Imagine a job that sends you to Las Vegas every summer, where you stay at a glitzy hotel on the Strip with your buddies. But then imagine days so busy you don't even have time to eat until 10 p.m., let along enjoy the festivities of the Sin City.
In her professional career, Syracuse softball head coach Mary Jo Firnbach has made more recruiting trips all across the country than she can remember. She has recruited for three different programs, spanning 14 years. Though she describes her life on the road as sometimes cumbersome, she looks forward to her annual treks across the nation anyway as happy reunions with her longtime friends in the business.
Firnbach's recruiting efforts have paid quick dividends in 2006. The young Syracuse team's success this season is due in large part to the contributions by eight freshmen from the West Coast. The Orange qualified for the Big East tournament in consecutive seasons for the first time ever. SU, the fourth seed, plays DePaul today at 10 a.m.
Firnbach first dabbled in the recruiting business as an assistant coach at Michigan in 1993. Since then, she has scouted for young talent at tournaments in Colorado, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington. Places roll off her tongue with an easy familiarity. And then, of course, there's Vegas.
Firnbach usually travels with coaches she scaled up the coaching rungs with - Florida State associate head coach Louie Berndt, Michigan head coach Carol Hutchins and private softball instructor Terry Schweikert, just to name a few.
The first thing Firnbach will tell you about recruiting trips, though, is that they are not vacations.
Each trip may last from a weekend to a full week. She arrives at the softball fields each day at 8 a.m. and usually stays past 10 p.m. In between, she has to ration her time between recruits who may be playing on different fields at the same time, all throughout the day.
Last year, she traveled to Irvine, Calif., to observe players, including current Syracuse freshmen Kim Weinstein, Tonye McCorkle and Nicole Miller, who had already signed with SU. Sitting between two fields watching other prospects, she barely even had time to chat with them.
"I try to make the most of my time and try to watch two or three games at once," Firnbach said. "I'm by myself and you know, they come out and just sit out there and try to make conversation, 'Why are you sitting out here by yourself?' Well, I'm trying to make the most of my time. It's not to be anti-social, just to get more done."
Firnbach started off at Michigan with recruiting assignments primarily at small local tournaments, where she didn't have to watch too many players at once.
Her responsibilities ballooned when she accepted the position of assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Illinois State in 1996. She then had to travel to larger tournaments with more than a hundred teams playing in each one, an adjustment that didn't come easily to her.
"If anybody says they've never felt overwhelmed, they would be lying," Firnbach said. "It's very easy to get into the situation where you have everything lined up, then all of a sudden, this field gets backed up because this game goes into extra innings, or something happens where the person you're supposed to watch wasn't playing or pitching that game, so you have to come back and see them later. You have to revamp your entire schedule as each hour goes, basically."
Still, Firnbach doesn't mind the hard work. The most trying part of being at the fields is not being able to stop and chat with the friends she hasn't seen for months. They usually share rental cars and arrive at the fields together, knowing they probably won't get to speak again until they have dinner more than 14 hours later.
"A lot of times, I have a break at 1 o'clock, don't have a lot of student-athletes to watch at that time," Firnbach said. "They may be watching like, four different games, so it's very difficult to match up. We joke a lot in passing and we're like, maybe see you in an hour, type of thing. You've got to stay on the move."
After tournaments end though, Firnbach and her friends sometimes reward themselves by staying a day longer to sightsee or just relax.
Florida State's Louie Berndt calls Las Vegas her favorite destination for that purpose, because of the glitz and glamour of the city. Over the years, Berndt has become the default travel coordinator, booking hotel rooms and then dispensing them to other coaches.
Firnbach personally prefers Bally's Las Vegas, because it isn't as much of a carnival as other hotels. She's seen different shows and visited various casinos, but recruiting usually drains her of much of her energy by the end of the trip.
"It gets hot and they're long days, so if we have enough energy to do anything after that, it's quite a miracle," Firnbach said. "I guess my younger days of coaching, I always had a little bit more energy to do that, but now I'm getting older and I've been there, done that, type of thing, so we kind of do it but we're pretty low-key as far as being out and about."
Firnbach will admit to one guilty pleasure, however.
"I'm not a big gambler, but I like to watch people lose their money," she said. "You leave the hotel in the morning and you see some people, and then you get there at night after recruiting and the same people are still there gambling. Some are in dire straits and some feel like they've probably lost their home, but it's quite an experience and it makes for a lot of great stories."
Then there is the one time more than 10 years ago when Firnbach, Berndt and Schweikert went whitewater rafting on Clear Creek River in Colorado.
"We were on a category five rapid and I think we hit something, and we were all out of the boat," Berndt said, chuckling. "When we got back in, we were all in different spots."
Speak for yourself, Schweikert said, because not everyone got wet that day.
"I can tell you that coach Firnbach and myself were the only ones who were not in the water," Schweikert said. "We're more athletic, more agile and smarter. We had to save everybody."
Firnbach was less smug about not falling over.
"I was hanging on by my toes, I think, and I told myself I was not going into the water - it was too cold," she said, her eyes open wide. "I'm a decent swimmer but it's not something I've done in a long time. I usually just like to lie on the beach and go into the pool to cool off and get out."
As exciting as the Clear Creek episode was, Berndt said they don't usually need thrills like that to enjoy their time together. Just having one another's company will suffice.
"It's kind of like a sister bond," Berndt said. "You know each other inside-out. You know their likes and dislikes."
The friends sometimes won't even have to discuss where to eat. Their legs just carry them to P.F. Chang's China Bistro, for example, which Berndt has learned by now Firnbach likes. Firnbach also leans toward Mexican food, Berndt and Schweikert agree.
Schweikert also said her fondest memories of times spent with Firnbach are some of the most unremarkable ones.
"We usually just end up laughing our heads off," Schweikert said. "I personally usually just do something really stupid. For example, when I'm at the airport, I'll drop my bag and she'll laugh at me. She spends a great deal of time laughing at me."
Firnbach has had her laughs at Schweikert even when things have gone awfully wrong. She mentioned a trip about 10 years ago to Kansas City, Mo., where the two of them had to rush to the airport and almost missed their flight home.
"We were supposed to leave at 7 o'clock but … for whatever reason, the alarm didn't go off so we woke up at 7," Firnbach said. "I'm just grabbing my stuff to go and she's like, 'I have to shower.' So I'm panicking because she says she has to shower. We don't have time for that. We don't have time to pack even, I'm just grabbing stuff."
To this day, Firnbach still remembers the car ride from their hotel to the airport.
"She's just flying down the highway," Firnbach said, shielding her face and getting into a crouch. "I couldn't look because she was driving so fast. I think I was scrunched down in the bottom, not even looking and my head against the dashboard."
The duo also caused quite a commotion once they arrived at the airport.
"We pulled up in the rental car and we were that late, she had to just leave the rental car at the curb," Firnbach said. "We come flying in, all sweaty and just running all over the place. … It was before Sept. 11th, so everything was a little bit more low-key, so it wasn't causing too much of a disturbance. Now if that happened, we'd probably have been arrested."
Schweikert was too embarrassed to comment about the incident.
"Tell (Firnbach) that she's in trouble now," she said.
In trouble or not, Firnbach will hit the road once again this summer with Berndt, Schweikert and the rest of the gang. As usual, they will make pit stops in Las Vegas, Colorado, Texas, California and other familiar places. There is one place, however, Firnbach has never gone recruiting and that she wouldn't mind visiting every year.
"I'm not sure why they don't have more tournaments in Hawaii," she said, laughing. "I'd love to go to Hawaii."
Even Hawaii can't compare to Firnbach's favorite summer destination, though: Syracuse.
"We don't spend a lot of time at home, so a lot of people ask, 'What are you going to do with your weekend off and where are you going to go?'" Firnbach said. "Honestly, we're going to stay at home just because we're tired of traveling."
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