For CMU volleyball head coach Erik Olson, recruiting players to CMU is not just a battle for good athletes, but searching for players that will be the right fit for the team.

The search for those athletes has taken Olson across the state and nation throughout his seven years as coach.

“We have had a lot of Michigan recruiting lately, we always like to recruit here,” Olson said. “But we go pretty much everywhere across the country.”

For Olson and his staff the work begins early in a high school athlete’s career, often beginning in the summer following an athlete’s sophomore season.

Volleyball operates differently from other collegiate sports in that most recruits decide upon a school early, rather than making a last-minute decision.

“It’s a little bit different than a football or a basketball,” Olson said. “Volleyball is pretty honest in that way — other schools aren’t stealing from each other.”

He typically signs three new recruits each season while keeping the roster around 14 players.

On Wednesday, three new recruits signed a national letter of intent to come to CMU next season. Hallie Enderle, Mankato East (Minn.) High School; Kaitlyn McIntyre, Beaver Dam (Wis.) High School; and Haley Barker (Clarkston High School) round out the 2011 recruiting class.

Enderle, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker, was named one of Minnesota’s top-40 underclassmen prospects while McIntyre looks to help bolster an outside hitter position that loses senior Lauren Krupsky at the end of the season.

The process

With the recruiting process beginning so early in a player’s career, Olson said it can be difficult to gauge an athlete’s skill and how they will progress as a college athlete.

“If you wait too long you risk losing the top talent pool,” he said. “You can wait and watch them develop, but someone else might snap them up.”

Olson and his staff have different areas of expertise, which allow for different coaches to scout different positions.

As the head coach, his focus is mainly on middle blockers, while assistant coach Dave Zelenock works mainly with the setter position. The staff as a whole scouts the defensive specialists and outside hitters. However, Olson said that because of the skill and reliability of his staff, he is able to rely upon them to find the athletes.

“My staff does a lot of identification for us,” Olson said. “When it’s time to decide yes or no, that’s when I come into the process.”

The second part of the process is getting the student to campus and familiarizing them with the team and coaching staff.

Freshman Jenna Coates recently went through the process of being recruited by CMU and said that the deciding factor was her time spent on campus.

“I did a lot of camps here and when I came on my visit, I liked everything about the whole set up,” Coates said.

But getting athletes to visit is only part of the challenge.

The next step he said is selling them on the idea that it will be hard work to become part of the team and to get playing time.

“It’s my job to let them know what our expectations are and to let them know what our program is all about,” Olson said. “We try to frame it so a recruit knows what they’re getting into, what’s great about us, but also what’s tough about us.”

A verbal commitment generally follows shortly after an athlete visits a variety of schools. Although feeling comfortable with the coaching staff, and the school is equally, if not more important, Krupsky, one of Olson’s first recruits when he took over the team, said that meshing with the team is the most important step in getting a player to commit.

“We try to just show them what we’re like as a team and we want people who are going to fit in with us,” Krupsky said. “That chemistry is really important because you’re playing with these people for the next four years and spending about 95 percent of your time with them.”

Olson and Zelenock spend many hours on the road, watching tape of possible recruits, while maintaining a tough practice schedule with the current team. Despite the long hours, Olson said that there is not a day that he comes to work and doesn’t love what he does.

“It’s a passion, and there are not too many people that are completely passionate about what they do,” Olson said. “It’s not a job — it’s a lifestyle.”