let's go back into high school when did you get started to thinking about college was it freshman year senior year when did it all sore for you i really started seriously software year this was going going through the college process and played a lot of golf tournaments and kind of figured out where i want to go to school and if i want to play and at what level i could play and you know was kind of trying to get better and trying to improve my game and to see where where i could play now that you get recruited at the school you know i didn't i wasn't i wasn't that good i was a good junior player but i wasn't heavily recruited i probably could have played college golf at a d two or d three level or maybe a smaller division one school but when the time came to choose i really had kind of lost interest in playing time and often was more interested in coaching and teaching really at six so you ended up going right to university  it what was some the activities you did it right or university did you play golf i didn't play golf i was actually teaching when i was in school when you teach you can't play like i said my interest to become more about teaching and coaching so i was working for the marshall kind of golf academy at the time and i was doing a lot of stuff with juniors and i was just studying a rider to get a degree but most of the stuff i was doing was geared towards making me a better coach and a better teacher and i was doing basically everything i could at the time every day just to get better when you graduate from running university how does one go from there to becoming the head men's golf coach at roger universe that's kind of been around been around the area a lot so to speak and i would after i after i graduate i guess i was teaching a lot juniors and i was starting to teach more in the area and i was studying from a lot of really good teachers that sort of mentor me and helped get me better and i was doing a lot of study and i moved to florida for a little bit and i worked at academy down there for a little and then i moved back up here and i actually got a job coaching at west windsor north high school so i coached at the high school level for one season and then the job opened up a rider and i was actually coaching a player at rider at the time it would kind of let me know that the coach was thinking about stepping down so when it opened up i was ready and into recruiting how does golf recruit the high school level recruit at the high school level or is it just twenty minutes outside the high school as a coach i'm looking at scores from all over the place  higher level programs are probably looking more at a national level a j g a a tournaments u s junior amateurs bigger kind of events but i'm looking at scores from every tournament and just to see how players progressing and what kind of scores they're shooting in tournaments i always know that when they're playing at a high school level you know college level is much harder the weather is heart of the golf course or longer they're having to adapt to college life and just tracking their scores and kind of see how the progressing so know when do you start recruiting these kids is it sophomore year or junior i'm singing i keep my eye on throughout high school but i don't start talking to them till they're their junior year and i get a lot of emails and you know people reaching out and calling who are interested in coming in and i'm always tracking where they're at and again seen where they kind of progressed to and if they're getting better and how the scores are trending and stuff like that also look at swing videos if they send him to me or track manned launch monitored data numbers which is becoming a you know a big piece of teaching these days as it gets more technologically advanced some kind of checking everything out you know and for me i'm looking looking more at a local level in the tri state area i actually had a transfer student come over from spain so it's not just local but i track a lot of what's going on in new jersey and connecticut new york and pennsylvania is that is that pretty much your recruiting base is  tri state area it's not it's not just just to that but a lot of the players that i have on our team come from yeah they do i got i had a transfer student come from spain so no not everybody comes from that area and i'll take a player who's me send me an e mail and hopefully when they send me an e mail they send me a tournament resume with scores their grades and to sling videos with good camera angles ones from down the line where i can i can see the club going back and ones from the face on motion where i'm looking at their chest and seeing how their bodies move in and if they have of launch monitor numbers a tell me what the club's doing through impact that's also really good so some of it's not and then i also go to some tournaments in the summer and i like to watch how they conduct themselves on the golf course i and watch the tournaments i see a player throw a club or start cursing or handle themselves like that even if he's really good i'm immediately not interested so that's a little bit of everything and then i get them on campus and i talk to them see how they conduct themselves how they associate with their parents just to see if they're going to be a good fit for my program now how about academically what type of kids do you look for academically they have to be a students or they don't have to be a student but i would say to strive to be an a student but no good student you know and up and and good s a t scores and again when i meet with them i can really gauge to see if i i think they're a good person if they're going to be honest with me if they're going to give me everything they have every time they step out on the course a lot of that stuff goes in the knee kind of and if i want them to be part of the program or not so now you how many kids do you recruit to get a certain amount at the college level i'm always looking at a bunch of kids but it depends on the i just had a bunch of seniors graduates i'm bringing in four new freshman this year and that's a lot but i usually carry between seven and nine on the team so it just depends on who's going out who's coming in but i'm always keep in mind what's going on to try to get more talent now  about monies at the college level for golf is there money at the college level field out there is it depends on the program some programs have more money there's also academic aid that you have to weigh into that too so if if a prospective student athlete comes in they have good s a t scores and their g p a is really good you can get them money for that and then you can give some money for golf to now again some programs have a lot of money some don't have quite as much it just depends on that program's budget but there is money there for sure now so someone comes to write a university what's the expectation of the whole year when there's a when there's a person come to the schools that august is a september and what happens throughout the whole year the twelve months with the person so for us it's a little later we start early in september i think the start date maybe is the fifth of the six this year and actually with us it's like we kind of get right into it because we're competing so i have qualif to see who's going to be playing in the first tournament in the low scores for me i always get in and also they're starting class right away too so they have to juggle a lot of work there also for freshmen getting adjusted to being at college which can be an adjustment as we now so they're just in that and they're trying to keep their game in shape or get better and they're having to deal with golf course again that are a little bit more difficult and we play in the northeast and some nasty weather too a lot of rain in when they can be long days and a lot of times after you know that the fight out there so it's a lot of different stuff initially than just getting used to being there and playing at that level so that's pretty much you know when they come in our season basically goes from september tenth or so to october sixteenth that's usually our fall season and we play five tournaments in that time so it's a it's a lot in a little amount of time and again they're juggling work and the social aspect of it too so it's a lot for one to handle coming in so i'm always trying to support them in every way possible to make the transition easier  so know after october what happens from october until the spring so i guess i'd simply give the guys you know two weeks off right after season ends just to get caught up on schoolwork and just to try to get everything back to neutral cause it's a lot going on and then what we do is i usually meet with each player and just talk about you know what happened the season what we did well what we need to do well you know how we're going to get better and play better in the in the spring and then i'll put them on a physical fitness program so we meet with a t p i certified coach who is basically an expert in golf fitness so we'll get each player tested to see where they're limited and what's hurting their golf swing and what we can do to get better and then we meet with our trainer rider jerry green who's a great trainer and we all kind of come up with a plan to get each individual better and then we start team workouts where we're working on getting our body stronger and really building towards making a better golf body and then from there now we're also on the golf room and we have video in there and we're trying to make changes towards getting the technique better so that they can perform well in the spring so we do that up until i think december fifteenth or so they go to when a break in our breaks pretty long so hopefully you know guys during that time some will go play in a couple tournaments one of the freshman one playing the dixie amator in florida so they're going and in testing their game against better players and if they can go to florida and get away for a week and just try to play some golf to keep a club in their hands when their snow on the ground out here is great they'll come back like later january will usually have a team meeting to talk about goals for the spring and then basically from february to mid march we're really working on the technique part of it inside and just trying to get that as good as it can be because when they get outside and late march in early april they have to go and play for a score so if they're still working on technique and get in the swing better you know it's better it's to have that stuff is as solid as possible at that time because once you get out there you really need to be focused on what you need to do to get the ball in the hole the course management stuff different lies different shots that maybe we have been hitting a lot because the weather's bad but i like it once we actually can get on the golf course just to be worrying about score and and how we get the ball in the hole because that's what they need to do when they go compete so the february and first part of march is like technical stuff and then we try to get outside and get playing as soon as possible and we actually went to florida to play in a  tournaments early march and spring break last year which was also good was just good to get on on four to grasp as we play our conference championship there at the end of april but just also to get outside before our season started and so the season goes until the end of april yeah so i think our first turning was like the twenty eighth of march and our conference championship i think ended the twenty six april so we play i think we played six tournaments and three and a half four weeks so again once you get out there it's like we really need to be playing for score then because there's there's not a lot of time in between tournaments we're also doing qualify and it's a lot in a little amount of time and again with that they're also balancing school and they have to you know keep their grades in good shape  and it's just it's a balance between trying to manage everything so our season yet it's a short season in the spring we're doing everything before that to get ready but it's a lot in a little amount of time so what happens for many until september what did he do when they play in a whole bunch of totally yeah i was like my guys that compete a lot in the summer there's a bunch of time to find out where they live but i typically sit down with my players and april and just talk about a term schedule they're going to play i like them to play in u s open locals it's  very hard as you know if you want to go to the u s open but you can really challenge yourself and see where your game is and then there are state amateurs and state opens and other amateur means they can play in there in this area it's great for that because we have the n j s t a which they do a really good job of running tournaments the m g has the metropolitan golf association they run an actual internment the fields are great you have the pennsylvania golf association the gap golf which is philadelphia so there's a lot of there's a lot of things that they can play in and you have to qualify for those events and then usually there are three or four day tournaments so you can keep the game competitively sharp over the summer for me it's always about getting a little bit better every day trying to do whatever you have to do to make yourself better so that when you come back in september we're ready to go now what what's a typical school or from a high school kid to compare to a typical school or as a college kid it depends on the level you know some some high school kids are are shooting sixty six and sixty seven are you know are really really good really young i think you know if it's a detour a d three program you know they may be shooting in mid to high or seventy's eighty's you know bettered d two or d three schools can be shooting lower than that there's some really good division two programs down south as well  so again it just it depends on the level and our conference we're seeing scores anywhere from anywhere from sixty eight or so to eighty two or three on a bad day so that really really just depends  ne golf usually if if you can shoot scores as a team you know under two ninety five you're sort of in the ballgame because you never know what's going to happen with weather and stuff and if you go down south with with bigger schools you know those guys are between sixty three and sixty four and they might he's thrown out seventy three or four so it just it really depends on the level and what's the what's the practice like at the college level is it every single day for said i days i have practice monday through friday every day in the afternoon  players go to class in the morning and then we practice every day in the afternoon and how many hours is that usually typically typically three hours or so and some some will some will stay for a shorter time and some days some will stay for a little bit longer  i sort of individual practice i don't have all my guys on the putting green having three footers because player a may need to be working on his driver or irons that were given a problem at tournaments where another guy might have struggled out of the bunker so  golf it's really like what does that individual need to do to get better to perform so i kind of have some freedom in my system where we can just try to work on the individual to get them better and you can work on every single part of the game from the short game to a lon drivers and traps all the yeah that's i mean that's the thing with offer you need in all those pieces to come together writing it tee shot fairway in the next on the green and then hopefully make the pot but some days you might not be hitting greens or we're always going to miss some greens and need to get up and down  you know chip next to the hole and hopefully make the pot and again in the northeast especially in the spring we play in really bad weather it's rainy it's really windy so sometimes seventy five's an excellent score appear and they might need to work on shots where they're going to hit the ball lower in the wind in and taking more club do they can fight it down so it's just it's really about preparing to get in a sharp as we can for the elements that we play in which for these guys up here is very challenging in the spring so that's a that's a big thing so now  in certain majors with these kids or is it you know that is of wide variety from doctors and lawyers to you know well then yeah i mean i've had i've had luckily enough i've had all my players graduate at least that i've coached and they have almost gotten a job right away and some of that's been with accounting some of that's been with marketing stuff some that's been with business i had a player just graduate he's going into financial advisor and i have another player graduate he's been with coca cola for a year and a half he's a manager of warehouses now so ryder is really good with a developing students because they have small classrooms there's more tension there and they're really good with job placement when you come out a rider you typically find your way into a job and that's with my players it's a wide range of what they do and how do you find being their dad you've been there for five years golf is something that you could play into your seventy's and eighty's or absolutely you see these guys coming back to you talking to you and i to have a good relationship with the i just about all my players i keep in touch with all of them i'll still play golf with some of them some of them will still send me swing videos and i take pride in really building friendships and great relationship with the guys that have come through my program i try to do everything i can to support them i know how hard it is when they're playing i never get mad at any of any of my guys for playing a bad round i get mad at them for either quitting on around which none of them do but that would be something that would make me really mad or having like a stupid shot that puts a team score in jeopardy where maybe you'd roll the dice on an individual event but when you're having a card to score for the team you really need to be smarter than that sometimes and take your medicine but as long as they give me everything they got when they're out there i never i never get mad at them even if it's disappointing if we don't play well but yeah i try to keep a good relationship with them i'm still in touch with yet just about all of them do they create a networking type of thing because you know business is all about playing golf sometimes do you see that there's a lot of these students of yours and up doing a lot of networking on the golf course and yeah i mean that's the thing about golf right it'll it'll take you to places and you'll meet people where if you didn't play or weren't around the game then you probably would have done that so yeah when they're out there they know they represent themselves every time they're out there they're always meeting people i think you know everybody can take a page from arnold palmer he was so great to everybody he met while the camera was there or whatever circumstance was he treated everybody great and i try to do the same and i want to my players do the same as well and in conducting yourself like that you meet people and you build relationships and you're out there for four and a half hours playing you're talking about all different kinds of things and yeah you can really formulation ships that again maybe you would've had an opportunity to do if you weren't playing so know the texas coach might be just looking at national tournaments and bigger star summer tournaments and stuff like that i think it really depends on the program anything with a score for me is important i'm also take into account you know what distance was the course they play d a really short course or an easier tournaments i'm weighing that in various as ones that may be harder but anywhere where they're stepping out there and playing for a score i'm looking at now do you find conferences or bigger tournament so you have to coach so if i look at you know if i look at a resume and i see a swing video with potential and maybe the scores weren't great but they're getting better and i meet with the player and and they seem to be a really good kid and i feel like man i can really get this guy better he's really going to work his butt off to get as good as he can i give a guy an opportunity who hasn't performed great before now and that he can come in and he's going to work hard to get better so for me no they don't have to be nationally ranked at all they don't and and and how about high schools a certain high schools that  generate better golfers than nobody schools or there's a pretty much you can go anywhere in the country to go find somebody yeah i mean you know again i i'm sure high schools in florida and where the weather is warmer the players are going to better their plan all year around and stuff like that i don't know about one high school developing players better so to speak but at the junior level it's really about what the players do and get themselves better or they're working with a swing coach are they working on the right things are they getting their bodies in shape to play what kind of preparation are they doing in the summer and outside of school golf to really get their games in shape and you find a lot of students finding private coaches to work with them or you and i just at the high school level yet because most high school golf coaches are you know their teachers at the school they're not necessarily swing mechanic experts there may be a few out there but yeah definitely i think most of the players especially the serious ones are going to swing coaches and and hopefully they're staying with the swing coach for a bunch of years and developing a relationship and and making progress on what they're doing now do you do any type of camps in the summertime or anything like that i don't i one point that be something i like to do i don't right now i just i i privately the player but really it's important to always have a direction of what you're doing with your game and doing with your swing and technique and course management how are you getting better to play at the next level because again when you get there it's harder now how about size of a kid doesn't matter if you're six foot five or five foot five i think what we see these days is a really doesn't you know players like justin thomas i think he's he's five seven and cares of all three ten so you know with technology these days and what we've learned sort of from force plates which goes under your feet tells you how your pressure short sort of move in and pay vast which which tells you how your pivots working and stuff like that these players these days they hit the ball so far with the equipment and they generate so much speed even for little guys like justin thomas where you know he you can see him on the street he may not look like a guy who hits it really far but he totally blast the golf ball so no size size means nothing to me now it's better to be in shape and flexible and strong but now i mean you see guys again like justin thomas who can compete with dustin johnson who's a mega athlete right he's probably six four six six three and he's huge and he's just like a you know he can he can dunk a basketball and stuff and that's obviously the more athletic you are in the morning shape you are better but the size of a player these days it really really doesn't matter at all what we're coming to the end of our show and usually i ask my guests what advice you want to give to the parents out there that their sons you know even if their daughters want to go to college to play golf would what advice you want to give them a couple things parents are super important and first understand that golf is hard and there's going to be ups and downs with it and as most players would know maybe except for tiger when he was great really good that there's usually more downs and ups so the first thing is that their children need to have fun playing golf and that needs to be the first thing and the second thing is that they need to be supportive of what's going on if a child has pressure from a par because he's afraid that the parent's going to get mad or if she's afraid her parents are going to get mad if they don't play well you're not helping and also to be a parent and not a coach if you're not an expert get an expert to help your your child out don't don't try to hop in there and help with technique when you really don't s i know what you're doing so i think those are a couple things to be really supportive make sure it's fun help their child get a coach and to just help and be along for the ride  and then also i think another thing that parents really can help their children do is make them accountable for their behavior if you see them throwing clubs out there are cursing in or doing stuff that's going to make them look bad you should step in and say something obviously as a parent would now and if i see a kid thrown a club or his person and not conducting himself in a way that i should be on the media we're not interested in them so for them to you know obviously be parenting their kid as they should and just to be supportive over and understand how hard the game is if you haven't played competitively it's really tough to now but it's really hard so when they're not playing well to support them and they do play well to support them very well thank you very much for coming in and thanks for having me i really appreciate it yeah no problem so you've been watching the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony until next time