By Evan Doan, Reporter
AQ Cross Country Athlete competes in contest – Photo by Aquinas Athletics
Recruiting is the lifeline of college athletics. It’s how coaches build teams, cultures and win games, but the landscape of college recruiting has completely changed from just 10 years ago. College coaches now have to navigate the transfer portal, Name Imagine and Likeness (NIL), social media and the remnants of the extra year of eligibility from the Covid 19 pandemic. Yet through it all Mike Wojciakowski, head coach of the Men’s and Women’s Cross Country and Track teams, has remained successful.
Wojciakowski’s message to athletes hasn’t changed much over the years. “Athletes are always worried about making the wrong decision when choosing a college,” Wojciakowski said. “I like to remind them that they can be successful at a lot of schools and Aquinas is a school that is very athlete friendly,” but while the message is the same the communication has changed drastically.
“It is a lot of just finding how to reach athletes through whatever form of communication they use now,” Wojciakowski said. Wojciakowski has been the head coach for 28 years and has claimed 25 WHAC championships along the way, but having conversations with recruits has become more challenging over the years. “Recruits don’t have landlines anymore and they don’t check their emails as often as they used to,” Wojciakowski said. “It’s a lot more calling cell phones and texting nowadays.”
Cross Country claims the WHAC conference champion title in 2024 – Photo by Aquinas Athletics
But the one thing that Wojciakowski relies on the most has changed, on campus visits. The NCAA works on a recruiting calendar that only allows coaches to contact athletes during certain times of the year and only so many times. However, the NAIA allows coaches to make as many contacts with an athlete as they would like.
“That is really the hard part is to just get them on campus,” Wajcianowski said. NCAA coaches must set up official visits and are only allowed to offer an athlete a singular 48 hour visit, in Division 3 an athlete can only officially visit one school,; while the NAIA does not have any restrictions for on campus visits. “The overnight visits are really where most of the recruiting is done,” Wojcianowski said. “My athletes play a huge part in recruiting both as hosts and also by evaluating how a recruit would fit into our culture.”
Wojciakowski has brought in 12 cross country freshmen for this year as his teams look to build upon recent success The men’s cross country team is looking to three-peat as WHAC champions and the women’s team is looking to build upon back-to-back runner-up finishes in the WHAC championship. Both teams finished 2024 ranked inside the top 25 coaches poll. The men finished 17th and the women 24th.
The 17th ranked women’s team and the 16th ranked men’s team both start their season Sept. 13 at the Calvin University Diemer Classic.
The Saint 