BOULDER — When it comes to recruiting, Colorado football coach Dan Hawkins is always looking for the next big idea.
“Business is business,” said Hawkins, who solicits the help of students in CU’s Leeds School of Business to try to convince high school football stars to sign with the Buffaloes.
Hawkins enlists help from a small group of students from a project management course each fall and spring semester to work on an internship basis with the football program. Other business students, mostly seniors or graduate students, work each semester at the Dal Ward Athletic Center as a project team. The students work closely with Mark Nolan, CU’s assistant director of football operations.
“What we do in the class is go out and plan and execute on a project,” said CU senior instructor Jim Marlatt, who teaches the class. “That always includes a real client.”
In addition to the Colorado football program, students in Marlatt’s classes have worked on projects with Janus, Vail Resorts, CH2M Hill, Target and other large companies.
“Dan Hawkins is always very creative and innovative when it comes to (recruiting),” Marlatt said.
Because Hawkins does not want other football programs to find out about his recruiting techniques, a code of confidentiality is strictly enforced among all parties involved in a project. But Hawkins and Marlatt are able to talk freely about one innovative project tried last year because it has since been banned.
A year ago CU mailed cartons shaped like pizza boxes to recruits, rather than send standard recruiting letters. Each box contained hundreds of business cards that resembled $100 and $500 bills. An accompanying letter explained that the sum of the fake currency would add up to the value of a University of Colorado education.
Colorado’s compliance department had cleared the “box project” with the NCAA and Big 12 Conference.
“That was a pretty ingenious move,” Hawkins said. “It was a fun little deal dreamed up by our staff, operations and the business school. It was a good marketing project for business students and it was good for us.”
However, the Big 12 had second thoughts after other football programs were apparently told by recruits about the CU box of “money” and questioned the legality of the tactic. Later, the NCAA ruled that no more than one business card per coach could be sent to a recruit.
“We’ll always play by the rules,” Hawkins said. “We don’t want to do anything illegal, unethical or immoral.”
