From the podcast: Hood’s Brad Barber on building a D-3 team

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Here are some excerpts from the pod.

Kyle Devitte: Coach, I’m curious, does the lack of D-3 teams in Maryland make it more difficult to bring in Maryland kids to your program? 

Brad Barber: Well, I think that’s a two-pronged answer. I mean, we have a group of kids that we can kind of get on the outskirts of Maryland. There are a lot of kids, I’m sure, as you want to get far enough away, but not too far away to where they can still have their connections back home. And we’re in a perfect radius of New Jersey and northern Virginia. That’s kind of our bread and butter. And then we have our isolated recruits from across the country, different states. I wouldn’t say it’s difficult, but the locality to a lot of those grade schools, the kids wanted to go elsewhere. Those are some of the conversations we have when a kid picks elsewhere to go.

I mean, one of our top attackmen, Rio Muldoon, he’s a DeMatha Catholic product. Obviously, we’re very familiar with that program. He shattered our freshman scoring record as a freshman last year. He’s off to a great start this year, so we’re slowly tapping into the Maryland areas and the private schools. We’re primarily a public school roster, but as you all know, success attracts more student-athletes of a different caliber. And we have started to see more success bringing those players in over the years. We’re also starting to get more success here locally than we have in years past.

Jack Piatelli: Do you have a cap on your roster and do you have a cap on the number of players you bring in every year? 

BB: No, we don’t have a cap, but just to paint a picture, we’re bringing in 14 student-athletes in the class of 2023. I like to keep our roster between 45 and 50. Just because it gives us the ability to compete in practice, and account for those early-season injuries to have depth.

I’m also a big believer in competition at positions. So I’ve always felt that 45 to 50 is a really good number as you start to get a little bit above that as a coaching perspective gets a little bit harder and more difficult to manage and also appease all those types of personalities. We’re not in the business of appeasing players, but you want them to believe in the process. When that roster gets a little too heavy, it’s hard to really stay true to who you are, and what your program stands for.

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