Stanford offers unique challenge

By Joe Scalzo

Boardman’s D,J. Durkin has embraced his role in recruiting for the Cardinal.

D.J. Durkin spends a lot of his winter months inside airports, talking to his wife on his cell phone while (hopefully) avoiding the temptation of the Cinnabon stand and the lines at the rental car counter.

The Stanford assistant coach — who spends most of December and January on the recruiting trail — often wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to work out inside the hotel fitness center, then flies from city to city, meeting with high school coaches, guidance counselors and, occasionally, football players themselves.

He does this all day, for months at a time, year after year, in an attempt to sell 17-year-olds on the virtues of getting an education at Stanford as opposed to, say, a budding on-campus social life and a future NFL career somewhere else.

“On any given kid, we can out-recruit any team in the country,” said Durkin, a Boardman High graduate who now coaches special teams and defensive ends at Stanford. “If they have a background in academics and they’re interested in their future and their prospects after football, it doesn’t matter who else is recruiting him. He’s going to be interested.”

Alas, there’s a drawback. This may come as a shock to many readers, but there are a few hyper-talented high school football players who are not quite as accomplished in the classroom. At Stanford, it doesn’t matter if they can run the 40-yard dash in a 4.2 if they can’t maneuver math, science and English in a 3.0. (Grade point average, that is.)

“It’s similar to Notre Dame but Stanford has an even higher standard,” said Durkin, who played college football at Bowling Green and coached at BG and Notre Dame before coming to Stanford in 2007. “We’re on our own playing field in Division I football.

“It’s frustrating a lot of times, but I see it as a huge positive. We don’t spin our tires on someone who’s not interested. We know right away whether a kid is interested.”

Durkin recruits mainly in the Midwest — because of the Cardinal’s high academic standards, the coaches can’t limit themselves to the West Coast — and has pursued a few Mahoning Valley players, although he has yet to get a commitment.

“We’ve taken our swings and we’ve gotten close but it hasn’t worked out yet,” said Durkin. “In that area and in the whole state, when you’re trying to get the premier guys, the two big aces in the room are Notre Dame and Ohio State.

“We’re making progress in that fight but haven’t beaten them yet.”

The NCAA sets strict guidelines on when, where and how often a coach can contact a recruit. (Text messaging recruits, for instance, was recently outlawed.) Each coach has to pass an annual exam on the rules — “There’s a million of them,” Durkin said — and the recruiting process culminates with National Signing Day, which is Wednesday.

Top recruits can make verbal commitments before Wednesday, and usually do, but those are not binding. And one major difference between Stanford and other schools is that Cardinal recruits have to go through the school’s application process.

“It’s usually a foregone conclusion at other schools,” said Durkin. “If a coach at those schools offers a young man a scholarship, he knows he’s going to be admitted.”

Coaches evaluate recruits constantly, watching film (sites such as ScoutingOhio.com, which is run by Canfield native Mark Porter, are a huge help), attending games and talking with the player’s coach and, often, opposing coaches.

“There are guys who get offered scholarships that shouldn’t and guys that don’t who should, so it’s by no means a perfect science,” said Durkin. “But most guys, if they’re a player, they’ll get on the radar screen and get recruited.”

Because Durkin recruits the Midwest, he spends a lot of time on the road, which means he has to spend a lot of time away from his wife of 6 1/2 years, Sarah. They met at Bowling Green and Durkin said she knew what she was getting into by marrying a coach.

Still, it’s difficult. To make it easier, Sarah helps with the process. The Durkins invite players over to dinner and talk about things going on in their lives outside of football.

“She’s like their mom away from home,” Durkin said of Sarah. “We want players to get to know us outside of football.”

All this hard work doesn’t always pay off on the field — the Cardinal are 9-15 in two years under Jim Harbaugh, which is fairly typical for Stanford football — but Durkin said he loves the school and wants to remain there for several more years.

“I love every bit of this job,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

scalzo@vindy.com