If Isaac Wodajo listed every occupation on his business card during the 2022-23 season at Wabash Valley Junior College, the printer could have run out of ink.

As a 30-year-old head coach, Wodajo was responsible for coaching more than X’s and O’s. Not only was he responsible for assembling the entire roster, being his own video coordinator, and helping his players academically, Wodajo was tasked with getting behind the wheel to bus his team to games.

“It was like a U-Haul you can rent, but with seats,” Wodajo recalled. “It took some getting used to driving it. You had to practice a little bit beforehand.”

The attention to detail and the roles he’s filled led to Wodajo’s rapid ascent in the coaching department made him an ideal candidate for Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard, who hired him as Wisconsin’s new director of recruiting and scouting less than a month ago.

Replacing Kyle Blackbourn after he took the head coaching position at Division 2 Rockhurst University, Wodajo will be tasked with directly the program’s recruiting oversight, scouting, on-campus visits, and recruit evaluation. He’ll also Gard and the coaching staff in other to-be-determined areas but is unlikely to be asked to be a substitute bus driver.

For a Milwaukee native who grew up cheering for Josh Gasser and Frank Kaminsky and working UW basketball camps, it was an ideal situation when Gard reached out to him to gauge his interest.

“I’ve seen (Gard) throughout my career at different places. I think he followed my career as well,” Wodajo said. “Coming back to the home state was a big thing for me, and being in the Big Ten at a Wisconsin program I watched growing up in Milwaukee, it was a no-brainer for me.”

Wodajo joins Wisconsin during a tremendous change in college athletics that has had a massive impact on the Badgers program over the past four months.

College recruiting is far different from when Wodajo started as a graduate assistant for Shaka Smart with Texas seven years ago. Back then, the staff met weekly to discuss the program’s recruiting board and analyze a list of potential targets with the coaching staff for a three-year recruiting period.

Recruiting life has now veered toward the professional ranks, with freedom of movement between colleges with the transfer portal and the explosion of name, image, and likeness contracts being on par with high school recruiting.

Wisconsin felt that after losing one player to graduation and seeing seven players leave through the portal this offseason. When UW begins fall workouts, the Badgers will have added three players from the portal, two scholarship high school prospects, and one international signee.

While many fanbases must get used to the new normal, Wodajo brings a different perspective to the Wisconsin recruiting department considering the amount of practice he’s had with flipping over rosters.

“Those were some of my most formative years in terms of organization, in terms of rebuilding a roster every season,” he said. “I am used to it. I’m used to adding eight, nine, or 10 guys in a given offseason. That gives me perspective. If we only had three or four, not to make it seem like I’m a recruiting guru, but I think that’s a lot easier than what I’m used to.”

July was always a huge evaluation month as college coaches crisscross the country to watch various AAU events. That won’t change for UW, according to Wodajo, but it might not be the biggest piece in the puzzle anymore.

Case and point, while the portal is closed, preventing schools from reaching out to players, the staff is still actively recruiting international prospects by conducting Zoom conversations and reaching out to player’s agents to gauge interest.

Wodajo is elbows deep in all of it, including using analytics to see how potential portal targets would project statistically for Wisconsin in the Big Ten conference, which officially expanded to 18 teams on Monday with the additions of Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington.

“Coach Gard still likes recruiting the top high school kids in the Midwest, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Ohio,” Wodajo said. “He still wants to go about it in that way because Wisconsin is about player development and bringing guys who want to be a part of Wisconsin and want to develop. But the landscape has totally changed and obviously, you see here that we have three guys from the portal this season.

Wodajo is still formulating his plan to maximize his impact on Wisconsin’s recruiting department. He mentioned drawing on his experience at junior college, coaching at the mid-major level at Northern Kentucky, and high-major schools to bring new ideas to the official visit process, maximizing ways to show off the campus to recruits.

But two of the biggest things he’ll bring is organization and perspective, etched into him at Wabash Valley in Mount Carmel, Illinois. An assistant during his first two seasons and lead assistant in his third season, Wodajo divided the recruiting burden with the head coach and another assistant. Named the interim head coach in March of his fourth season, Wodajo didn’t get the official head coach title until September.

Being stuck in limbo during those seven months meant Wodajo was the only one on staff that entire season. He now leads a UW staff of roughly eight focused on recruiting.

“The world isn’t going to end just because a couple guys leave your team,” Wodajo said. “I hark back to (my junior college) experience of having to flip nine (or) 10 guys in a given offseason and bring in a whole team.”

While the days of programs replacing three graduating seniors with three incoming high school prospects are mostly gone, Wodajo admitted he couldn’t see a day when the Badgers wouldn’t bring in at least one high school prospect for an open scholarship. But after a season in which UW lost a pair of junior starters in Chucky Hepburn and A.J. Storr, Wodajo emphasized that there must be a balance between bringing in developing and experienced players.

“It’s all about where the chips fall with your team after March, April, May,” Wodajo said. “I think Wisconsin will always be in the market for high school kids. I can’t see Coach Gard and his staff bringing in high school kids because that’s the foundation of Wisconsin – bringing in young guys who play a little bit early, develop as players and people, and are All-Big Ten guys by their junior/senior year. I think going away from that wouldn’t be right.

“I do think you have to bring in some older guys every year from the portal. If we only need to fill two spots in a given offseason, those two might have to be older guys if we’ve brought in two previous (heavy) classes of high school kids. I don’t see Wisconsin basketball going away from recruiting high school kids.”

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