Episode #123: Dr. Greg Lott on Recruiting

🎙️ Dr. Greg Lott:  How to Find the Right College Fit

In this episode of the Significant Recruiting Podcast, Matt Rogers sits down with Dr. Greg Lott, Director of Athletics at Otterbein University, to break down what families and athletes really need to understand about the college recruiting process.

Dr. Lott explains how Otterbein approaches recruiting through both a human development lens and a roster strategy lens—helping coaches identify the “sweet spot” roster size for their program, protecting athlete development, and ensuring every athlete has meaningful opportunity to grow. He shares how recruits can stand out by demonstrating self-awareness, initiative, and a clear understanding of why they want to be part of a program—not just that they want to play.

If you’re a parent, coach, or student-athlete navigating recruiting, this conversation offers clarity, direction, and a healthier framework for making the right decision—not just the loudest or flashiest one.

Learn more about Dr. Greg Lott and Otterbein Athletics:
 https://otterbeincardinals.com/staff-directory/dr-greg-lott/434

To work directly with Matt on your recruiting journey, or schedule him to speak to your school or club, visit:
https://coachmattrogers.com/

Transcript

0:11

Welcome back to the Significant Recruiting Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. If you're new here, this show is all about helping families, student athletes, and coaches navigate the recruiting journey with clarity, confidence, and purpose. We take out the hype, we take out the panic, and we try and remove all the anxiety from this recruiting journey. I believe greatly in helping every young athlete become the CEO of their recruitment. We want them to be fully in charge and understand why they have the ability to be in charge. Today we're joined by Dr. Greg Lott, director of Athletics at Otterbein University, and someone I genuinely admire. Greg brings a thoughtful human-centered approach to college athletics. He believes deeply in developing student athletes as people first, not just athletes. And as you'll hear, he also brings a very clear and practical framework to roster building, recruiting fit, and helping young athletes find the right environment to grow. Before we dive in, just a quick reminder, if this conversation helps you today, like, comment, subscribe, and share this episode with a family coach or athlete who you think might benefit from it. Your support helps this mission. Reach the people who need it most. And remember, if you're looking for help on the recruiting journey, or if you'd like to have me speak to your athlete, school, club, or organization, please go to coach matt rogers.com. That's where you'll also find my books, the Recruits journal series, my online recruiting classes, and my weekly blog. Alright, let's get into it. Here's part two of my conversation with Dr. Greg Lot. Dr. Lot. I'm so impressed with you and what you're doing at Otterbein and just the way you approach your job. I want to talk recruiting with you a little bit. Talk to me about your approach as the ad and what you want outta your staff in terms of recruiting. Sure. We have the human focused side and we have the metrics side. And, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about both, right? First and foremost I wanna do everything I can to help our coaches recruit the student athletes that are the best fits for their program that are gonna be able to impact things between the lines on the track, so to say. And that value the kinds of things that are important to that particular coach in that program. On the metric side of things what I've done because Otterbein, like many small privates is a tuition dependent institution. So it's important that athletics is part of an overall enrollment strategy. And so I've worked with every coach to determine what I would say is a roster sweet spot number. And that sweet spot number, we're trying to take a lot of factors into account. What's gonna be best for a competitive outcome, what's gonna be best for student athlete development? What's gonna be best for retention? All of these kinds of things. And so we, we try to land on an approximate number and say, all right, this is gonna be an ideal, healthy, robust roster size. I don't want it bigger. I don't want it smaller. That's where we're trying to get. When I came in here, some programs were already there, some programs were a little bit too big, some programs were too small. And then it's about just typical roster management strategies of if you know this is where you need to be and this is where you are, let's get a one year plan to get there. Let's get a three year plan to get there. Whatever makes sense so you don't have drastically different class sizes and things like that. For me. If you care about the student athlete development, if you care about the retention, you absolutely have to have time and moments where they can be on the field, on the court, on the track, competing and trying their craft out. There are some programs, there's some programs in our conference where the rosters are so large they're not getting that experience that's something that I feel like is an important part of my job with the rest of administration is to be able to advocate for this is the roster number that makes sense for this team and not get pressured into, or not then pressure my coaches into just getting bigger and bigger, but to make sure that we can actually support and grow and develop all the people that are participating in that sport. What's the collaboration look like with your coaches to come to that number, whatever it may be. Yeah, it's a lot just conversation. It's sitting down, it's talking about what they think that number is and why, and have they had experiences with bigger or smaller. And we look at other peer institutions just my background and experience with, different programs and knowing what seems to work and what doesn't. And, it doesn't have to be an absolute. We can try something out and if for some reason that sweet spot just doesn't seem to be hitting right in this environment, then we can revisit. But I like having that as a target for them. Something that they can just constantly, have on their mind and think about. And, sometimes Otter, our otterbein might not be right for every single student. And so I, I don't wanna say that, we have to have a hundred percent retention. Sometimes the person isn't the right fit for the culture, and so maybe the coach wants to go in a different direction. Maybe just, not a right match. We just talk about it really. That's great. And it's really what has to happen.'cause every coach is different and every program's different and every school's different. Is there an otter buying kid? Is there that typical kid that you're looking for, maybe from an academic standpoint, what their grades and test scores look like? What type of energy you're looking for or are we always talking about, let's make this as diverse as we can let's make sure we have a melting pot on our rosters. What does that look like in terms of direction? I know you, you had the opportunity to speak with our president. He loves to say that otter bin's for everyone. I really do feel that. I feel that from his leadership. I feel that from the type of environment that we all work to try to create I have in places that are more niche, that are more like, yeah this is really what this fit should be. So I think it is really just we're an open and accepting place and so that's great. But what I'm, I think really trying to develop within athletics, when you think about what the Otterbein athlete is really just buying into that notion that I'm probably sounding like a constant drumbeat now about learning and growing and developing through your sport experience. Yeah. It's a great drum beat if you're gonna have one. I appreciate that. I appreciate, I think, but I'm biased. Yeah. But Right. Like I, if there's someone that comes in and they're like, oh I just wanna win a national championship, I don't care. Like whatever. Okay. I don't know if this is the right spot for you. If there're and it doesn't even have to just be about winning versus developing, I think it's easy for us to make that almost know two sides of a coin. But I. I just feel like that, what I want to hear from recruits is Hey, I realize that I'm not a finished product as a human being and I want my experience here to help me get closer to that. Keep moving the needle in the right direction. I wanna excel, I wanna compete, but I wanna learn about myself in the process. I wanna learn how to work with others in the process. And that's the kind of kid that we really want. That can be, any race, any creed, any socioeconomic level. As, as long as they have that as a driving force, that's probably, that's most important. We want every institution to feel that way, and that's not always the case, but that's where it is. How important is it to teach your coaches? How to build a healthy competitive roster because some think they, we're hiring somebody, they obviously know how to evaluate talent, but you can't have 15 shooting guards on a basketball team. Yeah. You may not want you, you may not want, 15 sprinters on your cross country team. You want some strategy, you want some people that think about how they're gonna run a race differently to have that melting pot. What role do you play in that and helping that coach figure out how to build their ro healthy roster? Yeah, similar to some of the things we talked about earlier I just spend a lot of time with them in one-on-ones and recruiting is always a big. Chunk of that. We talk about it on the back end of their season. We talk about it at kinda the start of the year as two natural points as to what do you got coming out the door? What are your I always ask them the questions, what are they prioritizing in this recruiting class? It's not always just about numbers. Yes, they've got that sweet spot that they're thinking about, but I really want them to talk to me. Do I need more athleticism? Do I need more technical proficiency? Do I need more scoring or attacking? Do I need more defense? Do I like, what is it that they feel like they need and they're prioritizing? And, then I take notes and able to talk to them as they go throughout that particular cycle and how it's going. And I really let them. Steer the ship, so to say, as far as that's concerned. And if I've got a basketball coach, that coach that wants to figure out how to run an offense with 15 shooting guards that's up to them. If, yeah, I, I will never tell someone, what kind of personnel they need to have, but I do want them to be able to tell me what they wanna have and why, and how that fits into what they're trying to accomplish. Yeah. And then if I can help them move towards that, then I feel like that's my job. I think that's huge. And I think that's the only approach you can take if you want a healthy relationship with your coaching staff is they've gotta have a plan. But can you articulate it? Can you articulate who you are and what you want? And what does your program stand for? So those are great things. What advice would you give to, and you've got some young kids coming up, what advice would you give to parents who are going through this recruiting journey? I love this conversation. So I also I chair the board for our local rec district and in, in that relationship, I'm talking with the high school coaches and the high school ad in our area and parents a good amount. I think that there's just this misunderstanding. About the recruiting process with pretty much everyone. I talk to some people that just have this belief that oh if I'm good, I'll be noticed. And I'm just gonna sit there and wait for a coach to just throw me a scholarship or invite me to their team or what have you. I also see this group of people that will like, dive in and pay for. Pay out the nose for highlight videos and recruiting services and things like that where they fully just, they dive into that business and we're gonna invest the farms so that someone can get my kid placed, so to say. And I think so many people are just missing out on this notion of in most, at most colleges, if the kid reaches out and says, Hey, I'm interested and here's why. Here's what I can bring to the table that can initiate a conversation where they can then get assessed and potentially find a good landing spot. But I see so few people that take that approach. It's just, I don't know, it's almost mind blowing. So if I had advice I would say okay, do your homework and figure out what environment you wanna play in and why. Learn about the coach, learn about the team, learn about the school, and figure out why you would be a good fit. Why would you be a good fit in their offense and their defense? Why would you be a good fit with their personnel? What is it about what the coach does or their background that resonates with you? What is it about the school? That draws your attention? Is it the size? Is it the environment? Is it the location? Is it a particular major? These kinds of things. And if you can succinctly state and reach out, shoot an email, pick up the phone, whatever it is, and say, Hey, I wanna come play field hockey at this school because I really wanna study this and this program is great. And I saw that this seems to be what you focus in on your team and that really resonates with me. And I noticed that you've got two attackers that are graduating and I feel like I could come at. Okay, now you've caught the coach's attention. They're gonna look at you and say, that person is self-aware. That person is mature, they know what they want. I wanna have a conversation with them. So that's my advice. Do your homework. Yeah, it's great. It's initiative, it's great advice and go see what can happen. Now does that work at a Power five school? In a revenue generating sport? No. Then they're, I shouldn't say it. It might, yeah, it might. Yes, it probably carries less weight because they already know from, eighth grade that 10 people that they might be trying to recruit. Or as you've heard, certain coaches probably heard certain coaches be very vocal about this recently. I'm not recruiting high schoolers anymore because the transfer program. Yeah. But the vast majority of athletic situations at the collegiate level, what I just described could be yeah, very impactful and could work. It might be 40 universities that are not recruiting high school kids like they used to. Yes. But that means there's about 1,960 others that are, yeah, exactly. So how do you handle the excuse? I don't wanna burden the coaches. I don't wanna, what if I say the wrong thing? I don't wanna, I don't wanna put myself out there and fail. What do you think of that excuse? That's coming from the high schooler that doesn't want to reach out to the college coach. Yeah. When I was doing my master's degree at Kenesha College, I had this professor that loved the phrase smile and dial. And the whole notion behind it was like, look, stand up, put a smile on your face, put yourself out there. You may get told no, it may not work out, but if you don't, it definitely won't. So really that's my pushback is, okay, you can, whatever. It's fear, failure, you don't wanna burden them. Whatever excuse you wanna want to use, if you don't reach out, the likelihood of them finding you and reaching out to you is very small. But if you give it a shot, you'd be surprised at how many times in life that seems to work out for you. Fantastic. It's such great advice. Let's end this with. Why should people look at Otterbein? Why should a family and a student athlete look at your sports and your coaches? Sure. One is, it's in a phenomenal location. Westerville is just this. Unique environment where it's right on the outskirts of Columbus. You can access any of the things that the bigger city has to offer. But we're in a very safe, quaint environment. Very cute uptown with nice restaurants and things to do. So I think you can't beat the location. I hear constantly, even through my interview process and I've seen it and I've felt it since I've been here. There really is this unique, caring family environment. Otterbein it's with the faculty, it's with the alum. You really do feel like you're part of something bigger and you've got a whole net of people that love you and wanna help you grow and succeed. We have, I'd say, pretty well balanced, holistic success. Athletically, most of our sports have been. Really good most of the time. And so if you come here, you're gonna get a chance to compete you're gonna get a chance to excel. And then for me, what's most important, if you come here and you're a student athlete, you're gonna be part of a department, part of a structure, part of a system that is gonna really intentionally work to help you grow as a human being through your sport experience. And I think we do that better than pretty much everyone out there. And so if that's something that you value might be the place for you. I'll add this. Since I've gotten to talk to you and your president, I'm not sure there's a better place to go where you're gonna get the help after you're done there, to go have the life you wanna lead and help you with jobs and careers. Yeah. And have a support system even after you leave, that you can come back to. So that's pretty great. Dr. La thank you so much for doing this. It's been such an honor to talk to you, and I'm so excited about the future of Otterbein athletics with you in that leadership role thank you. I appreciate the kind words. It's been a pleasure talking with you. That's a wrap for today's episode with Dr. Greg Lot from Otterbine University. I'm grateful for leaders like Greg who are willing to speak honestly about the recruiting process, not just how to get recruited, but how to find the right environment to grow as a human being. His insight today was a reminder that fit and development and self-awareness matter far more than chasing the biggest logo or the loudest offer. If this episode helped you, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with another family, coach or athlete going through the journey. The more we spread conversations like this, the healthier college athletics becomes, and if you wanna help navigating recruiting. Whether that's building your attack list, preparing to communicate with college coaches, or just figuring out where your son or daughter truly fits, you can schedule a conversation with me@coachmattrogers.com. That's also where you'll find the recruits journal, my books, our recruiting classes, and the weekly blog of significance. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.