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.