North Carolina State University Athletics
Men's Tennis Coaches Hit the Recruiting Trail
8/11/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Aug. 11, 2004
Media relations intern Pat Norris interviewed Jon Choboy and Matt Halfpenny, the head and assistant coach for men's tennis. They discussed recruiting and their methods in bringing in players from across the state and in the world as well. After just finishing their second season at NC State, they have brought in 13 players over two years and have their team, with an assist from the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Complex, heading to the top of the ACC. Norris: How will the new J.W. Isenhour Tennis Complex help your job as head coach? Choboy: It's helped us because now we have a much better connection with our tennis players. They will be able to walk from their lockers straight on to the court. They can save time when we go out to work individually or with the team. Our whole base of operation is now out of this facility, which is where we spend 95% of our time, working with our players and work in our offices. Having the ability to walk straight out of our offices and be on the court to work with our players. We can practice year round without having to worry about the weather, and we can also practice on the same surface that we will be playing on. For the last two years, the only indoor courts available to us on a limited basis (Raleigh Racquet Club), were clay courts. Now we have indoor hard courts, which are the same courts we will play on year round. Norris: Talk about the recruiting you do during the year. Halfpenny: I first travelled to Daytona then went to Carboro for the Southern Open Championship. I just got back from a trip to Columbia, S.C., then going to Kalamazoo, Michigan for the biggest senior tournament, the USTA. It's been a good summer and have been recruiting. We are focusing in the state of North Carolina, and one of the top players we are looking at is in North Carolina. Coach Choboy made an in home visit and we want to focus our attention on fewer players to add to the large class we just signed, with seven then six over the last two years. We still have a few areas we can address. During the year we might go do home visits, and watch the kids train with their coaches. Those trips might last only a day or two at time. During the summer we might spend four or five days and 8-12 hours a day watching these tournaments. Choboy: Two years ago we had 35 official visits and half a dozen home visits. Last year we had 20 official visits. That is more than any program has, but we were starting from almost scratch. Halfpenny: We will have kids just show up and pop in with interest in playing. We treat them just as we would anyone else. We always make the time to make sure a kid as a good experience when they are here and at NC State in general. Choboy: When we recruit, regardless of the ranking of the player or where they are on our recruiting board to make sure that their best official visit is here. We want their best, most organized and informative official visit here at NC State. Word of mouth is big. They might have a younger brother or friend in their area that could hear about NC State. A kid might go elsewhere, but they could tell their friend of relatives, "Hey, I went to the national champion, but when I went to NC State, that was a great visit". We want to make the decision to not come to NC State a tough one. Norris: How important is it to get local North Carolina kids on your team? Choboy: Our recruiting philosophy has always been, and I think is clearly shown on our rosters, as focusing on getting the top players from the State each year, no matter which school I'm out. All of the top kids in the southern states we bring in here, and regardless of where they go to school, they have to come through us. We are making sure that the top kids from the southern states and North Carolina at least know of our interest and how important it is for us to recruit in state. Halfpenny: Having in state kids and in the southern states, that is important to our alumni and student body. To have local kids that former NC State players and alumni, and current students see these kids from their hometown, and it helps everyone relate.
