Interesting article in the NY Times ( Committing to Play for a College, Then Starting 9th Grade ) about the expansion of recruiting among women's sports and the expansion of the recruitment of younger and younger players. I never played a high school sport at the level needed to have any sort of recruiting interest but I know that I would not have been able to handle/understand the implications of making a decision on my undergraduate destination before I even entered high school. Heck, it took me through my undergrad, and 2 more years of grad school before I figured out that I didn't really like the major I chose for undergrad.
Do any of the guys that follow the recruiting trails see any evidence of this in football or do the club teams just not exist? I know it seems to be the pattern in AAU/club basketball and travel teams for baseball, lacrosse, etc. My sense (and naivete) seems that with football the colleges and players at least wait until that sophomore season in high school to ramp up recruiting and really start the letter of intent signings.
Thoughts?
Comments
If the NCAA really wanted to do something useful it would pass a rules to protect kids such as:
1) Zero contact before high school. No calls, visits, tweets.. nothing.
2) Can only send offer during a kid's junior year. No verbal, written, social media, hand shake, wink, etc offer of any kind before that.
3) Can only send academic, school material and football program knowledge prior to junior year to assist kids in making informed decisions and not just "loving the coach visit" of a person that may actually leave the program or get fired.
This would solve a lot of problems.
But then the NCAA would be about the students and not about the money, and we all know that isn't true.
Here's the thing about recruiting them when they are young. It's high risk and high reward. You could pick out a diamond in the rough before anyone notices or even a star player that everyone sees and then they now have their commitment. The risk comes with the fact that they can still decommit just like anyone else but they can also screw up. I had a friend who had a full scholarship to play soccer and was offered it sometime around her Freshman year of high school. By her Junior year, the school pulled the scholarship offer from her for screwing up, making poor grades and other disciplinary issues. These things happen. 4 years is a long time. Just look at the athletes in college. In 4 years, many of them screw up in some way, just some are worst than others. Kids at that age go to college camps and showcase tournaments to get these offers so the fault isn't on the schools. The recruiting process is only a small part to the training to be an athlete at the next level.
There are a few things impacting this process, first is the availability of material. With our digitized life now, there is film available on the internet on almost any level of sports to be evaluated, especially in leagues that depend on putting their participants into college programs to make their money. This allows coaches to be so much more aware of budding talent out there. These feel good stories also seem to always catch the media's attention too so finding out about this kind of recruiting is also much more common than back when news came by way of the TV/newspaper. The second is the programs realizing the longer they have contact with a potential recruit, the more likely they are to build a relationship that goes beyond just recruiting for a sport. (See football camps in the summer hosted by team coaches that give them contact with kids down to the elementary school level) Third is the investment by parents into these younger and younger advanced leagues. I recently had a conversation with a guy that told me that he sat down and calculated how much he had spent on his daughter's soccer development between elementary school to her junior year of high school, and it summed up to $65,000.00 between travel teams and tournament costs and paying a coach(es). Fortunately his daughter earned a full scholarship for soccer to play at UConn, so it was worth it. The only simple thing about this is that a school isn't recruiting you for your undergrad, so that's still a decision you have to reach, they are pursuing you for something you are extremely talented in already.
I agree with everything you said except this. I think this is a slippery slope. yes, these kids are being recruited to play a sport for the university but they are classified "student athletes" for a reason. The primary goal of the kid may be to go to the NFL but the primary responsibility of the university must be to educate the student. providing the athletic venue to get that kid to reach his goal is important but secondary.
I wasn't implying that the university isn't responsible for supporting your decision on what undergrad to pursue, just that choosing between an undergrad in business versus underwater basketweaving is still something that the student needs to decide on. The school is stating that their primary interest in you at this point is your ability to play a specific sport. If the schools only interest was a student playing a sport though we wouldn't have kids going to FUMA or other prep schools for not meeting the academic standards required to attend the school, these kids would get in and be fostered through whatever degree they thought they could manage.
gotcha. was reading that a different way. yes, agree with this completely.