Episode #109: Ryan Callahan on Recruiting

🎙️  From the AD’s Chair: Ryan Callahan on Recruiting 

In Part 2 of my conversation with Ryan Callahan, Director of Athletics at UW-Whitewater, we focus entirely on the world of college recruiting—but from a perspective most families never hear. As an Athletic Director who has led programs and supported legendary coaches, Ryan shares what really happens behind the scenes of recruiting: what coaches and administrators look for, how decisions are made, and what recruits and parents should be doing right now to stand out.

If you’re a student-athlete, parent, or coach, this episode gives you insider clarity on how the process actually works—not the myths, not the message boards, but the reality straight from an AD’s chair.

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Episode Transcript

(00:09):
welcome back to The SignificantCoaching Podcast.
This is our recruiting segment,and I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Before we dive in, a quickreminder, if you haven't
already, make sure to favoritethis show.
Leave a comment and [e-mail].
That way you'll never miss anepisode, a recruiting tip or the
tools we're building to helpathletes, parents, and coaches.

(00:31):
Today's episode is part two ofmy conversation with Ryan
Callahan, Director of Athleticsat University of Wisconsin
Whitewater, and our focus is allabout college recruiting.
Ryan brings a rare perspective.
He's led as an athleticdirector, supported legendary
coaches.
He was a professional athlete.
He is an alumnus of theUniversity of Wisconsin

(00:52):
Whitewater, and he's seenfirsthand how recruiting
decisions, shape programs andfamilies alike in this half of
our discussion, Ryan sharesinsights from inside the
athletic director's chair, whatfamilies need to know, what
coaches are really looking for,and how the recruiting process
truly works behind the scenes.
If you're a recruit, a parent ora coach, this is a conversation

(01:15):
you don't wanna miss.
Let's get into part two withRyan Callahan.
Coach Callahan, so great to talkto you again.
I want to talk a little bitrecruiting let's start with how
you got recruited to Whitewater.
I want to hear that story.
Yeah.
I was born and raised inJanesville, Wisconsin.
Janesville was a it was aGeneral Motors town.

(01:36):
Yep.
It, I think it had one of theoldest plants in the country.
Strong tradition for a number ofsports.
So I think at an early age I wasfortunate to be around some
really good athletes, and thatwas, men and women.
When I was in high school, MistyBass was the state player of the
year in Wisconsin for basketballfor four years.
Went to Duke, WNBA, Terry Ryan,the GM for the Minnesota Twins

(01:59):
at the time as a JamesvilleParker guy.
Chris Keeland, his son just gotdrafted in the first round by
the Giants.
His dad was a Janesville guy,went to Southeast Missouri or
Louisiana State.
So I was fortunate where, youhear these stories about these
athletes from your town thatwere playing at a pretty high
level, which also means thatthere was people that were
watching that town, right?

(02:20):
People were there, they knew thenames.
And my coach.
At the time coached a lot ofthese guys that played division
one baseball.
They went to Purdue, like Isaid, Southeast Louisiana State,
some solid jucos Indian hillsout in Iowa, which you're
probably aware of.
Yeah.
So he was really impactful ifwith talking to coaches about,

(02:40):
Hey, check this guy out, checkthis guy out.
I was a pretty late bloomer man.
I was like five seven, fiveeight, a hundred and twenty
pounds.
Going into my senior year andwow.
Played three sports, soccer,hockey, baseball.
Wasn't sure which one I reallywanted to pursue.
And my baseball coach had a goodrelationship with Jim Miller,
who used to be the coach uphere.

(03:02):
Said, Hey, see what happens.
See if you can get this guy and.
Wanted to go close to home.
My dad was diagnosed with cancerin 20, or in 1998, so I
graduated in 99.
So I knew I wanted to stay closeto home, for family reasons and
everything else.
And that was my story.
It's traditional, butuntraditional, right?

(03:23):
It was a little bit late in thegame, but grateful that Jim
Miller and Whitewater gave me achance and I was getting looked
at by, some other jucos and someother schools.
The funniest thing is that Iactually wrote letters to three
other WIC schools that didn'tlet me in.
So now I give their coachesgrief in saying, man, I could be
the ad at Lacrosse or Oshkosh orSteven's Point if you would've
let me in.

(03:44):
No kidding.
I love that.
From an ad's perspective, how doyou talk to your coaches about
recruiting?
Matt, this is really tough.
This is tough.
It's a lot different.
So I'll give you, so I'm 44years old.
Back in the day you played, youryouth organization, whether it
was basketball or whatever itwas, and now it's such a

(04:06):
different beast now.
Volleyball, some of the sportslike volleyball, they've always
had a strong club scene.
So you knew that if you playedfor the Milwaukee Sting and
you're on their A team, you'reprobably gonna be a pretty high
level Division one fringe,division two high level division
three player.
The sting team number two.
Now baseball's gone to a veryclub.
Model where some of the bestplayers in the state are playing

(04:28):
with different clubs and notnecessarily on their high school
team basketball.
Think back in the day when youknow Matt, for you, there
might've been two AAU teams inthe state.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I would've had to drive threehours to play AAU in my, yeah,
my In the eighties and NI in theearly nineties.
Yeah.
And nowadays, like I think my9-year-old son who's never
played basketball is asked toplay au.

(04:49):
It's everywhere.
It is, so I think the firstthing you have to do is you have
to maintain those relationshipswith the coaches that you trust.
We're, whitewater is, ourflagship programs are education
and business.
So a lot of our folks thatgraduate that wanna stay within
athletics are going intoeducation.
They're going into coaching andteaching and everything else.

(05:11):
So having those relationshipswith your alum, where, you know,
if they're coaching inGreenfield, Wisconsin, whether
or not you have somebody thatcan play.
Let me talk to you about theteams that you're playing this
year.
That's right.
So then you can not only coach,but help me evaluate some of
these, if it's a soccer player,Hey, can you watch Heartland
Har, Heartland, Arrowhead?
They got this, outside back, ornumber 10 take, lemme know if

(05:34):
she can play at our level, sohaving those networks, it's no
different than the professionalside, right?
That's right.
If you have a network that knowssomebody who's knows somebody
that can get you in contact.
That's just like our coaches.
So making sure they're buildingtheir network of high school
coaches and club coaches thatthey're honest with them, which
ultimately turns into a trustrelationship.

(05:55):
And we're fortunate that we'vehad a lot of success in in, in
many of our sports over the last20 years.
So now you're getting some ofthese coaches that.
Club coaches specifically, theywanna send their kids to
division one, right?
It's a resume boost.
Come play here.
I got 15 kids going to divisionone, but they also wanna send'em
to some of the higher level dthrees.
And we're in that category of,if you can have a kid play for

(06:15):
your club and say that they wantto EW whitewater, that's a
feather in their cap too, theother thing that we talk a lot
about is, I think there's alevel of.
And coach Guard talked aboutthis and I thought he did a
great job of building your team,which is your identity.
Going out and getting somerenegades,'cause they can play

(06:36):
doesn't mean that it's alwaysgonna work.
So you have to find out whatlevel, what you know, plug and
play, which, what?
What type of student athlete doyou want?
What are their strengths?
What are their weaknesses?
I joked with my basketballcoach, I get these emails from
these kids from Croatia that saythey can ball, and I'm like,
Hey, jokingly check'em out.

(06:57):
He's Ryan, he's a five 10 guard.
I don't need any more.
Five 10 guards, yep.
Evaluating talent that way whereit's okay, I know in three years
I'm going to, I'm gonna lose my,six five wing.
Then you better recruit a 6, 4,6 5 wing, so then you can
replace it.
So having that recruiting planno different than the facility

(07:18):
plan that we were talking in theearliest earlier segment and
making sure that, you're gettingthe right.
The right people.
Yeah.
I fully believe in diversity, Ifully believe in equity and
giving people the opportunitythat might not look like me,
might not have the same historyas me, might not have the same
backstory as me, but givingpeople a chance to succeed at

(07:39):
our level, I think is prettyspecial.
And if you look at a lot of ourrosters, we're gonna look very
different than other schools.
I take pride in that, we'regonna recruit for more of the
cities, we're gonna recruitrecruits for more of the bigger
cities, where it's more diverseand let's not shy away from
that.
Let's embrace that.
That's right.
But if we're going to embracethat and we're gonna be
intentional, then my campus hasto buy in and support everybody.

(08:01):
And that's where we're prettylucky.
We do have a very, a solidsupport system at Whitewater.
So if you're coming from,Podunk, Wisconsin, rural town,
or if you're coming from theinner city of Chicago or
Milwaukee.
Hey, we're gonna support you.
We're gonna serve you, and we'regonna get you outta this place
with a degree.
Yeah.
We're gonna teach you how tocare about each other, even
though you're from differentplaces and a hundred percent.

(08:21):
And that's the beauty of sport.
Yeah.
Talk a little bit about camps.
How important are camps to yourcoaches and from your
perspective that your coachesare running camps, not just to
find talent, but to create thatculture with the community and
build that embrace of thecommunity.
Yeah, and I think, we talkedabout earlier if you're gonna

(08:42):
have a program, then you gottasupport your program.
And we're fortunate where ourbudgets for our varsity teams
probably are about 60 to 70% ofwhat we're gonna spend.
So we have to find ways tofundraise.
And we're lucky, we've had somereally successful camps over the
last 30, 40 years, and a lot ofthose camps are gonna generate
revenue to subsidize, theshortages in our operating

(09:05):
budget.
But it's a great way to get thecommunity involved.
Work with the local boys andgirls clubs, work with the
Whitewater Youth soccer.
Get'em over here, get'empracticing, get'em working,
getting on our facilities.
If you walk into Perkins Stadiumwhere we play football, we got.
Man, we've had lacrosse camps inthere.
We've had boys soccer, we've hadgirls soccer, we've had

(09:27):
obviously football camp inthere.
We'll do some softball stuff inthere.
We'll do some baseball stuff inthere, showcase those
facilities.
And I think the other part ofthat is getting those young
people excited about college.
That's right.
I'm a firm believer in highereducation.
The better educated we are, thebetter our society is.
And if we can get some of thoseyoung people to come to our
campus, and even if they don'tgo to Whitewater, that's fine,

(09:47):
but if they're like, can't.
I wanna go to co, I wanna go toWhitewater, I wanna go to
wherever.
Sure.
That's a great experience.
So really the focal is, thefocal point is obviously gonna
bring'em in, get'em a greatexperience.
'cause a lot of those kids, thisis the first time they're on a,
they're on a college campus.
And the last thing I want isthese kids to walk away from a
college campus, going back totheir parents and it's that

(10:08):
stunk.
Yeah.
I don't wanna go to collegeanymore if that's what it's
like, so a lot of it it'sgetting'em on campus, getting'em
excited for their future.
Yeah.
Letting our coaches hopefullymake some money to, to support
their program.
Provide a little relief in thefundraising aspect.
And then the other one is, it'sa great way to, have some of
your recruits come to campus andget a taste of what it's like.

(10:32):
Yeah.
If you're going to play,football at UW lacrosse, and I
go to a camp there and I'm like,eh, it wasn't that great.
Guess what?
That's probably how it's gonnabe.
On the flip side of that, if yougo to lacrosse football camp and
you think it's great, thenthat's, then you made the right
decision.
So it's just, it's huge for ourregion.
And we're, our tennis camps havebeen going strong.
If you Google Wisconsin tenniscamps, I'm pretty sure we're the

(10:53):
number one hit that you're gonnaget.
Our volleyball camps are sellingout every single week.
Our coaches do a great job.
So it's just, the other part ofthis too is like the community
service aspect, and I'm probablylight on my coaches with
community service because I knowthey work so hard in the summer.
With summer camps and workingyouth camps, and that to me is

(11:15):
community service as well.
It's for sure.
Yeah.
I'm interested in, I'm alwaysinterested in talking to
eighties about.
Their expectations that theyprovide to coaches about
recruiting in terms of numbersand where roster sizes you, you
and your chancellor want thatroster size to be, but also what

(11:36):
that roster, you talked aboutdiversity, but.
What that roster looks like interms of the character that you
want represented.
And you touched on that a littlebit too.
What are those conversationslike when you're talking to your
coaches, whether it's a staffmeeting or your one-on-one
meetings with your head coaches?
Yeah, so we have a roster planthat that, that predates me, I
don't know how many years, butwhat I tell my coaches a lot is

(12:00):
I want you to have a manageableroster for what staff level you
have.
So I'll give you an example.
My, we have a bowling coach abowling team.
And our bowling coach is ultrasuccessful.
She was like the division onebowler of the year a couple
years ago.
National champion.
Crazy good.
So she's a new coach a freshcoach, tons of talent.

(12:22):
I can't give her 20 bowlers as a50% coach.
That's not fair.
That's right.
I also don't want to give.
Require my football team who hasprobably the largest staff, 225,
because that's not fair either.
So we try to have thoseconversations with the coaches
to say, women's soccer, what doyou want?

(12:43):
Men's soccer, what do you want?
Softball, baseball track, men'sand women's.
What do you want?
Let's try to figure out how wecan manage that roster while
maintaining title IX compliancewith proportionality and
everything else.
I don't want you to go to thedivision one model where
they're, golf has eight players.
We're not gonna go there.

(13:04):
Let's see what we can do.
So you're not going crazy.
You're not getting burned outand you want to come back next
year and coach.
That's right.
Yeah.
And we're and we're a little bitdifferent than some of those
schools that we were talkingabout previously, where we're
not 60% of the incoming classesathletes.
We have, I don't know, 9,000undergraduates.
We have about 600 athletes.

(13:25):
Yeah.
So if I go from, five 50 to six10.
That doesn't necessarily movethe needle a ton, in the overall
enrollment space.
And I wanna stay in that.
I wanna stay right there.
I just have a hard time.
If I'm not staffing my, if I'mnot staffing my teams in a
certain level, then how can Iask them to get more, take more

(13:47):
players?
We always fall back on thestudent athlete experience,
right?
Yep.
How are you gonna have apositive student athlete
experience?
Matt, if you and I are number 41and 42 on the baseball team I've
been saying that for years.
I, I don't know how you keepthat many kids happy.
I don't know how you go into itthinking you're gonna keep that
many happy.
You can't.

(14:08):
Yeah, you can't.
Or, and then it's a safety issuetoo.
Maybe it's not, maybe it's nothappy.
You're right.
It's a safety issue, but it'salso a developmental issue.
Yeah.
Okay.
We have eight coaches, but westill only have one field.
We have only so many cages.
You're only getting so many repswhen you got 45 kids or 42 kids
on a field.
Yeah.

(14:28):
And it's tough.
One of our, one of our friendstheir softball coach, and we
were talking rosters and not tothrow out any names, but she
gave me their roster that theywould like her to have.
I'm like, especially in softballI know, you need four pitchers
all year.
You don't need eight.
That's right.

(14:48):
You don't need 10.
That's right.
You need four.
So how can you possibly have asoftball roster that's at 40?
We hosted a volleyball team lastyear.
I'll never forget this.
We put out 20 chairs on theopposing on each side of scores
table.
There were volleyball playersthat were sitting in the first
two rows of the bleachers.
'cause that's how many playersthey had on the team.

(15:09):
Oh my gosh.
What does that budget look like?
That they could travel with thatmany kids?
Your numbers.
On a volleyball team, if you'renumber 17 through 30, I don't
get that either.
That's tough.
That's tough.
I don't get that at all.
What do you want from character?

(15:29):
Is there that conversation aboutwhat we want, that whitewater
kid.
To look like, not so much lookbut how they represent who you
are.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think it's gonna bedifferent, right?
I think, when you get some ofthese kids that are 17, 18 years
old, they don't know, they don'tknow what it's like.
Yeah.
Part of my job and thisfirsthand, is you gotta deal

(15:50):
with some from, with somecompliance.
I've had people that have comeinto my office and we're talking
about a situation and they juststart bawling.
They made a bad decision.
Yeah.
Like I don't want that to impactthe rest of their life, and I'm
not saying, cry your way out ofa ticket, you can tell in some
of these conversations thatlike, those people felt really

(16:10):
bad.
Yeah.
And you have some other kidsthat are like, whatever, man.
It's I think you're gonna screwup again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They don't really have remorsefor what they did.
That's right.
We talk about that threshold ofyou can only have so many people
have that have this attitudebefore it just becomes con it's
a cancer.
That's right.
You can have a couple peoplethat, that, that.

(16:33):
Might have a certain ability,but they don't have the best
personality that melts, mesheswith the team.
But once you get over athreshold, that's when you lose
a team.
That's right.
So that's a lot of what we talkabout is, if transfers.
Famously one of one of mymentors always said, everybody
transfers for a reason.
Now this is before the portal,so take that with a grain of

(16:55):
salt.
And every transfer that we'veever had.
They'd been right.
What happened?
Oh, I didn't get along with thecoach.
Was that you were the coach, ohI didn't get along with the, the
players and come to find out itwas our guy that didn't get
along with the players.
It wasn't the players thatdidn't get along with him.
With her.
So we talk a lot about that.

(17:16):
And the other thing is, I tellall my coaches, you're spending
that much time with theseplayers.
Do you really want to be arounda jerk?
Do you really want to?
Yeah.
There's a lot of good athletesthat out there that are just
really nice people.
Yeah.
And being young and naive isdifferent than the other side of

(17:39):
that.
That's right.
So it's really figuring outwhat, who they are as people.
And I think at our level,recruiting is a little bit
different, like at the divisionone level, you go on an official
visit, for a couple days.
And our old football coach, hisdaughter was a successful
division one basket orvolleyball player, and he was
telling me, he's going toMinnesota and Wisconsin and all
the Big 10 schools and he'sthey're recruiting my wife and I

(18:02):
more than they're recruiting mydaughter.
'cause they're trying to figureout how crazy we are.
Yeah.
And I'm like, I never heardthat.
But I think that's true isyou're not just recruiting the
child.
You're recruiting the parentstoo.
That's right.
'cause a lot of it, the appledoesn't fall far from the tree.
So you're trying to figure outwhat are the parents like.
'cause that's something that Ican deal with for the next four
or five years, yeah.
You know that as a coach in anad, it only takes one parent

(18:26):
that doesn't get it.
To really hurt a season and tohurt the coach long term.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
There's a great quote last onethat our baseball coach uses.
It's not who you can win with,it's who you can lose with.
That's right.
And that's what's great coachand I tell our coach, our
coaches that all the time wewanna win and I wanna win.
I never wanna be the ad thattakes over when Whitewater lost

(18:48):
its reign over, certain sports.
But when it's all said and done,who can you walk away from a
loss with?
And that's even for coaches too.
If a coach has a bad season, whocan I go through that with?
Yeah.
It's easy when you're winning.
Yeah.
You can win with anybody.
Yeah.
But once the, once their cardsare down and you're not having a
great hand, who can you dealwith that with?

(19:09):
Yeah.
Coach, I like to end therecruiting segment with a little
bit of advice to parents andkids that are going through that
recruiting journey.
Is there a piece of advice you'dgive to a parent out there
that's, that wants their kid toplay at White water?
Are their kids excited aboutweight, white water?
What direction would you givethem about playing at the next
level and getting there?

(19:30):
The biggest piece of advice Iwould give them is your child
has to want it more than you,if's you want it.
If you want it more than yourchild, it's not gonna happen.
Yeah, it's college sports are anabsolute grind, and I hate using
that word, but if you're not init, you're not gonna last.

(19:53):
No.
If your child doesn't want it,they're not gonna last.
You're waking up four days aweek at five to go out.
You're coming back to workout,you're hitting in the cages,
you're shooting free throws,you're in the pool, you're
wrestling one-on-one everysingle day.
Yeah.
So if your child wants it,they'll find a spot to play.

(20:15):
They will.
There's a place for everybody.
Yeah.
But if you wanna come toWhitewater and you think your
kid wants to come to Whitewater,but you want it more than your
child, white water's not theplace.
That's right.
I, yeah.
I wrote a book on recruiting andmy first chapter is Commitment
and I walk families through.
What that looks like as a parentand what that looks like as a

(20:35):
student athlete.
Because if you're not committed,you can forget everything else.
We don't have to talk aboutanything else.
You gotta be all in and yourkids gotta be the one that's
driving it, like you said.
How about a piece of advice forthat 16, 17, 8-year-old that
really wants to play in college?
Maybe they're at Leanna, maybethey're at Janesville, they're
at a smaller town and they don'tget all the attention.

(20:55):
What advice do you give them?
To get the attention of yourcoaches or to get the attention
of college coaches?
Yeah, I think the first thing isthat I'm a firm believer in
reaching out personally to theco to the coaches, with the, the
iPhones or whatever phone youhave, like the video's pretty
clear.
Like I, Matt, I think you and Icould probably make a highlight
film.
It might take us a little bit,but we could probably do it.

(21:17):
It might take both of us.
Yes.
But yes, I agree.
We'll get it done.
Yeah.
There's ways that you can recordyour son or daughter.
Competing, whatever that is.
And I would encourage, clippingsome of those together and
putting some footage together.
And it, hopefully your highschool coach is supportive.
Having them let a write a letterof rec and having the student be

(21:37):
the person contacting the coach,having that that, that
initiative, that respect have,that maturity, whatever you
wanna call it.
Reaching out to these coaches,and you're exactly right.
If you're from a small town andyou wanna do some things, it is
a lot harder, right?
Because you have more, so muchmore access in the larger towns

(21:58):
of, we'll say 60,000 and above.
You're gonna have, more sports,you're gonna have more travel
opportunities.
I think if you're looking at areally high level, people will
find you.
It doesn't matter how small thetown is.
Like they, you will be found,with huddle and football.
And obviously if you're thinkingswimming, cross country and
track, those times are yourtimes.

(22:19):
And those distances are yourdistances.
That's right.
So there's a lot of sports whereit's very, I don't wanna say
it's easy'cause nothing's easy,but your metrics are right
there.
Yeah.
If you're a miler.
Your mile is this time.
You know where you're at in thestate Honor roll.
That's right.
You probably know where you'reat in the Midwest.
You probably know where you'reat nationally.
Yeah.
So if you're there, you can sendthose out to the coaches.

(22:40):
As far as some, some of the ballsports like soccer, baseball,
softball, football.
I think that's where it's alittle bit more of, you have to
do it organically.
Cut some film for yourself, sendit out to the prospective
coaches.
Be diligent.
Just because a coach doesn't getback to you within five minutes,
like a text message from yourbuddy.
It's okay.

(23:00):
That's right.
That doesn't mean that they justdeleted it and if they did
delete it, send it to'em again.
That's right.
You talked about camps.
Go to a camp.
Yeah.
If you wanna play baseball at cocollege, call the coach at co
college and say, Hey, I'm fromthis town.
I'm in Iowa, I wanna playbaseball for you.
You know what can I do?
So there's things that you cando.

(23:21):
There's the technology that'sout there.
There's also more people thatare trying to get some of those
spots.
And the other thing I will say,and I really believe this, is
that every year that pyramidgets smaller and smaller.
People quit.
People decide that they want togo to, they want to go to a
trade school.
People decide that they want togo work for this company or
corporation or whatever it is,so by the time you get to your
senior year.

(23:42):
There's enough baseball playersat most schools to have a
freshman baseball team or afreshman basketball team.
There's probably only three orfour seniors left.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's across the, that'sacross the country.
That's right.
So just getting to senior yearof com competition, that's
something to be proud of.
Now if you wanna go past that,you can.

(24:03):
You gotta do some of thosethings.
And I really believe, there'senough good people out there
that are doing their hard work,they're putting in time.
Talent will find itself.
There's gonna be a college coachwho's buddies with your high
school coach, who's buddies withthis person that says, Hey, you
gotta check out this softballpitcher, from Nebraska.
Yeah.
And here you go.

(24:25):
Yeah.
It's a grind and it's changed alot over the last 20 years.
I don't know if it's changed forthe better, but the recruiting
nets have gotten a lot further.
Yeah.
When I was recruiting forbaseball in the, 2008 to 14, if
I'd looked at a kid from 30miles away, there was no chance
that there was a division oneschool that was reaching out to

(24:45):
them.
And now all of a sudden thedivision one nets are so wide.
Yeah, they're so expansive.
And they're taking some of thosekids from, rural Wisconsin,
which good for them, right?
Good for them.
But now it's even morecompetitive, all over the
country.
So you gotta be really tryingnot to get recruited today.

(25:06):
It's so easy to put yourself outthere and say, Hey, I'm here.
Would you take a look at me?
It's a lot easier than it was 30years ago when I was going
through this.
No.
And they have the recruitingcompanies and that's tough,
right?
Yeah.
I talk to a lot of coaches andsome say, oh yeah, I'll take a
look at it.
And others say, I don't evenlook at it.
Yeah.
And those are a lot of money.
It is.
They're a lot of money for thoseparents to put into that.

(25:29):
And, from what I've heard is, ofcourse, the, of course the
recruiting company's gonna tellyou how good your child is.
'cause you're paying them to dothat.
So if you're a coach, you'relike that's not really.
Unbiased.
Yeah.
You paid 2,500 bucks for thiscompany to tell me how good your
child is.
Yeah.
They should'cause you paid 2,500bucks.
Yeah.
But I don't know.
It's if you want it.

(25:51):
You can get it.
It's just a it's gonna be somework.
I agree.
I agree.
Ryan, it's been such a pleasuretalking to you.
Everything.
I hoped we would get outta thisconversation we did and more,
and I'm so thankful that there'speople like you leading athletic
departments.
'cause you've got such a bigheart, such a great soul.

(26:11):
And I want families tounderstand.
That's 99% of athletics isreally great.
People that are your neighborthat you'd see at a barbecue are
running athletic departments andcoaching these teams.
They're good people.
And I don't want parents afraid.
I don't want parents and kidsafraid to reach out and say,
Hey, we're interested, or Wewant to come watch a game
because they're, it.

(26:32):
It'd be such a value for them tobe a part of a school like UW
Whitewater.
Oh, a hundred percent.
We're lucky.
We got 16 head coaches, and I'llbe comfortable having all of
them as my emergency contacts.
Yeah, it's pretty special.
Thank you for doing this.
I wish you guys all the best ofluck and we'll be cheering for
you as you continue to ride thisgreat run of success you've had.
Appreciate it, Matt.

(26:52):
You have a good one.
You too.
Thanks.
And that's a wrap of part two ofmy conversation with Ryan
Callahan here on the SignificantRecruiting Podcast.
I hope you picked up on thedepth of his perspective, how
recruiting isn't just aboutfilling rosters, but about
finding the right fit forathletes, families, and
programs.
If you're a recruit or a parentwalking through this journey,

(27:13):
take Ryan's advice to heart.
Understand what coaches andathletic directors are really
looking for.
Be intentional in yourcommunication and remember that
the best opportunities come whenyou know your value and where
you belong.
As always, if you haven'talready, make sure to favorite
this show.
Leave a comment [e-mail].

(27:34):
That's where you'll find thefull library of podcast
episodes, weekly recruiting tipsand resources like my
significant recruiting book andthe new recruits journals.
Thanks again to Ryan for sharinghis insights and thank you for
listing.
Until next time, stay focused,stay humble, and be significant.