Coach Jim Boone: The Clinic that I was to be a part of this weekend was cancelled at the last moment. As disappointed as I was with the cancellation, it provided me with a tremendous opportunity to spend this weekend on our campus. I really wanted to get a feel for what a weekend, with our football team on the road, would be like at Wesleyan – this is so important in recruiting, knowing your campus and school.
As I have already written, I am so impressed with the collegiate feel and beauty of our Wesleyan Campus. We have the reputation of being the best small college campus in West Virginia, I can certainly see why, this is truly a campus comprised of great architecture and grandeur. But, as we all know, it’s not just about the pretty buildings and top facilities, it’s the people that make a campus and a great college experience.
With that being said, I continue to be amazed with the energy and electricity that exist on our campus – for a small college we certainly have a major college feel and atmosphere – there is always something going on, always! Certainly the number of Fraternities and Sororities on our campus has had a major impact upon the social opportunities that exist for our students at Wesleyan. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our campus is just as active on the weekends, as it is during the hustle and bustle of an academic week.
This will be a monumental advantage for us in our recruiting, for prospective student-athletes to see and experience the vibrancy of our campus, along with the unity and support of our student body – Wow!.
For student-athletes, this is of particular importance – due in large part to the time commitments of practice and the hours spent training, they are always on campus – it’s great to be a part of a college where there is a social life and our kids can truly be college students and not just athletes! I have been at schools that this becomes such a challenge in building a successful program; whether it be a commuter school with very little campus life to offer it’s student-athletes, or a suitcase campus that becomes a ghost town on the weekends. We are so fortunate to have all that we have at Wesleyan, especially our campus life, and I cannot wait to get our first group of recruits on campus.
Of course, we must work really hard as coaches to develop and nurture this atmosphere and student support on our campus, to channel it into one of the best student crowds and home courts in the West Virginia Conference. You don’t have to go to Duke to paint your belly and have a great time at a game, you can do it right here at WVWC in the “Rock” (Rockefeller Center Arena). For our program, doing things like eating in our Café, walking through campus during the busiest times of the day, and making personal visits to our dorms - these are just a few of the things we are already doing to meet as many students as possible. They need to see me and they need to be able to say that they have personally met their men’s basketball head coach!
This was a great weekend to spend time on campus, to learn more about West Virginia Wesleyan and to build the culture of a winning program, which definitely includes our greatest asset, our student body!
