Recruiting and Remaining Successful in a Pandemic

How Men's Soccer Looks to Keep Winning in 2020

A pandemic does not see success, nor does it see failure. It doesn't understand wins and losses, or ties in some cases. The current COVID-19 pandemic does not see any of that, but it affects everyone, whether in the sports world or not.

The Georgia State men's soccer team has seen a great deal of success over the last five years. Think about this:

Five straight appearances in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament Championship Game
61 wins
A .637 winning percentage
An appearance in the 2018 NCAA Tournament

A pandemic doesn't care about any of those things. So how does head coach Brett Surrency and his staff make sure the winning continues when the time comes to get on the field this season and for future seasons to come – recruiting.

"In a normal year, we will have a few events that we attend in the summer - mostly regional or national competitions - that are the culmination of the youth season's body of work," Surrency said. "There are usually a few local Atlanta games that will take place just before those competitions that we will try and attend as well to get a jump start.

"This spring and summer, there has been nothing due to COVID-19, and also, the NCAA instituting the dead period. We have maintained contact with guys that we are looking at for the 2021 class and tried to do the best we can. We had a few needs for the 2020 class that we were trying to address right when COVID-19 hit. We had two events that were booked and paid for that we had to cancel, which created some challenges. To say the least, it's not been what we are accustomed to or expected to face back in the beginning of the year."

These are challenges that can be felt across not only collegiate soccer, but collegiate sports in general. How do you get to know a recruit that you may have on your team for the next four or five years? How does a recruit get to know your program, see your campus, learn about your city when a shelter-in-place situation exists?

"Summer is usually a bigger time for us to get rising seniors on campus as they are out of school and their club seasons have either finished or are coming to a close," Surrency said. "That has been a big loss for us as we are really proud of our Georgia State campus and feel like it's very impressive in person. But again, we are not the only ones who have been challenged in that respect and have just had to make the necessary adjustments."

Zoom calls, FaceTime, texts, and e-mails have now become the norm more than ever. Winning also helps which for Surrency and his staff has become a tradition for the Panthers.

"We were having a nice collective spring before the pandemic hit and we were pleased with some of the developments of our younger guys in particular," Surrency said. "It would have been great to get them a few more games under their belt."

Although the effects of this pandemic on recruiting may not be known for sometime, the tools learned during this time might become valuable for the Panthers for many years to come and produce even more wins in the future.

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