Inside Virginia Techs recruiting visits: New facilities, a personal touch and building relationsh -

BLACKSBURG, Va. — As the clock ticked and the list of tasks didn’t dwindle as quickly as he hoped, Virginia Tech’s director of player personnel Mark Diethorn knew he was in for an all-nighter.

It was early June, with a wave of recruiting camps and visits destined to make it the most hectic month of any football staffer’s life. Sleep would be a luxury. Going home didn’t seem worth it. Powering through seemed like the only choice. Thankfully, he had some help.

Virginia Tech’s coterie of football support staff can’t match many schools in terms of numbers, but that group’s dedication, particularly in June, can’t be questioned. The main group numbered four that night — Diethorn, director of recruiting Beau Davidson, assistant director of personnel and recruiting Lino Lupinetti and director of on-campus recruiting Leah Joseph — and they all pulled vampire hours to get things set up, arranging all the logistics it would take to cycle thousands of campers and dozens of visitors through the Hokies’ football facilities for four weeks.

At one point between golf cart repair and printing itineraries in the wee hours of June 3, not long before the first official visit weekend since COVID-19 recruiting restrictions were lifted, they pulled themselves together in a hallway in the football building. Looking a bit frazzled and sleep-deprived, they commemorated the moment with a group picture. The clock in the back reads 3:09. Diethorn remembers turning to the recently hired Joseph and asking for one assurance among the craziness.

“I told her, ‘Don’t quit in June,’” he recalled, perhaps only half-joking. “‘If you can get through June, we’ll be all right.’”

Thirty-seven official visitors, scores of unofficial visits, 16 camps and close to 1,500 campers later, Virginia Tech feels pretty good about how it handled things since the recruiting floodgates opened in June when, after 15 months of restrictions due to COVID-19, schools were allowed to host visitors on campus again.

The results speak for themselves. While it’s still early, Virginia Tech’s 19-member recruiting class ranks 15th nationally in the 247Sports Composite, with two top-10 Virginia commitments (offensive lineman Gunner Givens and running back Ramon Brown) for the first time since 2018, both of whom rank as top-200 recruits nationally. Fourteen of those commitments made their pledge after making visits in June when Tech finally was able to showcase facilities that had undergone a significant makeover in the past year and a half.

Combine that with the coaching changes Justin Fuente made just after the 2019 season finally being able to take root and the Hokies, whose recruiting ranking dipped dramatically to 76th nationally in 2020 before a slight uptick to 43rd in 2021, appear to have things going in the right direction on that front, even if Tech’s final ranking inevitably will drop a little when everyone fills out their classes.

“(It’s) incredible,” Fuente said. “We are reaping benefits of years of hard work. We have a great staff. We have staff that can recruit the state. We have made improvements on our staff, guys that can really, really recruit, understand the importance of it and get in there and work. We have some potential superstars on the staff. We have some guys that are really, really good.

“We also have been working diligently through the shutdown and well before that. We’ve been building things. We haven’t been sitting still. Those plans began five years ago for the residence hall, dining facility, players lounge, new meeting rooms, all of which we need. They don’t put us over the top, but they are a large step towards us catching up. We made hay where we had opportunities. We are in the process of reaping some of the benefits.”

Justin Fuente said Virginia Tech is seeing results from upgraded facilities, including new meeting rooms. (Andy Bitter / The Athletic)

‘We aren’t hiding anything’

For as hectic as June was, the leadup wasn’t much easier. The NCAA waited until the last second, April 15, to formally lift the recruiting restrictions of the pandemic, giving schools a six-week timetable to ramp up for a rush of recruits free to visit college campuses in an official capacity again.

The timing wasn’t ideal for the Hokies, whose support staff was in flux. On-campus recruiting director Alex White left for a personnel role at her alma mater North Carolina in January. Recruiting director John Iezzi left his position in February for an Internet startup recruiting site. After the NFL Draft in late April, assistant director of player personnel Corey Fuller took a job with the Carolina Panthers.

Diethorn hadn’t coordinated official visits since he had been with the program but stepped back in to plan how Virginia Tech would go about them.

“It’s kind of like a bowl game when the coordinator becomes a head coach somewhere and the head coach goes back to calling plays,” he said. “I had to go back into planning and handling, and it was the month of all months to go back into it.”

He had a novel approach: crumple up the old plan and create a new template. Official visits usually happen on big game weekends or in the spring. The summer opened new possibilities, especially for a town like Blacksburg. And that’s where Diethorn wanted to keep the focus, showcasing the campus as much as possible. He mapped out a rectangle, wanting all activities to take place where students could easily get to them when they were here.

That meant scrapping some time-honored traditions. The Farmhouse in Christiansburg had been a long-favored eating establishment for Hokies team events. It was out of the zone, however, and had to go.

“Christiansburg ain’t gonna get any recruits,” Diethorn said. “Nobody’s coming here because of Christiansburg. … People are going to come here because of Blacksburg, they’re going to come here because of the campus, they’re going to come here because of what we have available.”

Diethorn rented 25 golf carts and went about mapping an official visit itinerary that showed everything the town and campus had to offer. In his favor? All the new stuff the football program finally got to show off. When Diethorn, a 2007 Virginia Tech graduate, came back to Blacksburg in 2018 after a six-year run at Pitt, he was shocked at the state of Virginia Tech’s facilities.

“This place just fell so far behind,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, at Pitt, everything was better.’ This was my school. I was like, ‘What the heck happened to it?’”

That’s not unusual after a longtime coach’s run of success. If you’re already winning, you’re less inclined to remake your program. That caught up to Virginia Tech suddenly in the latter Frank Beamer years. While the indoor facility was state-of-the-art, large sections of the football building had become out of date, and the Hokies were slow to build a personnel staff that has become such a crucial part of college football in the past 15 years.

“Any coach that’s there 10-plus years that has success, you fall behind,” Diethorn said. “The two things that suffer the most are facilities and staff size.”

By the stroke of luck, COVID-19 restrictions were lifted right when Tech had almost all of its new stuff ready to show off. The state-of-art meetings rooms, with plush stadium seating, pulldown shades and all the modern amenities, were finished this offseason.

“We aren’t hiding anything,” said Diethorn, who used to be embarrassed to take recruits through the old meeting rooms. “It felt like before you were hiding stuff.”

The weight room, which was a temporary space on the back end of the building in the winter of 2020 as renovations were underway, is complete, featuring garage-style doors that open to the outdoor practice field, walls of TVs and a nutrition bar. The dining hall on the fourth floor of the Jamerson building, which opened in March, is open for business, complete with its own chef.

“Not having a dining hall was unbelievable,” Diethorn said. “At Pitt we had a dining hall in our football facility where we’d eat twice a day. Here we’re giving Jimmy John’s after practice in the hallway.”

The player’s lounge, which Fuente said he wants to look like a Dave & Buster’s, will be complete in the next few weeks. As a nice feature, the 25-foot hallway that leads to that part of the building is being set up as the “Enter Sandman Experience,” a mini-tunnel being outfitted with screens that will highlight Tech’s famed entrance. Once that’s done, the only real upgrade left is the locker room, which was last renovated more than a decade ago.

Just down the block, the soon-to-open Creativity and Innovation District Residence Hall is on the verge of completion. With apartment-style living, it will house freshman athletes, among other students, a far cry from the dorms the Hokies used to have, where players were sometimes stacked in bunk beds. The Hokies couldn’t get into the still-under-construction building, although not for a lack of trying.

“They finally said, ‘Coach, we aren’t letting you bring visitors to a construction zone. Stop asking,’” Fuente said, resigned to showing renderings. “But we will be in there shortly.”

The soon-to-open Creativity and Innovation District Residence Hall will house freshman Virginia Tech athletes. (Andy Bitter / The Athletic)

It’s not so much that having all this shiny new stuff helps as not having it hurts.

“If you don’t have it, it stands out,” Diethorn said. “No one’s getting people because you have a waterfall or you have the nicest dorms. But if you don’t have it and you’re stuck where it’s archaic, it’ll hurt.

“I think collectively it shows that we’re up to date with the country. Nobody has something that’s more extravagant than we have. And that’s the key, I think. You start off on an even playing field. So that’s what was kind of fun in June was being able to know recruits aren’t going to see something next week that you know we don’t have.”

Personal touch

However nice the buildings are, they’ve never landed a single recruit. Relationships and selling players on an experience offer the most successful approach. That’s why Diethorn’s aim, through a rush of visitors in June, was to keep things personalized as much as possible.

It meant moving people around in golf carts rather than buses. Instead of transporting players from the airport in vans, everyone had their own SUV. If a recruit likes video games or golf or fishing, Tech would cater the visit to those interests.

“The worst visits are ones where you sit there and you have a cookie-cutter plan and hell or high water, you’re going to get that plan in,” Diethorn said. “The best ones are the ones where you listen to the kid. And if they’re having a good time, don’t break all the time.”

That kind of approach, with at least one recruit on campus every day from June 1 to 27 was going to require all hands on deck, from support staff to the coaches to players to student assistants.

While they were personalized, the visits followed a similar framework. Recruits arrived on Friday, many of them flying into Roanoke. Coaches would be finishing up prospect camps, pitching in once they were done in some of the transports.

Diethorn learned through experience to knock out the academic tour and meetings with professors on Fridays when the kids are still fresh. After a brief rest, the staff held a reception where the players stayed at The Inn, with recruits introducing themselves and their traveling party to the group. From there, they were off in golf carts to The Maroon Door downtown for dinner, which worked out well with its outdoor seating space.

After that, they departed with their player hosts. Defensive tackle Jordan Williams and wide receiver Jaden Payoute got shout-outs as all-star hosts, doing so all four weekends, plus seventh-year offensive lineman Tyrell Smith, who Diethorn joked has hosted more visits than anyone in college football history. At least 25 players hosted a visitor in June.

“The more time they get to spend with our players, the better it is,” Diethorn said. “They’re our biggest resource. That’s who your teammates are. If you feel comfortable with them, then you’re going to feel comfortable here.”

Saturday was built around the football facility. The fourth-floor dining room is the perfect space for a huge breakfast gathering. After that, players got time with the support staff, with Samantha Stewart, the director of player engagement hired in November, leading a presentation about player growth beyond the football field and post-college. Joined by chaplain Dave Gittings and director of player development on defense Pierson Prioleau, they spoke about off-field help Tech can offer players.

Fuente joined the fray after that to talk about name, image and likeness and Virginia Tech’s brand in the state before the group headed down to meet with strength coach Ben Hilgart and a high-energy presentation of the new weight room, where players can sample the smoothies of the nutrition bar.

After that, players spent time in position meetings with assistant coaches before they reconvened in the main player auditorium. At that point, the coaches and staffers all left the room, letting recruits and their families ask the player hosts anything they wanted.

“Sometimes those would go on an hour if you didn’t stop it,” said Diethorn, who called it a highlight of the visit. “That’s where they really get to find out what the program is all about.”

Once that wrapped, it was into the stadium for something new: a cookout. Fuente and Hilgart manned dual grills cooking up hot dogs and burgers while recruits played cornhole and other games on the playing field, with tents set up and highlights playing on the video board. Tech had golf targets set up with stations to hit from in the stands. Cabo Fish Taco brought over a food truck to park in the end zone. All of it was aimed at highlighting the program’s marquee building.

“You want them in Lane, feeling the presence of the building,” Diethorn said.

Strength coach Ben Hilgart and head coach Justin Fuente manned dual grills cooking up hot dogs and burgers during recruiting visits. (Courtesy of Mark Diethorn)

Saturday afternoon could go a lot of directions, be it hanging by a pool at one of the complexes, video games, golf, fishing at the Duck Pond — whatever.

“Just something for everybody,” Diethorn said. “There was one kid, he didn’t even want to go to dinner he was fishing so long.”

Saturday night, the Hokies split up the groups. The parents and staff headed to have a nice dinner downtown at The Black Hen. Recruits went with their hosts to Mellow Mushroom, which worked out well with its balcony seating and snappy service.

“The worst thing you can do on these dinners is make them wait,” Diethorn said.

Sunday morning was the finale. The recruits each met with Fuente and knocked out breakfast in the facility. After that came an increasingly popular stage of the weekend: the photoshoot. Diethorn put this last for a reason: The photoshoots can stretch out for a while, and you don’t want to rush the recruits.

“Nothing will get a schedule behind more than putting a photoshoot on Saturday morning,” he said.

This is no longer a matter of everyone getting in frame, saying cheese on three and going on their merry way, either. This is a production. What used to be a recruit simply putting on a jersey has blown up into a full-blown marketing campaign, for which Tech’s creative director, Zach Lantz, has a vision, using traditional spots like the indoor facility and on the field in Lane Stadium but also finding tunnels in the stadium that are unique and using the futuristic-looking hallway to the performance center to stage shoots that have professional lighting.

Some go on for an hour, with players getting the full menu of uniform options to choose from that includes personalized numbers that Tech’s staff makes sure it has prepared ahead of time. Orange and the all-white combo seem to be the most popular choices.

“The biggest thing is they’re having fun,” Diethorn said. “Enjoy it and give them something to leave with and brand themselves. That’s where we’re heading.”

The thing Diethorn tried to stress the most is perfection is unattainable. Despite the myriad issues that pop up during official visits and things that inevitably push you off schedule, he knows adaptability is the key.

“Let’s show these people a great time,” he said. “I really enjoyed the visits. We modify as we go. An old coach told me, he said, ‘These visits, they’re not messed up if the kid don’t know it.’”

Saturday afternoons offered plenty of options for recruits, including golf at Lane Stadium. (Courtesy Mark Diethorn)

Building relationships

Diethorn isn’t just selling Virginia Tech just because he works there. It’s a place he fell in love with himself, an experience he’s hoping recruits have, too.

The Pittsburgh native was looking for a school in the early 2000s, cutting short a planned trip further south to some Carolina schools after hitting Blacksburg first.

“I’m like, ‘I’m pretty good on this,’” he remembered, staring out on the drill field while standing next to Burruss Hall. “‘Let’s go home.’”

He became a mega fan in Tech’s early ACC years. Upon graduating from Pamplin College of Business in 2007, he got a job at PNC Financial Group job in Pittsburgh, but there was a football itch he just had to scratch.

It was an audacious plan. He had never played football and never worked in it, but he decided to give up a full-time job with benefits, in a recession no less, to start at the bottom rung of the football ladder. After taking out a loan to re-enroll in college, he got a job scanning IDs at the academic center of the Florida Gators’ program. Later, he was tasked with stuffing thousands of envelopes for camp brochures. Eventually, after diligently going about those gofer tasks for months, he started helping with visits and even watching a little film, learning the job at the granular level.

He was on his way. Soon he left for Pitt, where he eventually was promoted to recruiting director under Pat Narduzzi. Diethorn came to Tech in 2018, eager to help his alma mater.

In that sense, he’s like a lot of people on the Hokies’ growing staff, which helps them speak with a personal appeal about the school. The number of Tech grads on the staff is in double digits, with former players on the coaching staff like Justin Hamilton. J.C. Price and Jack Tyler and staffers like Prioleau, Jeron Gouveia-Winslow, Kyshoen Jarrett, Ryan Shuman and Kyle Chung who can speak from their experience in the program.

It’s more than just that connection. It’s hustle. Ryan Smith and Adam Lechtenberg aren’t Virginia Tech grads, but they’re tireless recruiters. Diethorn’s amazed at the 30-year-old Smith’s connections for such a young coach and said he doesn’t know if anyone in the country works harder at recruiting than Lechtenberg. In this class, the line coaches, Vance Vice on offense and Bill Teerlinck on defense, have had large hauls, too.

It has taken some time, but Fuente thinks he has the right staff in place to do some damage on the recruiting trail. Add that to all the new facilities on campus, and Tech feels like it has a lot to offer, something it put into full effect with recruiting’s reopening last month.

“The main thing is our head coach and our staff really kicked butt throughout the whole pandemic and you saw the rewards during June,” Diethorn said. “We know what this place is. It sells itself in some aspects. But building relationships early reaped many rewards in early June.

“That’s what recruiting is, is it’s all about relationships. Working at it and building true relationships. And people have shoes, waterfalls, but if you have a problem, they can’t talk to you. People can. And that’s the big thing is you need to have people that are genuine and have your best interest at heart, so that’s what we are and that’s what we sell, and hopefully, you get the right kind of players from that.”

(Top photo: Courtesy of Mark Diethorn)

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