AL BAGNOLI: The football offseason doesn't mean time off

Al Bagnoli sits in his office these days resembling more a salesman than the football coach of last season's only undefeated Division I-AA squad. But make no mistake, what the Penn football coach is doing now is winning football games -- just as much as when Dave Betten and Kelly Tolton tackled Cornell running back Chad Levitt on fourth down and two from the Penn 21 with one minute remaining in the November 20 contest, assuring the Quakers an undefeated season. Bagnoli is fund raising, recruiting and dealing with alumni. The messages are piled high on his desk, where he sits donning a tie. "You win as many games out of season as you win in season," Bagnoli says. "The kids commitment in the weight room and the offseason program are vital. One of the things we really tried to stress when I got here was trying to get our team physically stronger. If you go through the season and you win the championship, and then out of season you don't get any better physically, you're in big trouble." While the players bulk up physically, Bagnoli beefs up the roster. He is selling Penn to any academically and athletically qualified high school candidate who will listen to him rattle off the benefits of the Philly campus. His competition comes from all sides, enough to fluster even the most brazen Wharton undergraduate. There are Division I-A scholarship schools, which can offer free rides to their athletes. There are other Ivy schools as well, which may have better name recognition than Penn, the school in Philadelphia people often times confuse with that other institution in University Park. "You have to know realistically what the kid is looking for," Bagnoli says. "If the kid is telling me, 'I applied to Cornell and Dartmouth,' then he's probably not looking for an urban environment. If the kid really wants business, then I think against any of those schools, you have a very good chance to get the business kid. If the kid wants medicine, you have a pretty good chance against anybody in the medicine field. And there are other majors, not just those two. You've got to pick and choose. "But I think there's some majors that the school is really better known for on the national scope, and can attract kids. If you're talking about some of the more generic majors, now you're getting into more name recognition on your diploma. Some of those kids are difficult to recruit." What does it mean to be qualified both athletically and academically at Penn? Princeton senior running back Keith Elias has his opinion. Elias said it's a shame players can get into Penn to play football who can't make Princeton's lofty admission standards. Bagnoli grins, and calls the statement "asinine." "Right now the league is as regimented in terms of the academic parameters as it has ever been," he says. "Everybody has the exact same flooring. Anybody who falls below that flooring, you cannot get into the school. It doesn't matter if you're Penn. It doesn't matter if you're Harvard. It doesn't matter if you're Princeton." The Ivy League employs an academic index -- a combination of standardized test scores, high school average and class rank, if its available. If the index doesn't equal a certain point total, "you can't recruit that kid." The recruiting process is not as easy as it once was. Aside from wooing this year's seniors, Bagnoli and his staff this month will begin gathering information on high school juniors. Then the football staff starts checking. They check to make sure the academics are accurate and compatible with the Ivy League. They also check to verify the candidate's athletic ability. By the time next season begins, and those juniors have become seniors, everything is beginning to take form. Bagnoli will request films on those he's interested in during the football season. The travel portion starts December 1. "Now you're physically going to visit those kids that you've watched film on, had visit, talked to some folks about and qualified their candidacy," Bagnoli says. "From there you come off the road and see what kind of interest you've generated -- who is going to apply and get information on them." From this time of the year through February 2, is the first big wave. Bagnoli tries to get kids in early enough where he can give them an alternative to a full-scholarship athletic program. After February 2, it's more or less an Ivy league battle. "Recruiting is basically a year-round procedure now," Bagnoli says. "It's a lot like weight training. Years ago weight training was very specific to just an offseason conditioning program. Now it's inseason. It's summer time. It's out of season. "Until we can get a real good handle on recruiting, there is no offseason. Especially with recruiting weekends, it's basically seven days a week."