The word "Holiday" can assume different connotations depending on how it applies to you and/or to a certain time of the year.

The obvious consideration is to call Holidays the "usual" ones coming up in a day to a couple of weeks, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's Eve, etc. and be done with that. But, to me, the word "Holidays" has a different and happier association this season.

First and foremost, I will be spending some time with my wife, something I haven't done in almost a year, and second, I will watch a lot of soccer! The fact that Florida is the final destination won't hurt either.

Three major tournaments are taking place in Florida during the Christmas break. The Tampa Bay Sun Bowl; The Disney Show Case in Orlando, and the Boca Beach Expo in Boca Raton, plus several friendly matches organized by some Miami Soccer Clubs, whose DOC are good contacts of mine. I will be traveling around recruiting for about two weeks and then I will, FINALLY, relax with my wife in Santa Maria Island, a beautiful isthmus of land along the West Florida Coast.

I am looking forward to bringing home several dozen names of good student/athletes who have what it takes to becoming a Little Soccer Giant!

Together with my recruiting contacts, I am also looking forward to bringing back a sun tan and recharged batteries. God only knows how low they really are right now. It has been a good year and it has been a tough year. I need a rest.

I want to wish everyone a healthy, loving, and peaceful Holiday Season...whatever that means to you! See you in 2007!

Posted by Roberto Giannini at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Temperature: 29 degrees. Wind: 25 miles per hour. Sky: gray and gloomy.  And they say that watching soccer games for the purpose of recruiting is an easy job!

Well, Assistant Coach Jeff Oleck didn't think that way this past weekend when he traveled to Memphis, Tennessee to attend the nationally ranked Germantown Invitational Showcase.  I don't have pictures to show, but for what I was told by other colleagues attending the event, Jeff looked like the Michelin man, bundled all up in a goose down coat, knit cap, scarf, and gloves.

Teams from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and other Midwest states competed against each other for two days, showing a great deal of soccer skills and the determination to play college ball.

Several hot chocolates and a wind-burned face later, Jeff returned home with a nice list of potential soccer recruits to add to the ongoing list of '07 grads we have been scouting since last April. We are at the beginning of our second scouting cycle, at the end of which we should have been able to identify another two hundred players, bringing the total for the '07 grads to about four hundred potential recruits.  

Four hundred seems I large number, if you look at it in the grand scheme of things, but that's the nature of recruiting at the Div. III level. Some of these student/athletes are definitely difference makers, both in the classroom and on the soccer pitch.

Hopefully, they will see what a special place Wabash is and decide to become some Little Giants.

That's how this place works; one student at the time.

Posted by Roberto Giannini at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)