Tyler Neff

Dr. Mandy Capel

EL 501

06/19/2022

Personal Leadership Platform

Organizational Profile:

The organization I am a part of is the University of Mount Union. As an assistant track

and field coach, I work in the athletics department and help to oversee the men and women’s

track and field programs, more specifically, the long sprinters.

The university as a whole is a private, liberal arts school in Alliance, Ohio. Founded in

1846, Mount Union has 2,100 undergraduate and graduate students, 51% being men, 49%

women. The undergraduate representation at the university includes 31 different states and 10

countries, while the graduate program representation includes 14 states (Quick Facts, 2022).

Mount Union has an average student to faculty ratio of 12:1, and the average class size is 15.

Mount Union offers 49 different majors and a selection of graduate programs including

master’s degrees in education, business, physician assistant studies, as well as a doctorate

program in physical therapy. The current tuition and room and board at the university is

$45,600 with the average financial aid award being $27,454 (Quick Facts, 2022).

Personal Leadership Philosophy:

I believe as a leader I should be compassionate, trustworthy, strong, and understanding.

My role as a leader is to cultivate an environment where my student athletes can flourish - on

the track, in the classroom, and in life. I believe I should pass down any and all wisdom I can in

hopes of bringing success and happiness to the next generation. In myself and others, I value

hard work, discipline, and the little life lessons we learn along the way. My ultimate goal is to

inspire, motivate, and leave a positive impact on those I lead. I believe a good leader doesn't

just lead but creates more leaders. And when it's all said and done, if I made even just one

person’s life better, I will be fulfilled.

Mission Statement:

The university of Mount Union’s mission statement is, “to prepare students for fulfilling

lives, meaningful work, and responsible citizenship (About Mount, 2022).”

Leadership Goals:

The three leadership goals I have set for myself are:

1) To continue the successful tradition of the men and women’s track and field programs

by inspiring, motivating, teaching, and leading the current athletes on the team.

2) To recruit and retain the right kind of student-athletes that possess the same ideology

as the team and university to ensure future success of the program.

3) To maintain an emphasis on providing a positive student-athlete experience by

supporting student athlete endeavors on the track, in the classroom, in their social lives,

and all other aspects of their lives.

Planned Implementation:

The goal I would like to focus on for planned implementation is recruiting the right

student athletes to the university. Recruiting is the lifeblood of the university, and a program

can only be successful if the right people are present. I chose this goal because recruiting is

honestly 80% of my job as a coach, and it is often done behind the scenes without anyone

seeing it. However, recruiting is a yearlong venture, and there is a lot more that goes into it

than one would think.

The group I would like to present this plan to includes new assistant coaches on our

staff, new coaches in general moving into collegiate athletics (especially at the Division III level),

and possibly the athletic director and admissions representatives. I believe by including

admissions in the plan would help them to have a better understanding of what we do and how

we operate so that we can better work together to facilitate the plan.

Our recruiting season begins over the summer when we attend the OHSAA state meet

the first weekend of June. At this meet, we typically talk to all the incoming recruits to finalize

the previous year’s class, but also meet and talk with many juniors to establish contact, get

phone numbers, and being talking more with them during the summer. Also during the

summer, we as a staff identify every soon-to-be high school senior in the state, as well as

surrounding states (western PA, southern MI, northeastern WV, etc.) who meets a certain time-

standard or mark we deem recruitable. This list is often approximately 2000 individuals. We use

a shared excel doc to track each student athlete based on their events and marks, and who is

recruiting who. Once we have the list, we get to work.

 The next step is the hardest step – getting contact info for each student athlete. We use

a variety of means for this – mailers, social media, emailing coaches, high schools – anything we

can to make contact. Once we have the contact info, we reach out.

The first call or text should be short and to the point. We state who we are, why we’re

calling, and try to either set up a time to talk further, or if they allow, talk to them then. The

goal of this conversation is always to set up a campus visit. If the student athlete says they are

not interested, we move on. If the student athlete is non-responsive, depending how good they

are we may try again, or use a different means of getting in contact with them. Otherwise, we

move on.

The first visit is important for us to gauge whether the student is a good fit for our

program or not. We always tour our recruits so that we can spend the day getting to know

them and their parents. We can usually get a good idea from this visit if the student athlete can

see themselves at Mount and if we feel like they will come next year.

Once the student athlete has visited though, the rest of the year is just keeping in

contact with them. This includes weekly calls or texts, helping them get applied, helping them

with financial aid, and offering a second visit. Typically, once prospective student athletes

narrow down their potential colleges, they will want to come back to campus and meet the

team, see a practice, meet with a professor, etc.

Next, when the student athlete has done all of this, again, it is just staying in contact,

making them feel wanted and welcome, and trying to seal the deal until the day comes when

they say they’re either coming here or they’re not. If a student athlete commits, we still keep

weekly contact with them to ensure they’re still coming. If a student athlete chooses another
school, we wish them the best and move on. Sometimes, however, if their reason for picking

another school isn’t sound or seems flawed, we may try a little harder to not lose them –

especially if they’re really good and a great fit for the program. During this phase, we often ask

for their meet schedules and try to make it to some of their meets. This step is important, albeit

difficult since we also have meets and practices, but is helpful in making the student athlete

feel wanted and helps us stand out among the other schools recruiting them.

The tricky part of this portion of recruiting though is that every recruit has their own

timeline. Some students (typically the distance runners) will want to have their college decided

by the end of the fall, lining up with the end of their cross season. However, we have some

prospective student athletes who may not even visit until spring, or sometimes even summer

after they have finished their track seasons and already graduated high school.

Finally, as the year closes out and the season ends, we attend the OHSAA state meet

once again to confirm our class of recruits and begin talking to recruits for the next year.

Reflection:

While I didn’t preset my plan, I imagine that the plan would be helpful and informative –

especially for new coaches who are just learning how to go about recruiting. I would enjoy

presenting mainly because I think it would be a great opportunity for me to answer questions

and hear new ideas other coaches might have that could improve our current operation and

the way I go about recruiting. I feel sharing my experiences and what I have learned would be

beneficial to any new coach. I also feel that sharing our plan with the athletic director would

allow him to have a greater understanding of what we do and how we do it. Lastly, sharing the
plan with admissions would also allow us to work together better, and potentially lead to new

ideas to help improve our model.

The greatest insight I had when reflecting on my plan occurred when I discusses the fact

that every prospective student athlete has their own timeline. I feel like this point specifically

could have its own presentation because it is incredibly important to keep in mind when

recruiting such a large number of student-athletes. Taking notes and staying organized on each

recruit and their progress is key here in order to successfully recruit each PSA the way they

need to be recruited.

I believe the greatest challenge of implementing our recruiting plan comes in getting the

contact information and making contact. For whatever reason, high school students these days

often don’t respond to hardly any form of communication. In addition to this, they almost

NEVER answer their phones which has led to us always making first contact via text. Also, due

to the sheer number of PSA’s we identify, it can be hard to get contact info for every single

student-athlete on the list. This means some years we go without speaking to someone

because we couldn’t get to them, and never knowing if they could have been a good fit or not.

In conclusion, I believe the current recruiting model does work well, but I think it could

be improved. Perhaps with the help of additional staff, fresh ideas, and the admissions

department, we could improve the model, work together, and continue our efforts to maintain

the successful tradition and outlook of our program and the University of Mount Union.
 Works Cited:

About Mount. University of Mount Union. Retrieved July 19, 2022, from

https://www.mountunion.edu/about-mount#:~:text=The%20mission%20of%20the%20

University,meaningful%20work%2C%20and%20responsible%20citizenship.

Quick facts. University of Mount Union. Retrieved June 19, 2022, from

https://www.mountunion.edu/about-mount/quick-facts