"Total for the Year: $200"

by Craig Cirbus

In 1982 and 1983, when I was working in downtown Buffalo for Hatch Associates, I was a part-time assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for Bill Dando. When I started recruiting I said to Bill, "Okay, coach, what's the budget?" He said, "Total for the year: $200."

There's a college recruiting night on Long Island every year. So, I took a $19 People's Express flight to New York, rented a car, and set up a table with all the paraphernalia and pamphlets. I used about a quarter of the budget on that trip.

Then, on recruiting weekends we brought students and families in from Western New York and all over, but we couldn't afford to pay for their mileage or expenses. Each week one coach would take a turn buying donuts. We would meet in the training room early Saturday morning and feed them donuts. But we would make sure we were always done before they got too hungry, so we wouldn't have to feed them again. We'd show them around the school, and we were all fired up because the campus was new and Alumni Arena had just been built.

I also remember sending out mailings. Secretly, I would make photocopies of questionnaires at my work, because we didn't have a photocopy machine in the Athletic department. We couldn't make recruiting calls either - there wasn't any long distance - so I had to do it from home.

I would send out about 200 letters and bundle them up. Then at the end of the day, I would walk down to Hayes Annex, where I knew they were sending out mail to prospective students. Because we couldn't afford stamps, I used to wrap them up and hide them with the other mail that was being submitted for postage from the Admissions office. We got it done somehow.