Kickin' Cancer event gives coaches brief recruiting break

Scott Richey, The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
Updated ·5 min read

Apr. 12—GIFFORD — Brad Underwood was able to get four of his Big Ten coaching colleagues to Gordyville USA on Tuesday night for his Kickin' Cancer event because the recruiting calendar hit a dead period starting Monday.

That means no trips to see a prospective recruit and no campus visits — official or unofficial — by those players. But a dead period doesn't mean all recruiting activities shut down entirely. There's nothing "off" about the offseason anymore, with ingress and egress from a wide open transfer portal shaping rosters across the country.

"It's crazy," Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said. "This used to be a time after the season where we could just unwind and maybe get away with your wife for a couple days, but we're busier than we've ever been at this time right now trying to rebuild rosters. The transfer portal, I think there's 1,500 kids, and it grows by a couple hundred every day.

"I did a Zoom call in the hotel room before we came over. It's going to be nice to get away from the phone, honestly, for a few minutes and, more importantly, hopefully raise a lot of money for a great cause."

Hoiberg joined Underwood at Gordyville USA for Illinois' Coaches vs. Cancer event along with Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, Purdue coach Matt Painter and Iowa coach Fran McCaffery. All four are involved in supporting the American Cancer Society individually and all four jumped at the chance to join Underwood for his event.

Izzo has been involved with the American Cancer Society with a Suits and Sneakers event for nearly two decades. Painter's involvement with Coaches vs. Cancer includes past Illinois-Purdue events that used to held at The Beef House in Covington, Ind. McCaffery and Underwood are both on the Coaches vs. Cancer national council, and McCaffery's wife, Margaret is on the American Cancer Society board of directors.

"I've been involved with Coaches vs. Cancer for a long time, but I've got to admit nothing like this," Izzo said. "This is unbelievable. ... I came for Brad, but I came for cancer because, unfortunately, the odds are good it's going to hit one of us or somebody in our families. Preventative management is my kind of deal. The more we can do to get ahead of this, the better it will be."

The Big Ten coaches in attendance have dealt directly with cancer. McCaffery's middle son, Patrick, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when he was 13 and his since been declared cancer free. Painter's wife, Sherry, is a breast cancer survivor, and the Purdue coach lost his mother to pancreatic cancer about three years ago.

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"Everybody has those stories," Painter said. "You just want to be a part of something that will hopefully some day get a cure."

Illinois' Kickin' Cancer event topped last year's record attendance of 1,200 with 1,500 at Gordyville USA on Tuesday night.

"This is one fight where we're all in it together," McCaffery said. "I'm just so impressed with the size of the crowd. To me, that's what's really special. That's why (Underwood is) able to raise as much money as he has, and not only raise money, but awareness and education."

While Tuesday night's event did give the coaches involved a respite from roster reconstruction, the recruiting calendar doesn't stay in a dead period long. It turns back into a recruiting period where visits can occur starting Thursday, and that runs through April 19. Then it becomes alternating evaluation periods and recruiting periods through the end of the month.

All five coaches in attendance Tuesday night have had to deal with the transfer portal. Underwood lost five scholarship players before adding Southern Illinois forward Marcus Domask and Utah Valley guard Justin Harmon. Hoiberg lost two players, and McCaffery lost two players and landed Valparaiso forward Ben Krikke.

"Used to be, when the season ended, you kind of could catch your breath a little bit," McCaffery said. "Recruiting was over. We typically had that done in November. Now, it's a second phase of it. There's good parts and bad parts. If you need a position, there's more players availability, but then you have to make sure your players are set with what they're doing. I don't think any of us ever saw the pay-for-play stuff coming into effect, but as soon as they coupled NIL and the transfer portal together you knew that's what it was going to become. That's not what it's supposed to be."

Painter and Izzo have mostly avoided the portal of late, but they haven't been immune either. Purdue lost Brandon Newman to the portal but got a commitment from SIU's Lance Jones. Izzo hasn't made any additions yet — and didn't make any a year ago — but did lose Pierre Brooks to Butler.

"Everybody's in different situations," Painter said. "I'm just thankful at Purdue we've had a lot of retention. We've had a couple guys here in the past couple years transfer, but for the most part we've done a good job of keeping guys and building them. That's the hard piece. You've got to be able to sign them, but if you want to develop them you've got to be able to keep them. You can't develop people you can't keep."