When Coach Stephanie Gaitley is out recruiting for her Fordham women’s basketball team and sitting in the living rooms of potential players and their parents, she gives an unconventional spiel.

Gaitley tries to sell the teenagers on taking extra classes when they arrive on campus, to go beyond the workload of even above-average college students. Classes, classes and more classes. In basketball season and out. In summer, when their peers had gone home. Even at times that might interfere with working out.

So many classes that the players can earn their undergraduate degrees in just three years — then come back for their fourth year and gorge on more classes, this time in graduate school, taking a drop step toward a master’s degree.

“We use it as a recruiting tool,” Gaitley said.

You can see why some players might find that tool to be more like a pitchfork. But Gaitley said she recruited athletes who find the prospect of being overworked appealing.