In NAIA, recruiting abroad vital for volleyball

COLUMBIA — Columbia College volleyball coach Melinda Wrye-Washington sits at her desk and watches a low-quality video on her PC. The video is of a Chinese volleyball player spiking ball after ball into the ground.

The awkward angles and jerkiness of the camera are reminiscent of old home movies parents might have of their child’s sporting events.

But Wrye-Washington isn’t watching a home movie. She’s looking at a potential Cougar signee for next season.

So goes international volleyball recruiting at the NAIA level.

Coaching at a larger university such as MU allows a coach to travel overseas to watch potential recruits, a luxury that Columbia College cannot afford.

“We try not to just bring somebody over just based on what we see on the videotape,” MU volleyball coach Wayne Kreklow said. “If we can’t see them personally then we try to contact other people that know them to try to get an idea of what exactly this person is like before we bring them over.”

Despite not being able to watch many of her players in person before signing them, Wrye-Washington says that she has never been deceived by what she has seen on video and, in many cases, has been pleasantly surprised with the skill levels of her recruits. She says she relies on connections she has made both with other coaches from around the world and former players to inform her of foreign players who might want to play for Columbia College.

International volleyball recruiting has exploded since Wrye-Washington started coaching at Columbia College in 2000. In her first season with the Cougars, Wrye-Washington said only a small handful of teams had players from outside the United States. Now you’d be hard pressed to find a team without at least one international player, and many teams, such as defending NAIA national champion National American, are made up almost entirely of foreign players.

Seven of the 11 players on National American’s roster are from Brazil and coach Todd Lowery, who is in his sixth season with the team, says the team actually increased its number of American players this season. Lowery cites American players’ desires to play at an NCAA Division I program as a major reason why his program is forced to recruit overseas.

“There is a misconception that the NCAA is a lot better than the NAIA,” Lowery said. “And that prevents us from getting the same caliber of athlete as we are able to get overseas.”

The boom in international recruiting might come as a surprise to some who are familiar with NAIA recruiting regulations. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Government made it more difficult to obtain a visa to enter into the country.

Wrye-Washington says that obtaining visas for her players has been the most challenging aspect of recruiting abroad. Since she has been coaching at Columbia College, she says that several of her players have been denied their requests to obtain visas for unknown reasons.

“A lot of that is just how do they feel at the embassy today,” Wrye-Washington said. “They can really be jerks sometimes. We tell all our girls to be very humble, don’t make eye contact when you walk in, keep your head down, because if they don’t like how you look they don’t even look at it, they just stamp ‘denied’ and tell you to get out. It’s really unfortunate.”

Sophomore middle hitter Maria Omondi came to Columbia College after playing for the Kenyan National Team. She remembers the process of acquiring a visa being a nerve-racking experience. Omondi said she waited at the embassy in Kenya for around five hours before she was finally able to obtain her visa.

“I was really nervous because they say ‘no’ to more people than they say ‘yes’ to, and sometimes they ask very tough questions,” Omondi said.

There were also rule changes concerning taxation of foreign students that have made it more expensive for international athletes to attend a college or university in the United States. Prior to Sept. 11, Wrye-Washington said that if an athlete was on full scholarship, then expenses such as tuition and room and board were minimal. Now students are taxed on every scholarship dollar they receive, amounting to nearly $1,200 every year. In addition to taxes, athletes are also now required to pay for their own health insurance, another very costly expense.

The NAIA also implemented a gap eligibility rule after Sept. 11, which prevents schools from signing older players who had yet to compete professionally. Prior to the rule, Wrye-Washington would regularly sign older, more seasoned national team players.

Even though the rule changes have made recruiting abroad more challenging, Wrye-Washington says teams have continued recruiting in foreign countries out of necessity, because of a growing decline in the number of talented volleyball players in the U.S.

“I feel like the number of talents is decreasing,” Wrye-Washington said. “The actual talent level itself in the United States is getting better overall. The (U.S.) National Team is getting better. We are producing better American athletes, but there are just fewer volleyball players.”

“I think it is because volleyball is a dominant sport in Europe and in South America and here it’s not,” Wrye-Washington said. “Here it’s softball and soccer for girls and basketball. Volleyball kind of gets whatever’s left over.”