So he keeps the best players that show up?
Then he plays the best players he keeps?
Yeah, that does sound pretty weird.
Rich
On many, many threads on this forum, people who seem to be quite in the know have strongly advised against going the "recruited walk-on" route -- as an almost certain ticket to oblivion. Let alone going the non-recruited walk-on route. During the coach's talk, a parent even brought up this point to the coach.
It strikes me that the thing that allows this coach to take this approach, and to seriously invite and scrutinize more comers is the 3 week try-out period for D2 as opposed to the 48 hour try-out period for D1. (again I'm not sure I heard the number of weeks right.)
I should also say that last year, we went to a prospect camp at another D2 -- at the school that is the main rival of this week's school (another D2 powerhouse) . The coach at that school made it pretty clear that he was not interested in attracting many comers for an extended look. In fact, he derided the approach of this week's school as seeking a "starting 9 and a cast of thousands." He made it clear that he wasn't at all interested in attracting a cast of thousands.
From my admittedly very small sample size, I conclude that there are different strokes for different coaches -- at least at the D2 level.
By the way, this week's coach also made reference to his rival and some of their differences -- the main difference he pointed to was the fact that his rival's program is MUCH better funded than his own. Not sure how much that explains their different approaches.