Outwork him if you can: Why USC’s Justin Stepp has relentless approach to recruiting
Tim Stepp knew his son Justin was a tireless recruiter. He got to see that first-hand a few years ago around the dinner table.
Tim was out to eat with Justin Stepp — now South Carolina’s receivers coach — during an in-season stop in the Midlands while working at Arkansas. But in the middle of the meal at Outback Steakhouse, Stepp was working the phones and talking to recruits.
“He had a phone in each ear,” Tim Stepp recalls. “He said, ‘Dad I’m sorry, but if I’m not talking to him then somebody else is.’ He had a nice filet and it got cold. I looked at him and said, ‘You want me to eat that, because it is getting cold?”
“That is who he is and someone who is going to work hard.”
Justin Stepp’s relentless work ethic began during his playing days at Pelion High School and then at Furman University. Stepp recalled being paranoid if he missed a workout or practice. Why? Because someone other than him had a chance to get better that day, he said.
Stepp translated that work ethic from the playing field to the recruiting trail and was recognized on a national level. Rivals named him one of the Top 25 recruiters in the country in 2019 after he added four four-star recruits to the Razorback recruiting class. They were the only team to sign that many four-star wide receivers for 2019. In Stepp’s four recruiting classes at Arkansas, he brought in seven four-stars recruits.
Stepp’s prowess as a recruiter and ability to cultivate relationships are some of the reasons Sam Pittman kept him on staff when he was hired to replace Chad Morris in December of 2019.
“You have to be a hard worker and you have to be competitive,” Pittman told reporters last month after the early signing period. “Recruiting has to be personal to you. If you lose a kid at Arkansas or any kid in the country, that has to hurt you and it has to be personal. I think it is to Stepp.”
Recruiting is personal for Stepp — he admitted as much during his introductory press conference at USC last week. He talked about how his relationship with a player doesn’t stop once he leaves campus and he is done playing at the school.
Stepp said he wanted to be one the first people to get the wedding invitation when one of his players tie the knot. He and his wife named named their first child, Courtland, after Courtland Sutton, who Stepp coached at SMU. Sutton is now a receiver with the Denver Broncos.
“I am going to put everything I have into my players. My players are my family and that is something that is important to me, to build relationships,” Stepp said.
Stepp tries to talk or text recruits at least once a day, if not more. Most of that talk isn’t about football. It’s about their family or school work or anything else going on in their lives.
Stepp says that personal touch goes a long way way in developing the relationship before a player arrives on campus.
“These kids nowadays and platforms you have, they are talking to somebody. Worst thing I could hear is that ‘I had a better relationship with that other coach than Coach Stepp,’” Stepp said. “What I love about this college game is you get these kids at a pivotal point in their life. These four years of college help mold them into who they are as men and to make them better husbands and fathers and citizens. That is the best part of my job.
“If the only thing you get out of me is how to run better routes or catch the ball better, then I failed them miserably. It is about helping them grow off the field.”
