Risky Business : Swanson’s Indecision on Choice of College May Prove Costly

The recruitment of Dave Swanson has made more turns than a mountain road. But whether Swanson’s fortunes are going up or down remains unclear.

Has Swanson, a Glendale College sophomore, squandered opportunities by allowing his recruitment to drag into June? Or has he cagily played the game by refusing to succumb to the pressure tactics coaches employ to sign athletes?

Beset by a Holden Caulfield where-do-I-fit-in angst, Swanson has been increasingly confused by the process. Exacerbating the confusion is his ability in two sports, track and basketball.

He must choose a school and a sport. He has reduced his list to UCLA and UC Irvine for track and St. Mary’s for basketball.

“Right now I’m trying to decide what sport I really want to do, and that’s going to dictate what school I go to next year,” Swanson said.

UCLA appears to be the most attractive candidate. Swanson said he has been offered full tuition, and his brother Brian is on the Bruin football team. Lee Balkin, Swanson’s coach at Glendale, high jumped at UCLA, and Swanson’s teammate, hurdler Marty Beck, has committed to the school.

After a year of college and two of junior college--he redshirted as a freshman in basketball at Cal State Northridge and again as a freshman in track at Glendale--Swanson is aware that the next school he attends will be his last in terms of an athletic career. Having already spent an unfulfilling freshman year at Cal State Northridge, Swanson does not want the last two years of his college athletic career to be without reward.

Most junior college athletes committed to schools long ago, but Swanson has a case of writer’s block where letters of intent are concerned. He missed the spring basketball letter-of-intent signing period, which ran from April 11 to May 15.

“I know a lot of schools have gotten frustrated with me because I haven’t made the decision yet,” Swanson said. “It’s only two years of my life, but the way I look at it those two years are going to dictate the rest of my life.”

His situation is illustrative of the pressure athletes and coaches feel in the giant shakeout of college recruiting. For each Ed O’Bannon who is sought by every school with a gym, there are a dozen Dave Swansons who have to recruit schools as much as they are recruited.

“Recruiting is supply and demand,” Glendale basketball Coach Brian Beauchemin said. “Your caliber of play might be pretty good, but it might not be what schools are looking for.”

In prolonging his decision, Swanson has tried the patience of those recruiting him. Coaches are eager to commit to those athletes who commit to them, even if it sometimes means choosing a lesser player.

“Sometimes, maybe coaches panic along those lines,” Beauchemin said. “You can’t really blame them.”

Because of his indecision Swanson, a 6-foot-5 guard-forward, has lost a scholarship offer at UC Riverside and nearly lost one at St. Mary’s.

Several schools, including Texas Tech and New Mexico State, remained in contact during the season, but their interest waned by the time Glendale was knocked out of the state tournament in March.

“It was like a roller coaster,” said Swanson, Glendale’s second-leading scorer at 17.5 points per game. “Sometimes you get a lot of calls, sometimes you didn’t. Certain schools would start calling you and certain schools would stop.”

If Swanson feels as though he is on a roller coaster, coaches involved in his recruitment feel like they’re on a Ferris wheel because he just keeps going around and around.

UC Riverside’s John Masi had watched about a half-dozen Glendale games and thought he had landed Swanson in April. Despite being an NCAA Division II school, Riverside had everything else Swanson wanted. It was a University of California school and it was close to home.

Better yet, Masi was offering a full basketball scholarship with the understanding that Swanson could compete in track.

Swanson took another go-round, saying he wanted a few days to think about it. In the meantime, Swanson checked out UC Irvine, where the track coaches showed a lot of interest in him.

Masi wondered about Swanson’s commitment to Riverside and basketball after hearing about his trip to Irvine. Riverside had made offers to several athletes comparable to Swanson and wasn’t going to keep them on hold while Swanson made up his mind.

“You have to take who you can get when you’re recruiting,” Masi said. “It wasn’t that we didn’t want Dave Swanson. He waited a little too long.”

Riverside signed Chris Hantgin, a 6-4 guard from Ventura College, among others and was out of scholarship money when Swanson returned. Swanson was ready to sign; Masi told him it was too late.

“I was really upset,” Swanson said. “So then I jumped on to track.”

It wasn’t going to be that simple, though. Just when track began to look promising, St. Mary’s and Eastern Washington came on the basketball scene. Eastern Washington signed Swanson’s teammate, Gary Fowler, and also was interested in Swanson. St. Mary’s belatedly was looking for another player after a recruit reneged on an oral commitment.

Swanson made official visits to both schools, the only two he has taken.

A recruiting visit is like a first date; it doesn’t take long to find out who’s interested. Swanson was sending mixed signals because he made no secret of his interest in track.

“That’s very honest on his part,” St. Mary’s Coach Paul Landreaux said, “but, at the same time, I think it’s hurting him.”

Both schools had drawbacks. Eastern Washington, 10 miles outside Spokane, sent a letter of intent and scholarship papers but might as well have sent the latest sweepstakes offer from Publishers Clearinghouse. Swanson wasn’t interested in going so far from home, and he never returned the papers.

St. Mary’s does not have a track team. The St. Mary’s coaches told Swanson they would look into the possibility of his competing in track as an independent but were leery of his two-sport leanings.

“We’re recruiting a basketball player rather than a track star,” Landreaux said. “You give a scholarship to a guy, you want a guy’s full attention in basketball.”

Nonetheless, St. Mary’s asked Swanson if he would accept a scholarship. Swanson, still unwilling to commit, said there was a 10% chance he might not.

St. Mary’s read his indecision as a lack of interest in the school and concentrated on other players.

“I kept telling them to hold on, hold on, hold on, and I don’t expect anybody to hold on that long,” Swanson said.

Says Landreaux: “We still have another scholarship to give.” But Swanson continues to wonder about track.

A successful track season for Swanson culminated in a personal best of 7-0 3/4 in a jump-off in the state junior college championships, in which he finished second.

A raw talent who was a Division II All-American as a Northridge freshman and who jumped seven feet at Alemany High, Swanson knows he is probably more of a Division I-caliber track athlete than basketball player.

Basketball coaches usually give each recruit a full scholarship, but track coaches often split scholarships and spread the money around like butter on a Depression-era dinner table. The choice between Irvine and UCLA might therefore hinge on which school can offer more money.

“It’s not like I’m trying to weasel money out of these schools,” said Swanson, who could receive half- or three-quarters tuition at Irvine. “I’m just going to have a hard time working over the summer and collecting enough money to support myself next year, so I’m definitely going to have to go to the school that can do the most for me.”

He could possibly score points in conference or NCAA meets in the high jump, but Swanson’s limitation is competing in only one event.

Other opportunities might yet arise. The recruiting season never completely ends. Academic casualties to Proposition 48 and spring-term grades, as well as coaching changes, could create openings throughout the summer in basketball. Track coaches are still doling out the rest of their money.

“I’m very confident that something will work out,” said Swanson, who vows he will make a decision this week. “There are a lot of pressure tactics they use in order to get you to sign, and I think the biggest mistake a player can make in any sport is to fall into that trap of pressure.”