Happy Trails, Again : Hawaii Recruiter Is Frequent Flyer

It’s that time of the year when Geoff Delapp goes from a mild-mannered assistant football coach at the University of Hawaii to king of the frequent flyers.

From the first week in December until the prep signing day on Feb. 12, Delapp--Hawaii’s West Coast recruiter--will have traveled from the islands to the mainland and back six times.

He is the embodiment of the well-traveled college recruiter.

After the holidays, which Delapp spent on the mainland recruiting, he starts commuting between Honolulu and Southern California on a regular basis, spending Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of each week visiting athletes. He then flies home to prepare for weekend on-campus visits from recruits.

“This is when it gets pretty hectic for us,” Delapp said. “I left Monday night at 11:45 on the red eye, flew all night and landed in Los Angeles at 6:30 a.m. After that, I took a shower and went to work.”

Because Delapp is trying to cover such a vast area, Hawaii makes use of several scouting services and its own West Coast recruiting coordinator, Sam Papalii.

“Basically, the recruiting process started last December,” Delapp said. “But in actuality, recruiting goes on year-round. I start by making phone calls just to form a base.”

Delapp, who was recruited to play football at the University of California out of Servite High School in 1967, has seen recruiting from the perspective of the player, the high school coach and now the recruiter.

Before he was hired at Hawaii, he was an assistant coach and recruiter at UCLA for two years. He coached at Cypress High School from 1973 to 1982, and was the Centurions’ head coach for five years.

In his dealings, he has learned that it’s not just players he must win over.

“The parents are very important in recruiting,” Delapp said. “Once you sit down in their home, they fire away with questions, which is good. When the kid makes that decision, a lot of times the parents are very involved.

“You want the parents to have a good foothold on what is being offered to their son. You also want to know how they feel about the school. You want to get to know them as well as the player.”

Whereas the player and his parents are trying to find out as much about the recruiter and his school, the recruiter also is looking for more information about the player.

“We want to know as much about him as possible,” Delapp said. “Obviously there would be some kind of profile that would make a person leave the mainland and come to Hawaii. The kids we want have to have a strong streak of individuality in them.”

Delapp would like to watch a recruit play, but during the college season it is difficult to get to prep games on the mainland. He doesn’t have the same advantage as coaches from UCLA, USC or Cal State Fullerton, so he must rely on game films, and prep coaches, to help him decide who to recruit.

“This season was the year of the lineman in Orange County,” Delapp said. “It was just a real good year for the big kids. You have Pac 10 schools in there recruiting like USC, UCLA, Stanford and Cal. So, you know there’s some size there.”

Taking a cue from the Pac 10 schools, Delapp is actively seeking Valencia’s Mark Williams, who was a member the offensive line that blocked for Ray Pallares, Orange County’s career rushing leader.

Just like spring football, there’s spring recruiting, which is done mostly by phone. And, Delapp says, there is an art to telephone recruiting.

“Quite a bit of our recruiting work is done over the phone,” he said. “But you want to be sensible about it. You can really burn somebody out. You want them to know you have a genuine interest, but you have to feel that out. I may contact the players I’m recruiting twice a week to see how they’re doing.”

Now, as the signing day nears, Delapp is increasing his contacts.

“When it gets down to the pressure cooker in that final week, I’ll be in more even more contact,” he said. “Then on the final signing day I’ll be in someone’s home seeing if Hawaii is the place for them.”