Episode #119: Will Chavis on Recruiting

🎙️ Built for the Modern Game: Will Chavis on NIL, the Portal, and the Future of Recruiting 🏀

In this episode of The Significant Recruiting Podcast, host Matt Rogers sits down with Will Chavis, Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach at Drexel University, for a powerful and practical look at today’s ever-changing recruiting world.

From being Bobby Knight’s first recruit at Texas Tech to playing professionally across Europe and now mentoring Division I athletes, Coach Chavis has lived every corner of the basketball journey. What makes his story remarkable is not just his experience — it’s his perspective.

In this conversation, Will breaks down the realities of NIL and the transfer portal in a way few coaches can. He explains how both can serve athletes when handled with purpose and honesty — and why the best programs are the ones willing to adapt with integrity.

Whether you’re a recruit, a parent, or a coach, this episode is a must-listen for anyone trying to understand what it really takes to thrive in the modern era of college athletics.

🔗 Learn more about Coach Will Chavis: drexeldragons.com/staff-directory/will-chavis/553

💡 Explore recruiting tools, books, and resources for families and coaches: CoachMattRogers.com

Transcript

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Welcome back to The Significant Recruiting Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. If you caught last week's episode on the Significant Coaching Podcast, you already know how powerful my conversation was with Will Chavis assistant men's basketball coach at Drexel University Will's story from being Bobby Knight's first recruit at Texas Tech to playing professionally overseas, and now mentoring young men at the division One level is full of perspective, humility and heart. But this episode goes even deeper. We shift from the sidelines to the recruiting trail where Coach Shavis shares what he looks for in recruits, how he evaluates character and why? Honest communication still matters in a world that sometimes still feels defined by NIL and transactional relationships. What I really loved about Will was his take on the NIL and the transfer portal. I've never had a coach explain both realities so clearly, and with such balance. He brought me full circle on the value of both, and I love his excitement about adapting to the changes in today's recruiting world. He's truly built for this modern era of college athletics. And if you're looking for more direction, resources, and tools to help you navigate the recruiting process, whether you're a student athlete, a parent, or a coach, visit and subscribe to my weekly coaching newsletter@coachmattrogers.com. On my website, you'll find my books, my journals and online classes, plus weekly coaching and recruiting tips. Designed to help families take ownership of their journey. Alright, let's get into part two of my conversation with coach Will Chavis of Drexel men's basketball. Okay. Coach will I love your story. I love how you've gotten to this point. I love how the fact that when you were a young man, you thought you weren't gonna be a coach. And now I've talked to you for an hour, man, and I see nothing but a coach. I see a guy. I can't wait for you to get your first job at that D one level then, so I'm just, I'm pumped about following your career.'cause I love your demeanor. I love how. You've always been that guy that's done what's best. For the people around you. I'm gonna be a distributor when I need to be. I'm gonna take over a game when I need to be. I'm gonna hand the keys over to a kid that I think just needs that opportunity. Every story you've told in our first segment was about you thinking about other people in the humility you live your life with. And I know some people can say the same thing about me, how selfish we can all be at sometimes, but you've got it in your heart. It's obvious to me. What we need and more coaches. So I wanna talk some recruiting with you if you're cool with that. Yep. Alright. For most people and most kids, the idea of playing at a Drexel, playing D one, playing at a Texas Tech is such a goal. You can't walk into a gym without a kid going. You asking'em where their dream school is, it's gonna be a D one. Nobody says Co college or juco. They all say, I wanna play at Drexel. I won't play at Indiana. I won't play at Tex Tech. For you, what's the reality for all these kids in terms of being able to play for a Drexel? First? I think they need to understand themselves. And I always think is really good. People always say Comparison is the thief of joy. I I always disagree with that, right? Because I think comparison helps you to understand who you are sometimes, right? If I'm a, I'm not say this, I'm mean, but if I'm a five foot three point guard, right? And. The going size for a point guard is 6 2, 6 3. I have to be exceptional. Not only do I have to be exceptional, I have to have multiple people believe in me at multiple stops. And that's where I think like the reality doesn't set in for a lot of kids because they just don't know. Yeah. And you don't know what you don't know. So just that exposure to seeing like what it really looks like. That's why I always invite people out to practice, to, kids just to see this is what it looks like. This is what your position looks like. Yeah. And I think that's really like a wake up call for a lot of kids. I played D three, so for me, when I graduated Charlie Spoon Hour, Blake, Charlie Spoon Hour hired me. I was the camp. I ran Coached at his camps. Yep. And Charlie would let me run with the guys'cause they were there all summer, so for me it was like stepping on the court the first time and I'd been driving 60 mile an hour on the highway my whole life. And I was surrounded by jets going 500 mile an hour. I don't know if I would've understood that. I did a little bit.'cause we would scrimmage University of Iowa in the off season. So I got to see, I gotta see what Big 10 basketball was in the pace. But when I got to scrimmage every single day with these guys that are all six, six to 6 11, 7 feet tall, and they could all run like deer. They all had all could do everything with the ball in their hands. There was no there was nobody that was just limited to just dribble in or shoot and everybody could do a little bit of everything. It amazed me about what that level represents because I was, I always felt I was a good ball player. Yeah. But I stepped on the floor for the first time and tried to scrimmage every day with those guys and I was like, man, I. I need to be outside the bathroom handing out towels. You know what I mean? Yeah. I need to be pouring water because I'm not near as good as I thought. How often are you talking to kids where you have to explain that before the reality hits him? Right now it is difficult because we're limited in how many, contact to kids, basically, because the events that we can go to, the amount of hours you can talk to kids is, it is really limited. But I will say this, I get emails constantly from kids saying that they're, they wanna play a Drexel, they get their GPA, their size, there's their statistics, and I don't answer all of them. Yeah, but some of'em that I do answer, yeah, I do try to invite them to practice just to see if I look at their profile and I say, okay, this kid is in a good league. He's not bad. I'll try to check it out. I'll do some background on it. Yeah. And most of the time, elite camp, stuff like that, just get a different type of setting for that kid. Will help them out tremendously to see where they are. And I've had kids, I've had kids that have come to Elite camp and leave Elite Camp and say coach I need to work a lot. Like I'm not where I thought I was. Yeah. So it's just that's great. Yeah. It's just that immersion, like in an environment, right? That kids are not used to, they're not in their, they're not on their comfort level. They're on their comfort zone. I think that's really important for kids nowadays because if I'm averaging 30 points a game, but I'm playing against and I'm six foot five and I'm a center and the tallest guy I'm playing is a six foot is, there's no way I can be a six foot five center in division one. That's right. When you literally come to a campus and you see a seven foot one dude standing next to you and you gotta score a basket on him. Yep. I think you think. Differently about the real, the reality of where you are. Yeah. Yeah. I beg parents to do that for their kids. Go, don't go to just a D one camp. You gotta go somewhere where you're playing against a. 10, 15 guys, gals, whoever, what, boy or girl. You gotta play against that level. Yes. Not just one kid on the floor that can play on that level. You gotta play, you wanna play against five kids that can play at that level. So you understand the pace, the speed, the physicality. It's an entirely different world. Yes. And D one, D two, D three. None of'em are easy. None of'em are easy. We have a kid on our team now. That average 22 points a game in D three and he fits right in with us. Like he's not Yeah, he's, he doesn't skip a beat. He pushes the pace. He's fast. Yeah. He's a demon on defense. Yeah, he fits right in. So no level is easy playing college basketball is not an easy thing. It's really not. When I was coaching it was, I loved going to big tournaments'cause I'd sit there with. With everybody, you'd sit there with everybody and watch guys and I was a D three guy, so I was always looking for that diamond in the rough, that kid could probably play D two, but maybe I could steal him, yep, yep. Something we could get out of him and get'em convinced. And I remember just, I'd sit there with self and Chesky and all those guys and it's amazing how everybody could, we could all figure out who the talent was on the floor in about 12 seconds. You could see it, but how quickly a one of those guys would say, no, I'm not recruiting him. He can play, but I'm not gonna recruit him. What is that for you? What are those red flags when you know a guy can play but you're like. I don't think he's the right guy for us. At Drexel, coach Spiker, we have something called kgs. So like our kind of guy, right? And I'll give you an example of A OKG. So my f like the first time I went out on the road with Coach Spiker it was a kid that I knew from coaching in high school. His name was Kobe McGee, right? So Kobe was. At a charter school in Allentown, pa. So he wasn't in Philly, wasn't in the city, about an hour and a half from Philly. But he had everything that you needed for it was like a prototypical two guard size, foot speed, athleticism wingspan, everything right shot. It looked really good. But the one thing that coach was really impressed about with Kobe was that when he came out the game. He went down the line to everybody on the bench and gave him a high five, right? Yeah. And then sat down, cheered his teammates on, right? Yeah. When his teammates needed water, he's the best player on the team. He went, got water for his teammate and gave him water in the same game. He rolls his ankle, couldn't go back in the game, but he was the biggest cheerleader on the bench for his team. So when a kid like that. Who's not entitled, right? Yep. Who respects the game, respects his teammates and just shows a level of appreciation for people in general. Yep. That's what you, that's a special kid. That's what you look for. Can't have enough of those kids. And we lost that kid. We lost that kid because he developed at Drexel and now he's gonna play at Florida State. Yep. Yep. That's the world we live in now. Yep. And I love coach.'cause I asked you an open-ended question and you want the positive route. You could have said, Matt, I saw this kid play and you did all these things wrong. You chose the kid that did everything and because I think that's what kids need to understand. You're always watching. We're always watching. Yep. We're watching dead balls. We're watching free throws. We're watching timeouts. We're watching warmups. We're watching how you treat your mom and dad after the game. How do you handle getting marked at? Absolutely. Let's talk about what you guys are thinking about when you're building out your roster every year, because now you can hop into the portal and go. We need one of those. We need one of those. You can get what you want. How are you seeing recruiting high school kids? Because we just had kaari, we just had patino on national tv. Say we're not recruiting high school kids anymore. Okay. And I understand that and I don't blame'em for that. And I, I don't have a problem with it. Where are you guys at with that? Patino and Kalari, they have millions of dollars to buy players. Yep. To buy our players. Yeah, exactly. We absolutely will take high school players. We took three of'em already for next year. Fantastic. So we still believe in developing the kid and the kids that we have coming in, they're really good kids. Like I said, they're kgs and they're going to develop because they work hard. They have the right attitude. They respect the process. They respect the game, they respect themselves. They come from good families and we know they, they're going to compete, so they're going to get better. In terms of our level, it is difficult because again, like I said, a lot of it is going back to that professional comment. I said the main thing you want to do and have is retention. You want to try to retain the players that you have. Yeah. But when those absorbent numbers come out, you almost can't help per se. Just like Marcel, you have to go see you. Good luck. So that's the difficult part of the level that I'm at is it is hard to retain players when you don't have that, budget. Like a Power five? Yeah, because they're just gonna buy your players. They're just going to outage you every single time. So what does it do to your heart when you see the tournament play out? The sweet sixteens got seven teams that don't have that dough don't have that money. What does that mean to you? I think they're going away from that. Honestly, that's not gonna happen anymore. We're not gonna see Butler in the championship game anymore. It's gonna be really difficult. To see a Cinderella, right? Yeah. First of all, the tournament was always structured to have Cinderellas. Yeah. Like I used to watch and follow it. It was structured to have Cinderellas. Yeah. I don't think they did that last, the last couple years. Yeah. Just looking at the tournament, how many teams from the SEC made the tournament? It was cra It was a crazy amount. The Big 12 it's gonna be really difficult for a team with a at large bid. To not a team with the at large bid, to not outplay a team with the automatic bid from a smaller conference. It's gonna be really difficult. It's gonna be really difficult for that to happen. And the reason why I say that is because when you can put together, when you can put together a team based on. Because the reason why it happened before was because I could retain my players. That's right. So I had guys that were four year guys. Yeah. That understand my system, that understand everything that's going on. Strength. Yeah. They grew up, they're strong. So now they can compete with those guys. Yep. But now when a power five comes in and takes your guys, you're starting over. You're trying to get guys to match, you're trying to get everything to mesh. You're just at a deficit right there. There's no excuses in it. You still could do a good job and it can happen. Yeah. But I think it's going to be more rare that happens. You you saw some flaws in that last year though. You saw some entitlement loose some games for St. John's. Yep. Entitlement lost that game. Yep. Their best player could not adapt. To not be there to score it just, wiped out the team. Completely wiped out the team. Yep. Hunger wasn't there. Consistency wasn't there? Effort wasn't there. Hypothetically, you're a mid-major, you're running a new program all by yourself, it's your program. How do you compete at that level? Is it style? Can you throw like Princeton used to do and Air Force used to do you know, or throw a different style out there? Can you do it with size? Can you go, we're gonna put three, seven footers on the floor. We're gonna put four point guards on the floor. Like a couple teams in your league used to do. We're gonna put big guy in four, four guards that can all run and shoot. And how would you attack that today to get to the Sweet 16? I think it's a combination of all that, but also luck.'cause you have to run into the right teams, right? Yeah, it's true. Yeah. That's your style is I think Shaheen Holloway, when he made the Elite eight, I think he ran into those teams that were like, that he, that his style of play Yeah. Worked well. Worked well for, yep. So that's part of it too how you're set up and who you can beat. But I do think you have to have an identity. I'm not gonna say so much a style, but I think you have to have kids that, that know what you're playing for. Yeah, right? Yeah. That, that give of themselves, give up themselves for others and that believe that they can win that game because if kids don't believe that they can win that game, then that, that's where it gets really difficult. Another aspect of it as well, because we know they have like really, crazy exotic budgets at the Power five. Yeah. But you have to be able to develop kids off the court in the weight room. Nutrition, all that stuff matters. Yeah. It all matters. And I'm saying that because I know how it is at the Power five level. Yeah. And when you can have. When you can make kids feel like when they step on that floor, they can compete physically and they know it. Just like you said, you could step, you stepped on, on the court with the D one guys. Yeah. And you knew it right away. Oh man, this is different. Your kids cannot feel that. Yeah. When they step on the power five floor, it's true. Or in NCAA tournament game, they have to feel like we're right here with them. If we change jerseys, you wouldn't know who is who. How important is that non-conference season to get them there? Mentally you've done everything you can do as a coach. How important is that? You're playing a Kansas, or you're playing a North Carolina, you're playing a Florida state early on. Yep. To test that resolve. I think it's super important because if you don't do it, you'll never know. And I think you do have to have the right team. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you just go in there and take a beating. If you think you have the team that can do it. Yeah, I think you should do it. Yeah. Because if you do it, I think it'll just raise the level of your players. Yeah, because I wanted to say this when you were saying it. If you stayed in that practice for multiple days with those guys or even a year, yeah. You probably would've adapted just how human beings are. You would've adapted something in your game and your body and your mind. Yep. To be able to stay on that floor with those guys. It did. It happened that summer. After two, three weeks, I was like, okay, this is my lane and I can have an impact here. There you go. Because I could defend, I could handle the ball and I had vision. I could get the ball outta my hands. I could get it to the guys that could do something. And I knew where trouble was and I knew, if I was gonna get in the lane, man. I had to get rid of it real quick, yep. So I did and it was great. It was great for me as a player. It just sucked that I was 23, 24 years old and I had nothing more to do with it, but I was, I started to figure out what I was capable of at that point. Yep. Coach, this is awesome. I wanna finish with a little bit of advice from you. I wanna start with giving some advice to that 15, 16-year-old that has big dreams of playing in college and they want to get recruited. What advice would you give them? I always hear a saying that success is not for the chosen few, but for the few who choose. Love that. I just think when you want to, when you want something, you have to choose. To put in the sacrifice, to put in the work to try to attain your goal.'cause that's the prerequisite, that's the baseline is just working to get where you want to go. So for that young kid, I like, I always say, it's always the work. You might not get what you want, right? It might not work out for you, but at least you know that when you go and look in the mirror, you gave everything you had. To try to accomplish your goal. And if you fall short, you can live with yourself. That's right. But if you didn't give everything you, you had, then it is gonna be difficult to live with the result. To live with the regret. Yeah. Regret. Yeah. Yep. Great advice. I love that quote. I'm gonna steal that one from you too. You got it. You got it. Same advice for parents. Parents. Yeah. What advice would you give mom and dad that are going through this journey with their kid? Their kid wants to play? What advice would you give? It's not your journey, it's the, it is your child's journey, right? So you have to let them enjoy the process, enjoy, embrace failure, right? And just be there to, to support them with their ideas. With their wants. And then encourage them to con to continue to work hard. Yeah. That's it. That's life. You have to work hard. You don't work hard. You can't expect anything. Yeah. So go back and listen to our first segment. When you talked about your trip home your drive home with your dad, your pops. Yep. Sound like your dad understood that man. He understood. This is he did you, do you still love it? You played well. Did you have fun? Yep. That's so great. Coach, you are awesome. I'm so happy that we got introduced to each other. This has been a fun, fun conversation. I am a huge fan of yours and I'm gonna be following Drexel Ball all year. But thanks for doing this. Oh, thanks man. Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it. It was fun. Good luck this year, my friend. All right. Thanks Matt. That was Will Chavis, assistant men's basketball coach at Drexel University. And if you listen closely, you probably felt the same thing I did. Will doesn't just talk about adapting to change. He lives it. His perspective on NIL and the transfer portal. It isn't about fear or frustration. It's about opportunity and growth and meeting this generation of athletes where they are. He understands that leadership today requires flexibility and empathy and a willingness to evolve, and he's doing all that while staying true to who he is. For more direction and guidance, I encourage you to learn more@coachmattrogers.com and reach out anytime to schedule a conversation or ask questions. Whether you're recruit a parent or a coach, that's where you'll find tools and resources to help you navigate the journey with confidence and purpose. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.