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Gill wins recruits the right way

By Jayson Jenks

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Outside the windows of Reggie Mitchell’s office sit the tangible products of an improved program:

Two sharp-green turf practice fields and a high-definition video screen still under construction.

But when talking to recruits, those items are nothing more than props. They aren’t the end-all reason for a football recruit to attend Kansas. They aren’t the main selling point.

“The thing that’s really going to help us is Turner Gill,” said Mitchell, Kansas’ recruiting coordinator. “People make the place; the place doesn’t make the people.”

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Photo by Ryan Waggoner

Coach Turner Gill speaks to news reporters at the Kansas Sports Museum in Newton earlier this year. Gill has been winning over new recruits with his genuine approach and interest in building strong relationships with players.

At the start of Kansas football’s new era — at a time when two Big 12 coaches left last season under allegations of verbal and physical abuse — Gill carries a reputation of being a man with high character. He is respected as much for the way he handles himself as he is for his ability to build a Buffalo program from disjointed scraps.

You’ve heard similarly-themed declarations before: He’s a man with a strong religious spine. He preaches the importance of an education, of building relationships and of using football as a platform to transform young men.

These ideas have been spread throughout college football so frequently and are normally considered cliché. But when Mitchell or any Kansas assistant speaks with possible recruits, they always pass these ideas along.

“People don’t believe it when they hear it,” Mitchell said. “But then you have to sit down and talk to him and understand that that’s what he’s about.”

From the beginning, Gill is part of the recruiting process. He develops guidelines for recruitable players. He evaluates every player offered or, in many cases, not offered scholarships.

And when a recruit and his family visit campus, he meets with them.

“Really it is like a relay, but he’s in it from the very beginning,” Mitchell said. “There are three phases of recruiting and he’s in every single phase. He’s in the evaluation part, he’ll call and e-mail them and then, in the end, if he needs to close it out, he’ll close it out.”

It’s these moments — when recruit-coach interaction simply becomes a back-and-forth exchange between two people — when Gill most connects with recruits.

“It’s good because they get a chance to see him out of the football part,” Mitchell said. “He gets to sell himself as a man and as a person.”

With less than a month between hiring his staff on Jan. 5 and national signing day for recruits on Feb. 3, Gill had little time to sell Kansas football.

But with the recruiting process for the 2011 and 2012 classes well underway, Gill and his staff will soon reveal their ability to persuade players in the competitive world of recruiting.

“Some people talk about it, but he lives it,” Mitchell said. “He walks it. Some kids, depending on their upbringing, are going to fall in line right away. And then some kids you have to win over. But I think that he gives us an edge when we go into a prospect’s home.”

When Crystal Miller officially met Turner Gill in February, she knew little about the man whose office she was sitting in. She only knew that Gill wanted her son, Darrian, a high school junior from Blue Springs, Mo., who verbally committed to Kansas less than a month later, to play football.

Because of this, Miller had no preconceived ideas about the newly hired coach.

“I didn’t really have any questions off the top of my head because he was so new to us,” Miller said.

But Miller, a single parent, realized she and Gill shared similar values, such as putting school first and expecting self-accountability. She and her son soon developed an almost glowing respect for Gill and his principles on football and life.

“It’s contagious,” Miller said. “I see why parents really do love him from the first visit.”

Yet parents don’t make commitments to play football. In fact, Mitchell said many parents won’t push their kids into making a decision.

In that case, Gill, or any coach, must not only engage with parents still obsessed with Earth, Wind and Fire but also with 17- and 18-year-olds who have grown up in the age of Grand Theft Auto and Go Daddy commercials.

“I want somebody that I can look up to,” said Dexter McDonald, who signed with Gill’s first recruiting class at Kansas. “He leads by example. Everything he says, he does. That’s the type of guy that I want to be when I’m older.”

Similar to McDonald, Darrian Miller was heavily recruited by Mitchell. But he, too, needed the head coach to seal the deal.

“He explained the blueprint of what he was trying to do with the program, and I was eating it all up,” Miller said. “It was everything that I wanted.”

Miller’s mom, Crystal, was also impressed with Gill, but hesitates to explain why exactly.

She stumbles for a moment, begins explaining and then starts laughing through the phone.

Problem is, she can’t find the right words.

“And I’m rarely at a loss for words,” Miller said. “He is that convincing. He is.”

— Edited by Sarah Bluvas

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