Episode #141: Sue Amendt on Recruiting

🎓 Small Town Roots, Smart Recruiting Decisions

Coach Sue Amendt on Fit, Perspective & Guiding the College Journey

In Part 2 of this two-part conversation, the Significant Recruiting Podcast shifts the focus to college recruiting with Hall of Fame volleyball coach Sue Amendt—bringing together the rare and valuable perspective of a former college athlete, a longtime high school coach, and a parent of two college athletes.

Growing up in Lena, Illinois, and coaching for more than 26 years in a small-town community, Sue shares what families really need to understand about the recruiting process—especially when exposure is limited and expectations can feel overwhelming.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Fit vs. level and why it matters more than ever
• What college coaches actually look for beyond talent
• How small-town athletes can navigate recruiting with confidence
• The role parents should (and shouldn’t) play in the process
• Lessons Sue learned guiding her own children through recruiting

This conversation is honest, grounded, and practical—designed to help recruits and families slow the process down, make better decisions, and choose environments where they can thrive as students, athletes, and people.

🎧 Listen to this episode and past conversations at coachmattrogers.com
🎥 Watch full Season 3 episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CoachMattRogers

If you missed Part 1 – Significant Coaching, go back and listen for a powerful discussion on youth sports development, small-town values, and building programs the right way.

Until next time—stay focused on what you can control, stay humble, and keep chasing significanc

Transcript

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on the latest edition of The Significant Coaching Podcast, the recruiting focus presentation of the coach, Matt Rogers YouTube channel. Available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcast. I'm your host Matt Rogers. Before we get started, a quick reminder. You can find all my coaching and recruiting tools, podcast episodes, blogs, books, courses and resources@coachmattrogers.com. Everything there is designed to help athletes, parents, and coaches make better decisions while they're navigating the college recruiting process. This is part two today of my conversation with one of my oldest friends from my hometown of Lena Illinois Hall of Fame volleyball coach Sue Amit of Lena Winslow High School in part one, we talked about youth sports development, the small town athlete mindset, and how growing up and coaching in a village of 2000 people shaped Sue's approach to leadership and player development. In this episode, we shift our focus to college recruiting. Sue shares her own experience as a former college athlete, along with what she's learned guiding her two children maximally through the college recruiting process in recent years. We talk honestly about fit versus level of play, managing expectations, communication with college coaches, and how families from small towns can navigate recruiting with the confidence of a city kid. Sue also offers valuable perspective for parents or recruits on staying grounded, trusting the process, and remembering that recruiting is about more than just valuable. It's about choosing the right environment to grow as a student, an athlete, and as a person. Alright, let's get into part two of significant coaching. Here's my conversation with Coach Sue Amit. All right, coach Amit, we just had a great conversation about coaching in the great town that we grew up in, Alina, Illinois. I want to get into recruiting because. I felt like at 1718, I, my biggest dream was to play in college. Yep. And I felt like there was zero answers. There was zero people to help. Zero people that could gimme any guidance. Nobody maybe even wanted, it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't important. You played collegiately at University of St. Francis, right? Correct. Yep. You've coached hundreds of athletes since, what do you think of 15, 16, 17-year-old needs to understand about even wanting and dreaming about that next step? I think it's important to understand that, to play at that level it's gonna take a serious amount of. Dedication comparatively to like a job. Yeah. At that level. And it's not maybe all it's cracked up to be, sometimes it's draining physically, mentally and that you've really got to love the game and see yourself in a future. With that to, to even considerate, I think. Yeah, you really gotta love it. Oh, for sure. I think when I got to co, it might've taken six weeks where I was like, oh my God. There's a hundred questions I should have asked, I didn't ask. Do you have any upperclassmen, point guards? Because I play point guard. Is there anybody returning that plays my position? Yeah. How many, right? And like volleyball first you're there before anybody else is on campus and. If you don't like the people you're there with, you're gonna hate it. You're gonna hate it and you're probably gonna hate it if you like the people you're playing with. Because it is physically, mentally, spiritually exhausting. Yeah. I tell kids all the time, and I have, I, I work with families all over the country about this and I say, you have to accept you're going to fail, right? That first year, I promise you, you are going to fail. Now you might. You might get some starts. You might get on the floor, you might get some kills, you might hit some buckets, but you're gonna fail more than you succeed. And everybody's bigger, everybody's strong, right? Everybody's faster. Everybody that you're playing with and is trying, you're trying to take their minutes. They have already failed. They've already learned how to overcome that. And you haven't, right? Yeah, I think I talked Molly's coach when she was recruiting, he is like, everybody here is Allstate. Everybody here played on a championship team. That's right. Everybody like, that's great, but if you don't have those things on your resume, you probably shouldn't be playing here anyway. So guess what? Everybody's in the same boat. Yeah. Yeah, you've gotta be mentally tough to be able to withstand those day in day out practices. Talk to me about your recruiting experience.'cause I barely remember mine. Tell me about yours. What was that? Yeah you're really making me stretch there. I had. Back in the day when I played club sports weren't what they are now. So now a lot of that recruiting happens during the club season because coaches can get there and see players and all that stuff, right? So I was not able to play club. If you remember, I tore my ACL during basketball season my senior year. So I was out, I was injured. So I had done a couple visits of places I thought I might like. But ultimately what happened for me getting recruited to St. Francis was that my coach there, rich Luman, had come to Lena to do a volleyball camp for Rose Black. And so that started the conversations between him and I about going to St. Francis. So I had visited some other schools at that time, but after I had that injury. Some of those schools had shied away because of the ACL injury. I love that. The re preparation process. So it really did end up all working in my favor. It was ultimately where I wanted to be and whatever. But yeah, that's how that conversation started was just through a summer camp. Because I'm I think I'm getting confused'cause I think Sandra, my niece went through a really similar situation.'cause you didn't coach Okay. You didn't coach Sandra? I did not coach her. Huh. I think Sandra blew out her knee her senior year too. Okay. And greatly affected her recruitment and all that too. Sure. What was, so Rose played a big role in you playing in college? Yes. Yes. Because she and you do a coach and getting into coach's eyes on you. Yes. Because there was nobody coming through Lena to watch. Watch games. That's fantastic. What did, what do you feel like you learned during that experience? What was, is there two or three things you're like, gosh I have to hold onto those things. I have to share those things with my girls. Through the recruiting process. Yeah. Were there things that you still like, that are stuck in your craw that, like you wish you would've done a little differently, or you feel like you and your mom and dad did well? I think being able, and I know able, I'm breaking your brain going back 30 plus. Yeah, it's going way back. Yeah. But I spent the night there. Yeah. With the girls on campus. I watched a practice. Lots of conversations with the coach. Going back, I'm not sure how many questions. I really asked her if I was just enthralled with the process of this guy is interested in and is thinking and is telling me I'm good. Yeah. And that he wants me to come here. And so if I had to go back, I would ask a lot more questions. And I think that helped. Probably getting into future questions you're gonna ask with Molly's recruitment, but. I think it's important to stay on campus. I think it's important to see that coach in action, his teams in action, and really consider what do you wanna step on campus and do you wanna play? Do you wanna play immediately? Do you recognize that it's a successful program and that you might have to wait your turn, you know they're gonna develop you, and it might be your junior year before you're making significant progress. Towards a starting position. That's right. Or is the program, over whatever and you're gonna go and you're gonna play and your team might never win a game. Yeah. Yeah. Would you rather play? Would you rather win? Would you rather, those are all important things to consider when looking at a team to play for. What's your goal with all of it, yeah. It is great to go into a program that already has a legacy of winning, but that means they got pretty good players. It's great the idea, I'm gonna go build a legacy, but you gotta get used to losing a little bit and you gotta be okay with losing. Yeah. And that's gonna be some work. And you might step in, like maybe it's, they're developing a program, you're gonna step in as a freshman and play. Yeah. But what happens next year when they recruit somebody better than you? Yeah. Is that you just gotta, you just gotta be willing to put the work in and put the work in the off season, because those coaches are gonna monitor whether you're doing it or not, remind me. I loved, I just loved playing basketball with your dad. I loved it. The fact that I got to play with your dad was Sure. He was a, he was somebody I looked up to, literally and figuratively. Yeah.'cause he was such a good ball player. And he was such a good teammate and a mentor. Did he play in college? Yeah. So he played at. Rock Valley and at Highland. Okay. I thought so. I thought he played years at least junior college and then junior college. Yeah. Yep. Did that, and again, I'm taking you back in a time machine here. Did his experience, was he able to guide you with some of those things? Did he have some things that would he, he was able to advise you? I think he would've liked it if I would've went to Highland, actually. Yeah, she did. And as a parent too, like it's close. It's close, within 10 minutes and you get to see games and that kind of stuff. But you grow up where we can still be close to you for a year or two, right? Sure. Yeah. But I think, my parents just ultimately it had to be my decision. Yeah. They're gonna guide me with. With choices they think would be better or whatever, but ultimately if the athlete's not happy and confident in the decision they make, the parents wanting it or deciding it or whatever isn't gonna make any difference in the world. That's right. All right. Let's transition to Molly. Okay. Did you feel confident going through that process with her? Did you feel. Did you feel like you could guide her, like maybe your mom and dad? I know my mom and dad surely couldn't, neither of my parents went to college. Did you feel confident keeping her on a track to a healthy experience? Sure. And the thing, we've got all the perspectives with taking Molly because Ryan and I both played college sports. My dad also, but then Max played college baseball at Trinity International in Deerfield which closed its doors after his sophomore year. So now he's forced to transfer, right? And still wants to play baseball. And so we were dealing with all of that. So then fast forward to Molly going through the recruiting process. We've got a million questions.'cause this is all coming out of COVID too. That's right. So we're looking at places. I'm like, okay, are you gonna have online classes or are we paying all this money for her to be in person?'cause I want her to be in person. So there's that whole dynamic. But also with Molly is very driven academically, so she's known forever that she wants to be a nurse or a nurse practitioner. Practitioner or something in that field. So right there I said, okay, you need to tell me, look at nursing schools and you need to decide if nursing and volleyball is something that you're gonna be able to balance. And I want you to pick a good nursing school first. And then we'll talk volleyball. Yeah. So that to us was really important that she looked academically first and and she was willing to do that. And so I talked through the same things with athletes in my program that want to play at the next level. I'm like, okay, I'll help you. You need to get me a list of schools that you love. Yeah. I'm not just gonna go out and email every coach I can think of and have input like, yes, I need a setter. I need a setter. I want those kids to pick the schools first. Yep. And coach the college coaches want that too. Yeah. Yeah. They want you to have done your research. That's awesome. Is there things that you learned with Max that you were able to help Molly with differently? I think just not being afraid to ask the questions. Okay. When Molly and I sat down with her coach, Paul Schlemer at Edgewood and a couple teammates at that time, I was able to come in with a volleyball coach's perspective, but just really talking to him about, give me an example of what your dynamic is in a practice or. When you're traveling with your team, what are the expectations there? And, what on campus, what kind of role do you have with your kids' social life? And are you gonna be a parent away from home that I can trust you with? My daughter, her, and the teammates with her daughter? What kind. Of dynamic do you have with those kids? What's your success rate? She's going into nursing and how do you view that as a coach when she's into clinicals? Her junior year. In year. Yeah. What's the expectation? And have you had nursing students graduate through the vol volleyball program where you're able to work hand in hand with each other? Because those are all questions that I think would be easy to overlook if you just had stars in your eyes and I wanna play college volleyball and you like me, I'm coming there. It's such an advantage when you already speak the language.'cause half the questions you just asked, the average parent that doesn't coach, maybe wasn't an athlete. Doesn't even know what answers they should be hearing. Sure. You know what? How your daughter grows, you know how she develops. Yeah. What kind of coaching motivates her the best. Sure. So you do you know what to hear? I always tell parents two questions you should ask every college coach if you're interested in them and they're interested in you. What happens if my daughter's got three tests, two papers and a project due next week? And you guys have two games and three practices and she's trying to maintain her, her a average a, whatever that may be. Yep. How do you guys handle that? And the other question I always say is, let's say my daughter's 1200 miles away. She gets sick, she's throwing up all night, she's got the flu and 103 degree fever. How do you guys take care of that?'cause I think that speaks greatly to that human being's character. And you talked about are you gonna be a surrogate parent for my kid? You're gonna find that out pretty clearly with those questions and those answers. And also you want that coach to be able to deal with the hard things. Yes. With your child that. Some coaches outta sight outta mind. That's right. So it's, and I know you mentioned talking about what my kid needs and I know what she responds to and what will motivate her. So I know that she can handle a coach. That's going to be more intense and going to tell her the hard things because she responds from someone getting on her. But if you have a coach with that kind of intensity and someone who's more soft spirited, that's probably not gonna be the place for you. So yeah. What would your kids tell me about you, your players? What would they tell me about you as the coach? Ooh, I would hope that they, I am intense, but I think going through having Molly's grade, I've learned to have kind of a soft, funny down to earth side. Yeah. It helps here that, that kids have seen me in the elementary and know what my expectations are, but yeah, I would say intense, probably. Are kids that have you in art class and mom and dad bring them to a volleyball game, are they surprised at who you are on the court? Do they see is there probably, I would imagine you're not too intense in, in, in your Depends game too often. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I do know that. We have the Fellowship of Christian athletes. I'm on the board there or whatever, and they came to do an interview at a game and they've seen me in action in front of a bible study group. But then they saw me with the intensity of a coach, right? And they were like, oh, coach Sue is definitely a different person than what we see in the mornings when we're in front of breakfast pizza and having conversations. I'm like, not a different, just someone that I think it's good for people to see both sides of me.'cause I think you can be intense and still loving and caring and have the side of a parent and, but kids need to be able to see that, that side of someone too. I think it's a great lesson for parents that are going through the recruiting process too. If you want your child to play for a certain coach or certain coaches you're looking at, go watch them in their element. Yeah. Because. You sit in a, you sit in an office with me and I'm recruiting you. I'm gonna be direct, I'm gonna be honest, but I'm gonna be loving, I'm gonna be caring. And in a game, you may not, you as my kids call it, the crazy eyes come out, yeah. I'm intense. I'm in the game. I'm competing and I'm, and you're competing. So to be able to see both of that, so I think that's really cool. And I've always told my players too, if you see that side of me. That's when I thrive. That's right. Like when I'm intense and I'm all in and that's my game face. That's right. That's when I'm thriving. And so if I'm not doing that, you probably should be worried. It's like the old cliche if I stop correcting you, it means I've given up on you. So we want to be active in coaching and engaging with kids, and intensity isn't a bad thing. No. It's my love language, so yeah, me too. And it also comes back to what you talked about earlier and why you schedule such a hard. Non-conference. Sure. You don't wanna get to the Sweet 16, the elite eight and go, oh my gosh, we've never seen a six foot three middle before. We've never seen an outside with a gun that can get above, get their head above the net and hammer straight down. The more they feel that in practices every day and the intensity of what that games look like, whether you're playing against Orangeville or playing in the state championship. You want them to learn how to deal with all that emotion. Percent. Let's close with some, you've given some advice. Give advice to a 16, 17-year-old athlete that wants to play at the next level. What would you tell that kid? I would say that it's for the love of the game. If you're. In love with this game and you thrive in the gym and you want to do it, there's nothing stopping you from doing it. But be all in and be present in the gym when you're there and focus on the things that are gonna make you better and gonna make your team better.'cause when it comes down to it, team first and sometimes at the college level. Teen first doesn't necessarily mean what's best for you, and so you've gotta be willing to accept those hard things. Yeah. Be honest with yourself, right? Yeah, for sure. Make sure what you're saying is really true when you did do, yeah. Same advice to a parent raising a 16 or 17-year-old and that kid has that dream of continuing to play. What advice would you give them? I would say support that dream and do what you can as a parent to make it happen, but also let it be the child's dream. Yeah. And and guide them through it and be there through it, but be a sounding board and let them be the voice and let them be the one to ask some questions too, because if it's all what the parent wants. Then ultimately in the end, the kid's not gonna have their heart in the right place. So let it be their choice and let it be their decision and be a support system for them. You're awesome, coach Amit. Say hello to your husband for me and I'll everybody in Lena that. Remembers this old face and maybe have some connection with all the teachers that I'm sure are still around and the people still around. Definitely your parents. But thank you so much for doing this, and You're welcome. Thank you. As a long time friend I'm so happy for you and so proud of you and so thankful that Lena has you and those young women have you. So keep doing what you're doing. Thank you. Talk soon. All right. And that's a wrap for part two of the significant coaching Conversation with Coach Sue Amit. That was a fun conversation for me. I'm not the most nostalgic person you'll ever meet, but it brings me so much joy when good things happen to good people and sue's success on the court and in life could not have come to a better person. I love Sue's perspective on college recruiting. It's not about the money, it's not about the division level or even school reputation. It's about being happy and healthy and finding the best place to learn how to be an adult. And I think Coach Sue nailed that philosophy in all of her advice today. If you miss part one of the conversation on the Significant Coaching Podcast, make sure you go back and listen. It's a powerful discussion on youth sports development, small town values, and what it really takes to build athletes and people for the long haul. You can listen to every past episode of the Significant Coaching and Significant Recruiting podcasts@coachmattrogers.com, and now in season three, you can watch full conversations on YouTube. You can also get access to all my books, journals, courses, and recruiting resources@coachmattrogers.com. One final shout out to the Lee Wind Panthers. Just know I'm always cheering for you. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.