Recruiting emphasis changes to filling spots.
MOUNT BERRY, Ga. — Football may be in the offseason, but the coaching staff is hard at work on adding players for fall 2014. Recruiting would likely prove easier with a home stadium to sell.
 |
|
Berry football coach
Tony Kunczewski
|
While spring practices have just begun for the Berry football team, recruiting has been in full swing for months. The 2013 team started out with nearly 100 players; today that roster is slimmer at 70 players, according to Tony Kunczewski, head coach.
The roughly 30% attrition rate is not a surprise, said Kunczewski, who guided the inaugural team to a 1-10 record in 2013.
“That’s what we projected would be here after this first year, so we were pretty much dead on with that [number],” he said.
The recruiting effort for the first season was very different than that for this second year, said Kunczewski, who came to Berry from LaGrange College in Georgia.
While last year the coaching staff simply hoped to field a team, this year, “we have specific needs that we need to fill, Kunczewski said. “It’s less focused on bringing in so many numbers and more so on making sure we get the quality and filling in the positions that we need to fill in.”
The goal is to add about 35 players for the coming season, he said.
New stadium could help
Complicating recruiting efforts is the lack of a home stadium.
“The number one reason for football was to enhance campus vibrancy,” Kunczewski said. “Having a stadium on campus [will] give the Berry community a sense of ownership, which is vital.”
Freshman football player Matt Farinella called a home stadium “the last piece to the puzzle.”
“Having our own stadium means everything to us,” he said. “It’s the subject of a lot of our conversations.”
| Tom Hart, Berry athletic director |
Tom Hart, Berry’s athletic director, said he sees Valhalla serving as a community gathering place outdoors much as the Cage does for Berry inside.
“One of the exciting pieces of having a multipurpose stadium is that you have the opportunity to utilize it in a variety of ways,” Hart said.
Though plans drawn up (http://www.berry.edu/valhalla/) call for a stadium that seats roughly 1,200 people, that number could change, Kunczewski said. Because about 7,000 attended the inaugural game last fall, seating capacity could grow.
As of late March, Berry had raised $4.7 million toward the $6.5 million target needed to begin construction, according to athletic department numbers.
For his part, Kunczeswki said he has been honest about the stadium with recruits.
“Our administration and board have made a commitment not to build a stadium unless the funds are raised prior to construction,” he said he tells recruits, “which I can appreciate.”