Reopening of campus gives UA fresh opportunity to make critical first impression on recruits

Editor’s note: The Star is examining the state of Arizona football recruiting. Part 2: The importance of June 2021.

It’s mid-May, and the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility is under construction.

The third floor of the building, which houses the Arizona football offices, is being gutted. The weight room is empty and about to updated and upgraded. Change is afoot.

One could argue that it was simply time to renovate. LSFF turns 8 years old this summer. Facilities become outdated almost as quickly as they’re built in college athletics.

But there’s a specific reason LSFF is undergoing a makeover right now: It’s about to be open for business for the first time in almost 15 months.

With the pandemic finally subsiding in the U.S., the NCAA will end the so-called recruiting “dead period” on Tuesday. Recruits hadn’t been able to visit campuses in an official capacity since mid-March 2020. Likewise, coaches hadn’t been able to evaluate prospects in person — on campus or elsewhere.

With a new staff seeking to change the way Wildcats football is perceived, the UA is going all out to make June a meaningful and memorable month. In addition to welcoming a batch of newcomers to the team, Arizona is set to host 32 official visitors over three weekends. The UA also will hold a series of football camps starting June 7 for kids of all age ranges and abilities.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” first-year Wildcats coach Jedd Fisch said. “Now you have an opportunity to bring players who have not been on a campus in close to 15 or 16 months onto your campus.

“We're a brand-new coaching staff. We have no guys, really, that have been here before, that they've ever had any interaction with if they were ever on our campus two years ago.

“Everything's brand new. We hope that the building looks new. We feel great about the message we're going to send and share with them. We’ve got a chance to really showcase Tucson and showcase the community.”

Fisch is the face of the program. His name is attached to the camps. But it takes a team to make it all happen.

Making visitors feel at home

Timing is everything, right?

On March 16, 2020, LaChelle Stanley became Arizona’s coordinator of on-campus recruiting. She hasn’t been able to do her job, at least the way it was intended, until now.

Fisch subsequently added a second coordinator of on-campus recruiting, Maddy McCormack, to the staff. Stanley and McCormack are about to enter their busy season.

“I'm sure they're dying to get people on campus,” Fisch said. “They're gonna have a crazy month.”

Fisch’s director of player personnel, Matt Doherty, has worked in college front offices since 2011 at Miami, Michigan and North Carolina State. He has been involved in countless recruiting visits. He deemed Arizona’s plan — 30-plus official visitors, plus the campers who are technically unofficial — the most ambitious one he’s ever been associated with.

“It’s certainly the most I've ever seen in June,” Doherty said. “But clearly the circumstances are fairly extraordinary. Nobody's been on a college campus for going on 16 months at this point. It's just something we need to do.”

Doherty and Ryan Partridge, Arizona’s coordinator of high school recruiting, are in charge of the official visits. Stanley and McCormack are their boots on the ground. But this isn’t just a four-person operation. It’s all Wildcats on deck.

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“I've got plenty of help,” Doherty said. “But the thing that I keep telling everybody here — and that goes for our coaching staff, our guys, everybody in the building — nobody is exempt when it's official-visit time. Nobody is exempt from contributing. The program's success is your success. So if you want to put this on your résumé that we signed a great class, now's the time to pull your weight. Nobody can hide from this.”

Doherty and his staff have put together detailed schedules customized for each prospect and his family. He has spent time driving around Tucson with a stopwatch to determine the exact amount of time it takes to get from one place to another. The goal is to provide an immersive — but not overwhelming — experience.

“You need to have a good relationship, first and foremost,” Doherty said. “And then from that relationship, you will glean information like, what is it that really is important to you that you want to see before you leave here? Once we learn that, then we can start to go to work in terms of piecing together a visit that's going to leave no unanswered questions.”

More than anything, the UA staff is looking forward to the in-person experience. Virtual visits are one thing; actually seeing the campus, sensing the energy around the building and tasting Tucson’s cuisine is quite another.

“They can feel the geographic location of the campus,” Fisch said. “They can see that University Boulevard runs right next to campus. They can see the fact that we have great weather, that we have a ... college-sports community. I don't know if you can really grasp that and feel that unless you come here.”

Scheduled official visitors include players who already have committed, such as quarterback Noah Fifita, and prospects Arizona is pursuing, such as all-purpose back Quaron Adams.

Evaluating, teaching, having fun

Arizona didn’t have to conduct football camps this year. Given how many other things are going on, no one would have blamed Fisch if he skipped them.

But Fisch doesn’t operate that way. Nor should he.

“You want to strike while the iron is hot,” said Blair Angulo, a recruiting analyst who covers the West region for 247Sports.com. “They need to be at the forefront of this. They need to make as many impressions early on as they can before the season begins.”

Camp is one way to do that.

“I love teaching and coaching,” Fisch said. “Hopefully there'll be an opportunity to evaluate. Hopefully there'll be an opportunity to teach. Hopefully there'll be an opportunity to have fun.

“If you're a high school kid, you might not have been seen in over a year. We're going to provide that opportunity here. We have a president that allows it, an athletic director that allows it, a governor that allows it. We're going to take advantage of this.”

Fisch spoke from the remodeled Sands Club, which overlooks Arizona Stadium. The field was filled with white chairs, and a stage had been erected in the south end zone for one of the UA’s final graduation ceremonies.

Fisch has embraced the bustling atmosphere of the Arizona campus — “I like controlled chaos,” he said — and he can’t wait for visitors and campers to become immersed in it.

“It’s energy,” Doherty said. “Having people physically here is innately gonna drive up the energy around the program, which is already off and running. Just having people come here, talk about it, experience it.”

And who knows — a first-grader or a middle-schooler could become a future Wildcat. Sometimes, that’s how relationships are formed.

“I would love that story,” Fisch said. “You get an opportunity for a kid to take a picture on our campus when they're 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. And next thing you know ... they’re taking the same picture at graduation.”