BY KEENAN CUMMINGS
MORGANTOWN — West Virginia added two new assistants this off-season in co-defensive coordinator ShaDon Brown and defensive line coach AJ Jackson.
Both came to Morgantown with impressive resumes on the field, but also in their ability to connect not only with prospects but their families on the recruiting trail, making them ideal fits for their spots.
Brown, who had previous stops at Colorado and Louisville, recruited in areas all over the country during his career. For the Mountaineers, he will handle primarily the talent-rich Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia area, while also doing work in north Florida and south Georgia.
As far as West Virginia, Brown will be tasked with handling a small piece and then spot-recruiting in Kentucky, where he has ties not only growing up there, but being a high school coach himself.
As for Jackson, he will slide into the role of primarily recruiting in Washington, D.C. and the south quarter through Richmond, Va., while also handling a large bulk of the work in central New Jersey, all the way to New York City. That also will include a chunk of the northwest corner of Pennsylvania.
“I’ve recruited those areas my whole career,” Jackson said.
That’s a good thing because those areas are places head coach Neal Brown has made clear the Mountaineers want to make more concentrated efforts into those places.
ShaDon Brown and Jackson fit into the makeup of the current staff because they place high priorities on the relationships forged during the process. That is not only with the players they are attempting to recruit to Morgantown but with their families, coaches and other key players in the process.
“I’m a relationship guy. You have to connect with the high school coaches and the kids. Kids have to believe you’ll make them a better man and a better player,” Jackson said.
For Brown, that aspect has been essential. In large part because during his career as a college coach, he has been put in plenty of areas that haven’t been his “traditional” recruiting areas. That has taken him to California, Texas, Georgia and Florida, among many other stops.
But the reason he has been able to have success in that department is because he has always focused on people and cultivating those bonds over time. That aspect travels with you, regardless of where you end up as a recruiter. It’s something he learned firsthand when he was a high school coach and was able to get a feel for what he wanted to see out of college coaches coming into his building.
“They want a genuine guy. I feel like if you can build relationships with people then it doesn’t matter. You can put me in Alaska, and I can recruit Alaska because I’m going to build relationships,” Brown said.
That hasn’t changed for him regardless of the logo he has on his shirt, which is another thing that has made Brown so successful over the years. He enters every recruitment the same by learning about the player, learning about his situation, and then building out from there.
“To me that doesn’t matter where you’re from. That’s just dealing with people,” he said.
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