I had no interest in staying in Indiana for college. It wasn’t anything against the state, whose (pro) sports teams I still support and which I’m still quite fond of for reasons running the gamut from family to fresh corn on the cob, but I wasn’t a lifer to begin with in the Hoosier State and I knew I wasn’t going to live there long term. There were better college opportunities — and to a 17-year-old mind, more exciting places — than Bloomington, South Bend, Richmond or any of the other towns with liberal arts schools. (West Lafayette was out because, well, Brandon Phillips pretty much summed up how I feel about math and science).
All of which is a roundabout way of saying the notion of protecting recruiting turf has always seemed a little perplexing. Why should kids choosing college necessarily want to stay close to home? Then again, nobody from IU or Notre Dame was sending me letters and calling to tell me how much they wanted me to come be a part of the their history program.
Nevertheless, going local was big in college sports long before it caught on in foodies.
There are 12 states represented by more than one player on this year’s preseason Hermann Watch List (going by the hometown listed for each player), led by California with seven players. Only in the case of Massachusetts, with Boston College’s Kristie Mewis and Northeastern’s Devin Petta, did all of such a state’s products stay home for college. California also came close, losing only Ali Hawkins to North Carolina.
The following states failed to keep any of their players home for college:
Pennsylvania (UNC’s Amber Brooks, UVA’s Sinead Farrelly, JMU’s Teresa Rynier)
New York (BC’s Vicki DiMartino, UMD’s Jasyme Spencer)
Colorado (Portland’s Danielle Foxhoven and Kendra Chandhoke)
Missouri (ND’s Lauren Fowlkes, Neb.’s Morgan Marlborough)
Illinois (Stanford’s Rachel Quon, Texas’ Alexa Gaul)
Maryland (FSU’s Tiffany McCarty, PSU’s Christine Nairn)
Obviously, state lines can be a little random. James Madison isn’t in Pennslyvania, for example, but it’s no more of a hike from Rynier’s hometown than Pitt would be. And California has an advantage in a count like this based on the sheer volume of schools in the state. (Is someone going from San Diego to the Bay Area more indicative of “staying home” than going from New Jersey to Washington, D.C., as Georgetown’s Ingrid Wells did? Of course not.) But there it is.
For the tiniest bit of context, I went back and looked at the 2009 watch list. Here are the states that fared worse over the two-year period. I’ve only counted players once, so while Melissa Henderson was on the list both years, she only counts as a miss for Texas once.
Connecticut: 0-for-4
Pennsylvania: 0-for-4
Colorado: 1-for-5
New York: 1-for-5
Texas: 1-for-4
What does it mean? Probably not a heck of a lot with this small a sample size. Nevertheless, if we’re looking at why Texas has yet to truly take off under Chris Petrucelli, why Connecticut seems to be struggling to live up to its former standards and why Colorado can’t seem to get over the hump from consistent tournament team to consistent tournament factor, all the talent flowing out of those states is one place to start as part of a bigger complete picture.
Graham Hays 