff, that you're sending it individually to a coach. You know you might send out 50 Christmas cards we don't know that everyone else got a Christmas card but if you send out an email with 50 other coaches on it, it feels a little less exciting for us.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, fair enough, very, very understandable. It's another red flag.
Marc:Yes, yes, a green flag is hey, coach Mark at St Mary's College. I'm excited to hear more about the Bay Area. Like green flag. Hey, hey, coach, I want to learn about running. Uh, not as exciting yeah, customization is big.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, that's good, I would say, for the athletes that we help. We definitely make sure that they think about what they're doing. They're thoughtful about it and it's not just oh, I gotta just do this quickly because I must do it. We really are trying to talk to them about think about what you want in your experience, research, chat with the coaches, be prepared, be polite and for me, the thing I say a lot of the time is be understanding and patient, because you guys are really busy. So be aware that this is not a quick process and it's not an easy process sometimes. So it's really important to for all of our athletes and anyone listening to make sure that they're aware how busy the coaches are and how limited time you guys have, so to really be respectful and patient.
Marc:Yeah, and don't be afraid to like send a follow-up text or a follow-up email. You know, if you haven't heard back from somebody in a couple of weeks, like it's okay to be, like oh hey, be nice about it, not like why didn't you respond to my email, but like hey, I know stuff is kind of crazy. You might've missed this and you know, just wanted to reach out or follow up on a text. But also, you know, if they don't respond in a pretty reasonable time, that's also a red flag. Like we, we are busy, but you know, I generally try to make it a thing that I'm going to respond to. You know, every athlete who reaches out to me I'm going to try to respond and some schools aren't going to do that. So you know, if you send a coach three updates, like oh hey, just reach out again. Like if they didn't get back to you after a couple of those, like maybe time to move on and find a place that's going to answer your email.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, yeah, that's good. Or even chatting with someone. Hey, I've been trying to contact these few schools. Do you think it's best? I might need to rethink my strategy, like someone who's trying to contact, I don't know, an Ivy League school with a 1.8 grade point average, kind of thing, like sometimes it's good to rethink strategy on where you're looking.
Marty :Absolutely yes.
Claire Mulligan :Well, thank you very, very much for your time, both of you. It was so great to see you again through the camera and I already want to come back. And I saw a photo from one of our athletes that's there of her at the pool and I was like, oh yeah, I've been to that pool, I got that tour.
Marty :I should have worn my.
Claire Mulligan :St Mary's shirt today.
Marty :Well, we really appreciate it. We are really excited to Recruit Australia and to really build this, and so we appreciate you taking the time To invite us to be a part of this too, so thank you.
Marc:Of course we look forward to hopefully making a journey out there To see you all and some fun Australia stuff.
Claire Mulligan :Yeah, there's a big national championship coming up shortly, so I'll chat with you Actually it's not shortly, but I'll chat with you guys about it off camera. It's actually quite exciting, so I'll let you know more about that. But yeah, hopefully we see you on this side of the world soon and we get more Aussies to St Mary's.
Marty :All right Awesome.
Claire Mulligan :Thank you so much no-transcript.