For Damiere Shaw, recruiting and coaching are all about relationships, the Rutgers wide receivers coach talking this week about his style when it comes to arguably the two most important components of his job.
Shaw has become the new rock star on the recruiting circuit for Rutgers football. The first-year wide receivers coach has created some significant buzz on the recruiting trail, his ability to connect and foster an understanding beyond football already playing a key role in the Scarlet Knights landing three-star wide receiver Yazeed Haynes out of Pennsylvania.
In his role as a recruiter and on-the-field as an assistant, Shaw says he follows the example of head coach Greg Schiano.
[lawrence-related id=15379]
In doing so, he points to the program’s belief in trust and accountability, especially as it comes to recruiting.
“I won’t say that it is anything I do specifically. This program is led by coach Schiano and I’ve watched him and the rest of the guys in this group recruit at a high, high level the last two years. It is all about relationships. The way we recruit, we recruit in teams so I may be responsible for a kid’s area but I’m not the only one responsible for recruiting that kid,” Shaw told reporters this week.
“We collectively recruit and the most important thing I do and the rest of the staff do is build relationships. It is easy to recruit when you have a head coach like coach Schiano backing you.
“You can name-drop him on kids. I like to collectively recruit and build relationships.”
The relationship component, for Shaw, also extends to his job on the sidelines in coaching the wide receivers.
[lawrence-related id=15385]
This offseason, Rutgers lost some significant swagger when Tiquan Underwood left to become the wide receivers coach at Pittsburgh. Underwood was known for his ability to connect with players as a recruiter and also foster relationships within the program.
Shaw, who was hailed by Schiano this week for being a technician as a coach, talked about how he handles his room and mentors the individual players in a way where he is able to critique their performance in practice or a game but also develop their ability to communicate in an open fashion.
“I say I coach extremely hard and everything we do is extremely intense but it’s never personal. You know, the coach is never personal just trying to help these guys be the best version of themselves,” Shaw said.
“And then we get in the meeting room it’s all conversation based, it is never lecture based. Guys can express how they’re feeling, guys can express what they were thinking out there on the football field. So I will say these guys really get coached hard, but they know that my relationship with them is way bigger than football. And I think that enables me to be able to coach those guys hard push them hard without them fighting it.”
[mm-video type=playlist id=01fc3gzhz7qrm49z6q player_id=none image=https://rutgerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]