Episode 35: Recruiting Inner-City Prospects to Small, Rural Campuses

Many college coaches from rural or suburban campuses, with a largely white population, hesitate to try and recruit inner-city student-athletes to their programs. "Why would they want to come here? It's so different from where they grew up." "There's nothing to do here compared to the city they're from." "They probably don't have the grades to be admitted here, because their high school isn't in a very good area." Sound familiar? In this episode of the College Recruiting Weekly podcast, we talk to Miles Smith, the head men's basketball coach at Johnson State College in northern Vermont. He coaches at a small, liberal arts school in a small, mostly white college town up in the mountains a little more than an hour outside of Burlington. And all Coach Smith does is consistently recruit inner-city kids to come to his little school in Vermont and play basketball for him. So what's his secret? That's what today's show is all about. Prepare to have an honest, creative conversation about recruiting, race, and college athletics. We don't solve all of the country's problems in this episode, but we'll give you some new approaches and fresh thinking on an often difficult-to-navigate topic we all seem to be hearing a lot about these days. To contact Coach Miles Smith, you can email him at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter at @coachsmith_24 Thanks for listening! Make sure to tell your fellow coaches to subscribe to the podcast, and make sure to leave us a nice rating with feedback wherever you listen to it.