New Comm Ave

SATs, homework, college applications, and AP courses are some of the concerns of your average high school senior. Hockey practice, stick-handling, shooting pucks, and keeping in shape are a very different set of concerns for a very different type of high school senior: the Division I college hockey hopeful. While most of us were worried about polishing off our application essays, the serious high school athlete was more concerned with stand out performances at tournaments. The process of college selection is an entirely different world for those who are hoping to be recruited by a Division I program.

Most people have never seen the inner workings of this recruitment process, and most never will. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to interview a young man who was recently recruited to play hockey for the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Wildcats.

I come from an urban town in central Massachusetts. I was, myself, extensively involved with athletics in high school, captaining the varsity field hockey, basketball, and softball teams. However, all of the student athletes at my school understood that playing a Division I college sport was something to dream about, not something that was in the tangible future for any of us. All but one of us. His name was Bob Butler.

We all knew Bob was going to be something special when he began scoring goals for our varsity hockey team when he was still a skinny, inexperienced eighth grader. This scrawny little boy blossomed into the kind of hockey player that most public high schools never see. He went on to break the school's scoring record in his junior year and then tied his own record in his senior year. During his senior year, he led the team to the Division III State Championship Title, something never before done in our school's history. He finished his high school career with the school's all-time highest point total, two-hundred and eighty-four. This achievement also put him ninth on the list of all-time point leaders in Massachusetts history. To top it all off, he accomplished all of this while also dressing sixty games per season for the Boston Junior Bruins (BJBs) in his junior and senior years. He is now a post-graduate and captain of the BJBs.

Most players of this caliber do not waste their time playing public high school hockey. Thus, I felt compelled to ask Bob what kept him playing for both teams. "I knew my town, my school, my friends, and my father were all counting on me to bring home the state title," responded Butler. "It meant a lot to me to complete my high school career with the friends that I started it with. It's all about making memories that will last you a lifetime."

Having established a name for himself in both the high school and junior leagues, colleges began to show interest in Butler as early as his sophomore year. "Schools would ask my Bruins coach about me, and if I was interested I would have to call them," Butler remembered. This was because, according to the 2005-2006 NCAA Division I Manual, "recruiting contacts shall not be made with a prospect or the prospect's relatives or legal guardians before July 1st following the prospect's completion of the junior year in high school" (NCAA 13.01.06). Consequently, in order for Butler to speak with the coaches, he had to initiate the conversation. Butler then recalled the next stage of the process: "After talking to the coaches, we would arrange an unofficial visit. I took unofficial visits to Brown, Harvard, UNH, UMass Lowell, Cornell, RPI, and Northeastern throughout the course of sophomore through senior year."

An unofficial visit is one in which the prospect pays for all of his or her own lodging and meals (NCAA 13.02.13.2). After taking all of these visits, Butler said the next stage was the hardest: simply waiting and playing. "After taking all of my unofficials, all of the schools knew I was out there. All that was left to do was wait and keep playing hard, and hope that I would have a couple of good tournaments to put me on the map," Butler explained.

Fortunately, all of his hard work was not in vain. Butler had a standout performance at the 2005 Beantown Classic, and the calls began rolling in. "I played hard that tournament," he recalls, "and it paid off. I started to get calls from coaches who wanted me to come in for official visits. The way it works is we schedule an official, and then when I come, they can make me an offer."

Butler said he was most aggressively pursued by UNH, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Northeastern University. All three schools wanted to schedule Butler for an official visit. The difference at this point was that, unlike the unofficial visit, on an official visit, the athletic department of the college pays for all of the recruit's expenses throughout the weekend that he or she is visiting. Recruits are only allowed to take five of such visits (NCAA 13.7.1.2), but Butler only needed one.

"I made my first official visit to UNH, and that was it for me. It has been my dream to play there since I was little, so when they made me a good offer, I knew I had to accept," Butler said of his only official visit. He offered the following description of his visit:

I got to the school, went down to the rink, and immediately talked to both of the coaches. They told me what they were expecting of me as a player. Then I went and met up with the freshman on the team who would be hosting me for the weekend. Then I got to hang out with the team for the rest of the day and night. The next morning I woke up and the coach took me out to breakfast. It was at breakfast that he made the offer to me, and he told me to go home and talk it over with my parents. Then I went home.

After returning home, Butler explained to me that he discussed the offer over with his parents, and they decided as a family that he should accept. "Like I said before," he explained, "I had wanted to go there forever and it was too good of an offer to turn down. UNH is one of the top hockey schools in the nation, and I knew I wasn't going to get any better than that." Hence, Butler went on no further official visits and verbally committed to UNH in September.

It is no small feat to be recruited by a school as highly acclaimed for its hockey program as UNH. According to Butler, the UNH Wildcats are ranked as one of the top teams in the nation. There is obviously some level of natural ability that comes with being a player of UNH caliber, but there must also be a great deal of hard work involved. When asked to describe his typical summer day, Bob responded,

I would get up every morning at six A.M. and go skate for an hour. When I got home from skating, I would eat breakfast, usually two eggs and some juice, and then head back to the gym for my workout. That usually lasted about two or three hours. Then I would come home and jump in the pool to cool my body down. For lunch I would eat a salad or a turkey sandwich; I always made sure it was something healthy. After that, I shot pucks for a couple of hours; I tried to get a few hundred shots in each day. By then it was about time for dinner, and I would try to get some good protein in, like steak. Then I would finally get a little time to relax and, before going to bed, I would do my crunches and push-ups and then stretch. I was always in bed by ten. I did this five days a week.

I was amazed to hear how difficult his summer schedule was. The in-season schedule he described to me was just as demanding as this one. Butler told me that he oftentimes found himself at the point of absolute physical exhaustion, in which doing anything at all brought on extreme fatigue. This hard work is what has landed him at one of the highest ranked hockey schools in the nation.

UNH is also recognized for its strong academic curriculum, and Butler will surely receive a very good education there. However, there were other schools he made unofficial visits to that are considered some of the best universities in the nation: Harvard, Brown, and Princeton.

Many people at my high school were judgmental during senior year when they heard Butler was being pursued by these top schools even though he was not at the top of our class. Some were frustrated that after all of their "hard work" they had not been accepted to these schools, while Butler was going to get in "for nothing." These people clearly did not understand that, as hard as they worked academically, Bob had undoubtedly worked as hard, if not harder, at hockey.
I got a chance to interview a fellow freshman at Boston College, Krista, who attended high school with Bob and me. Krista was one of the people who had voiced her negative opinions about the possibility of Bob attending Brown, Harvard, or Princeton. She explained the position she held on Bob in high school:

At the time, it just seemed unfair to me that he had better options for college than I did. Here I was, second in the class, with almost perfect SAT scores, and I had just been placed on the waiting list by Harvard. And there was Bob, with less than mediocre grades and SAT scores under 1000, and Princeton was coming to his house. It was just very frustrating for me. I felt almost like my hard work was being undermined.

I then presented Krista with some of the information from my interview with Bob, in particular the information about his workout and practice schedules. She was definitely surprised to hear how much work went into being a serious hockey player, but she maintained her position that it is still unfair for athletes to be accepted into colleges that they are not academically qualified for. She commented,

There is no question that these guys work hard. I was never denying that. I guess I never knew how much work was involved with playing sports at Division I schools, but I still don't think that makes it okay to let them in based solely on what they can bring athletically. Isn't the whole point of college to enrich your mind and do that in an environment with others who will stimulate and challenge you? I just don't see how guys like Bob could contribute to that kind of learning environment, whether it is here or at any other top school.

Next I asked Krista a question that definitely caught her off guard. I asked her if she had season football tickets. She responded, "Of course I do. And I know where you're going with this. You're going to call me a hypocrite for enjoying the football games while I disapprove of the recruitment process." I smirked, and this opened up an entirely new conversation between the two of us. She recognized the importance of the "Superfan" culture,

Well, I do wear my "Superfan" shirt to all of the football games, and I love that we have such a good team to offer our support to. The whole "Superfan" culture is definitely something that sets BC apart from some other schools, and I know I wouldn't love it here as much as I do without it.

I also prompted Krista to imagine having such vivacious school spirit without the existence of great sports teams. "Well obviously we wouldn't all be showing up every weekend for a team that loses all the time," she commented, "and we wouldn't be so into the whole "Superfan" thing if our teams weren't so good. So, yes, the superiority of our teams definitely drives our school spirit, and that definitely completes the college experience for a lot of us." Her most important realization came next. I asked Krista to explain to me how it would be possible for Boston College, or any school, to have such good sports teams without allowing the administration to recruit athletes who might not be as academically qualified as the rest of the student body. She smiled and conceded, "Alright, you win. We need the athletes to get good teams, which stimulates the culture, which makes our school great."

I detected some sarcasm in that comment. I explained to Krista that I had not been trying to force her into believing anything, but rather help her realize how important athletes are to every student's college experience. She finally agreed wholeheartedly that having exceptional athletes is essential to keeping BC the great school that it is, and that a large part of the school's positive atmosphere stems from the success of the sports teams. I was finally satisfied that Krista could admit that she appreciated the role of players like Bob at highly esteemed universities, not only for their hard work, but also for what they bring to the community.

Butler will undoubtedly be bringing a lot to the UNH community. He certainly makes a name for himself wherever he plays. From his high school career to his career with the BJBs, he has always been a standout player. It is very likely that he will continue to excel at the Division I level with the Wildcats.

One thing is for sure, he is more than excited about beginning this next phase in his hockey career: "I can't wait to get up there. I am going to keep playing by the same motto I always have: shoot hard and shoot to score."

• 2006 Spring
• Interview/Profile