Horn adds a personal touch to recruiting

COLUMBIA — The legend of Darrin Horn the recruiter preceded his arrival at South Carolina. And, really, it trumped the reputation of Darrin Horn the basketball coach.

The story goes that, while in his first head coaching job at Western Kentucky, his alma mater, Horn arrived home from a road game at 2 a.m., grabbed keys for a rental car and drove to parts unknown in the Bluegrass State to meet a prospect in the morning.

Exaggerated? Dead on?

Somewhere in between?

"I mean, I don't know. I don't remember that particular story," Horn said. "But I'll do what I have to do. We're not scared to travel however we have to travel."

Maybe not the driving-a-rental-car-in-the-middle-of-the-night part — no, not the travel — but there's a big chunk of South Carolina's second-year coach that genuinely enjoys recruiting.

He does. It beams from him as he talks about it.

One South Carolina official called it Horn's "baby."

Horn likes the personal side of it. He enjoys getting to know families and letting those families get to know his own.

"If you're good at it, it becomes personal," he said. "I think what we do is serious. We try not to take ourselves too seriously, but this is serious.

"We're trying to give young people an education and help them grow as people and get them to a point where they achieve their athletic dream. We take great pride and satisfaction in that."

A particularly satisfying moment came this spring, when former Western Kentucky guard Courtney Lee, then an NBA rookie with Orlando, invited the Horn family to an Eastern Conference playoff game against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

"I thought about when we got him as a freshman, we couldn't get him to play hard two plays in a row," Horn said. "I think all of those things start with the recruiting process."

But coaches aren't exactly born with recruiting running through their veins, right?

So, where's the drive derived for Horn?

In a name, Dwyane Wade.

Horn was a young assistant on Tom Crean's staff at Marquette when Wade and others were convinced that going to college in Milwaukee, Wis., was a good idea.

A Final Four trip later, Horn saw firsthand what solid recruiting could do. He was hooked.

He then set out to do it on his own.

After a Sweet 16 bid at Western Kentucky, with Lee included, he moved to South Carolina and the SEC with the big picture in mind.

"I think this is a place that can explode, if we do a good job of (recruiting)," Horn said. "I've been saying from day one that we just have to get people here. This is a great place."

What Crean and Marquette did a good job of, Horn said, is figuring out ways to separate themselves from other schools.

"When you're not UCLA, Kansas or North Carolina, that's what you have to do," Horn said.

That often comes in the form of a personal touch. The example Horn used was knowing how a recruit did in a recent track meet. It's about finding something other coaches might miss.

The secret to recruiting at South Carolina, to Horn? Just get them here. Seeing, to him, is in fact believing.

Whether it's the style of play, or Colonial Life Arena or the sense of community that Horn likes, recruits need to physically see these things to understand what's going on at South Carolina.

"We had several kids from other states, and North Carolina the most, and they had no idea it was like this here," Horn said. "They're growing up in a place where they don't hear a lot about SEC basketball.

"Young people need to see it, something tangible. In the Twitter and Facebook and 24-7 ESPN era, they need to see something. We have to get them here to see it."

After deciding not to sign anyone a year ago, this is Horn's first chance to roll out a recruiting class.

Its four members — versatile guards Ramon Galloway and Lakeem Jackson, shooter Steve Spinella and junior college post Johndre Jefferson — are expected to make an immediate impact.

"He lets you know what he expects of you," said Jackson, the Charlotte native expected to make the biggest splash. "He's just an all-around great guy. He made me feel comfortable in wanting to come to South Carolina. He sold me on it."

Those players will also set the precedent for Horn's recruiting efforts at South Carolina.

On the day he arrived, April 1, 2008, Horn said he wanted to make in-state recruiting his priority.

He said it's been tougher than he initially thought it would be. He said South Carolina's so-called brand name doesn't have even close to the reputation that he thought it did.

And, so, through time and effort, you have to build. First with the coaches, and then the players.

On the trail, Horn says he uses another SEC school as an example of where South Carolina is and could be headed.

It's Florida, a football school by trade that's turned in several Final Four appearances and won a couple of titles since Billy Donovan's arrival in the late 1990s.

"You have to establish that, like you do with anything else," Horn said. "Five years from now, the players in this state, we hope it's a big deal to them if they get an offer from South Carolina. It's a big deal to us if they get an offer. Right now, I don't know if that's the case for young people in this state. They're not exactly waiting for that offer from us.

"We want to change that. We want to get it to that point. We want to make it so that, when that happens, there's nowhere else they want to go."

Could take a few middle-of-the-night car rides to make that reality. Horn seems up for it.

Reach Travis Haney at thaney@postandcourier.com. and check out the South Carolina blog at www.postandcourier.com/blogs/gamecocks.