BLACKSBURG, Va. – Since the COVID-19 pandemic, coaches and schools haven’t been able to meet with recruits in person or have them come on campus.
“You have to be ahead of the curve,” Virginia Tech women’s basketball head coach Kenny Brooks said. “My staff has done a tremendous job, Britney Anderson, Shawn Poppie, and probably the newest member of our Virginia Tech recruiting staff is Brian Cox.”
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Cox is the video coordinator for the women’s basketball team.
“The way I try to do it is, I make sure I’m selling our coaches, selling our campus, and selling our players because those three things it what sets Virginia Tech apart from other schools," Cox said.
And that’s exactly what he did for Wofford graduate transfer Da’Ja Green, who commited to Virginia Tech without ever seeing the campus in person.
“It was very different,” Green said. “We had a Zoom meeting with the coaches, me, my parents, and they were able to show us video they came up with. A virtual tour of the campus, and they showed me other different videos about the team, the history, coaching staff, things like that.”
But even though digital innovation has been a plus for recruiting, Coach Brooks said that he’s ready to be back meeting with his team in person.
“Obviously you want the personal interaction,” Brooks said. “You want them to have the most information they can possibly get. Some of the best information is the human interaction. During these times we have to make due with what’s available to us. We’re very fortunate that we do have the resources.”
And those resources helped land Green.
“The Virginia Tech coaches definitely thought about this and were able to get me as close to on campus as they possibly could without me being there,” she said. “They did a great job with making me feel comfortable through our conversations in a very crazy time.”