Turning millennials into Royals
Bethel coaches and administrators change the way they recruit.
By Jared Nelson and Jason Stormer | Sports Reporters
Jed Moseman and Andy Meier sit perched in the assistant basketball coach’s office after practice, looking down through a window on players getting in extra shots. The coaches trade their whistles for cell phones. Practice is over, but they’re just starting to work.
Time to recruit.
They’re not sending letters to a recruit’s cat to sleeping over at prospective players’ houses, but Moseman and Meier are always thinking of new ways to attract millennials. Moseman, who played both soccer and basketball for the Royals in the mid-90s, said that he’s noticed a attitude shift that has changed the way he talks to recruits.
“They just don’t want to talk on the phone,” Moseman said.
What used to be 10-minute phone conversations with recruits is now a text conversation that can last hours. He added that conversations with recruits used to be all business. He’d tell the recruit what he liked and tell him about the school so he’d come on a visit. Conversations can include anything.
He was watching the Broncos play in the AFC Championship game and asked a couple of recruits from Colorado about their thoughts on the game.
“It launched a two-hour back-and-forth with those guys, just talking about a bunch of different stuff and able to get across a little bit about who we are in the midst of those,” Moseman said. “You’ve gotta be able to mix in the personal stuff and just talking with who you are as a school and a program.”
Basketball coaches fight in a digital age to win over the next generation of student-athletes. That battle spans entire athletic and admissions departments.
Bethel built a new athletic facility, the Wellness Center, which opened in the fall of 2015. According to the school’s website, the reason for building this facility was because former fitness facilities are limited and that the Wellness Center will serve the entire community with one convenient, easily accessible location.
Improving Bethel’s athletic facilities was a priority. Coaches and administrators believe the Wellness Center impresses recruits and students.
For Moseman, facilities are a major aspect in any universities’ recruiting pitch and the attitude of student-athletes during the last few years has been the newer, the better.
“This generation is attracted to the newest and the best,” Moseman said, speaking about millennials. “They’re used to upgrades constantly. Their phone, their operating system, their laptop. We’re very much a consumeristic society.”
Schools within Bethel’s conference, the MIAC, would agree, based off their recent sport facility upgrades:
Augsburg: installed new FieldTurf Revolution surface for its football stadium (2013)
Carleton: renovated its football stadium (2012)
Concordia: renovated its football stadium (2010)
Gustavus Adolphus: built new golf facility (2015)
Hamline: added LifeFitness equipment to their fitness center (2010)
Macalester: built new athletic and wellness complex (2008)
St. John’s/St. Benedict’s: built new soccer field (2013)
St. Catherine’s: renovated fitness center (2015)
St. Mary’s: new tennis facility (2015)
St. Olaf: installed new floor in basketball court (2014)
St. Thomas: new field turf surface on soccer field (2013)
As competing schools have updated facilities in recent years, administrators in the athletic department recognized that their facilities needed to compete as much as their athletes do.
“I go to St. Thomas and they’ve done the investing. They give their athletes the best of everything.” Moseman said. “You come here and that’s not the case. It makes [recruits] think,“I just don’t think they love athletics here.””
The building of the Wellness Center addressed that issue.
“There was a recruitment strategy piece when the fitness center and locker rooms were being designed and constructed, sure,” Bethel Athletic Director Bob Bjorklund said. “That was maybe not the primary factor, but it was definitely a factor.”
While building new athletic facilities or updating them appears to be the new norm for colleges, getting athletes on campus begins with effective communication.
“Do I think I’m an expert at talking to 20-year-olds? Oh, no,” Bethel Athletic Director Bob Bjorklund said. “I just came back from an NCAA convention and it’s a topic that schools across the country are considering. They’re thinking about strategy when it comes to [recruiting millennials].”
In a society where 90 percent of people ages 18–29 in the U.S. use social media, communicating with teens online is a priority for Bethel. The Athletic Department has its own Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts, and also allows each individual sport have a presence on social media.
“Our social media platforms are recruiting first, engagement second, storytelling third,” Sports Information Director Jared Johnson said. “It’s always been about building a brand and our hope is that the brand would speak to all of our different audiences: recruits, current students and student athletes, alumni and parents.”
But Bethel coaches are finding other ways to communicate and gain the attention of their athletes. Men’s basketball coach Doug Novak promotes his own website and women’s hockey coach Brian Carlson writes letters every week to his recruits. The intent is to reach a group of people who have become prone to not keeping its focus on something for too long.
“In the midst of all the social media and websites, it still comes down to whether you can build a relationship with a kid and make him feel like he can be successful,” Moseman said. “You do that through communication, and communication has changed.”
