JC Recruiting Communities Are Widening

Let’s open the bidding.

Come May 1, junior college coaches in the region can do just that, openly testing their persuasive powers in places where they were barred before.

That’s the day a state rule allowing recruiting in contiguous community college districts takes effect, adding a wrinkle to a much-debated issue.

Until now, coaches could make first contact only with high school athletes in their district. Otherwise, coaches had to wait for the athletes to make the first move.

That left schools in smaller college districts to pluck a handful of feeder programs while colleges in larger districts had many more recruiting sources.

Now, some of the restraints are off and it feels good to coaches like Brian Beauchemin.

“For our situation, when we have three [high] schools to draw from, it’s great,� said Beauchemin, longtime men’s basketball coach at Glendale College. “We’ve been trying to open recruiting for years.�

The new rule allows Beauchemin to compete for players over a little wider area and in previously forbidden territory, even if it was a stone’s-throw away.

“It’s ludicrous when I couldn’t go talk to a kid from Eagle Rock High School, which is five minutes from our campus, but Valley could,� Beauchemin said.

That’s because Eagle Rock is a City Section school inside the Los Angeles Community College District boundaries, where Valley is located. Glendale has its own district.

Beauchemin soon can start making his pitch to Eagle Rock players and those at other schools that were off-limits. But not everyone necessarily followed the old rule.

“I think it’ll stop the hypocrisy,� Beauchemin said. “This makes it a little more above-table.�

For some, the new rule doesn’t go far enough.

“All this rule does is allow the cheaters to play by the rules,� said John Taylor, women’s basketball coach at Valley. “This allows them to be more blatant about going into other peoples’ areas.

“I think they should just open it up. Then it’ll be totally above-board.�

Taylor believes the hostility among coaches who recruit illegally and those who feel they have been victimized would end, or at least be reduced, if California junior colleges were allowed to pursue players freely.

Some already seem to, as evidenced by the number of out-of-area players on their rosters, including from other states or nations. Those coaches maintain the players, not them, initiated contact. But Beauchemin doesn’t buy it.

“There’s a lot of funny business going on,� he said.

Such as how players coming from other areas can afford housing or tuition or meals or simply getting to the colleges from their homes, which sometimes are across the country. Or an ocean.

Conversely, it’s precisely because of those concerns that some coaches aren’t that enthusiastic about the new rule.

“I don’t think it affects me,� said Terry Morris, football coach at Ventura. “I don’t need to go into L.A. and get those kids to come up here. Fact is, it’s expensive for them to come here.

“Tuition is about $11 per unit. And you can expect to pay about $250 a month to live in an apartment with three other guys, plus food and bills.�

Morris, who in three seasons as coach has built the Pirates into a state power, is in an enviable position. There’s only one other junior college in Ventura’s district, Moorpark, and the two programs get their share of available talent from a plethora of high schools.

“I’m not changing my recruiting philosophy all of a sudden because of this rule,� Morris said.

But to coaches in the smaller districts, such as Glendale and Canyons, the only school in the Santa Clarita Valley Community College District, the rule is beneficial. Canyons has four feeder high schools but can cross into the sizable L.A. district after May 1.

“That’s the biggest one that touches us,� said Len Mohney, Canyons’ athletic director and baseball coach. “I think we’re all interested to see how it’ll work out.�