This post is inherently political in nature but presented without any political context. Notably, because it is inherently political, I significantly hesitated to post this thread. But it is directly related to recruiting and indirectly affects VT, and as such I thought it would be of interest to those that read this site. Please don't provide any political comments.
Because of political disenfranchisement, the NAACP has started the Out of Bounds pledge that directly targets certain states and schools of the SEC and ACC. The pledge states, "We're calling for Black athletes, families, alumni, and fans to withhold athletic and financial support from public universities in southern states attacking Black voting rights." They are targeting Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. The listed schools are all from the SEC and ACC (for the ACC, the two schools listed are FSU and Clemson). Virginia as a state is not targeted.
The athlete pledge is interesting as well, as it requests that athletes to:
Delay commitments to targeted programs.
Ask coaches and athletic directors where they stand on voting rights and fair representation.
Request public comments from universities opposing racial vote dilution.
Visit and consider HBCUs.
Use NIL platforms to elevate voting rights, fair maps, and HBCU investment.
Encourage peers not to let their athletic value be separated from their community's political power.
Not sure if this truly will change the recruiting culture of blue chip recruits, but if it does, UVA and VT would likely be indirect beneficiaries. VT and Franklin have demonstrably supported HBCUs and is in a state that has taken efforts to prevent disenfranchisement. And I don't think Franklin will be shy about highlighting these facts on the recruiting trail.
Notably, Miami, SMU, GT, and the schools of North Carolina are all ACC schools in the South that were not targeted either. So, if this truly does change a recruiting culture, the ACC as a whole may be beneficiaries as compared to SEC, which has 11 schools targeted. The Big10 and Big12 (especially a school like Texas Tech) would also likely benefit, especially for top national-level recruits.
Again, please no political comments. Please keep it to recruiting, NIL, etc.
Comments
Any difference made will be negligible. People are getting paid to play. They will go where they feel they can get the maximum return at a place that they are okay attending.
In my mind, the question is whether the pledge is a factor to consider. I doubt many blue-chip recruits will back out of their current commitment to one of the targeted schools if their commitment is strong. I further doubt a majority of players would reject a targeted school if it was the best opportunity for compensation. But in a competitive battle between an untargeted school and a targeted school in which the compensation and everything else is similar, will any recruits take this pledge into consideration?
VT (and other major nontargeted school) will be in some recruiting battles with the targeted schools. For example, a few of the top recruits from the state of VA are considering VT along with several targeted schools. I don't think recruits will overtly make a political statement, but perhaps they think about the targeted schools a little differently. And maybe (and perhaps more importantly) their parents who are more likely to be politically motivated take this NAACP pledge more seriously.
Ultimately, it is my opinion that it is unfair to place this burden on high school and collegiate recruits who either have never voted or barely eligible to vote, many of which are looking to escape poverty. But it also my opinion that if the sentiment of the Out of Bounds pledge is a factor of consideration for a recruit, VT is well positioned.
Everyone has a price. Even if an athlete were leaning toward following the NAACP guidelines, a school can throw enough money at them to sway their choice anyways. I do believe there will be some kids/families who follow the guideline and go to other state/schools than the ones listed, but they will be few and far between
I think these kids will look at the folks who gave money to BLM and those folks saw no benefit, it was scammers at the top living the good life off of others money that was donated. The same could happen here in a different way. A kid listens to the NAACP and then commits to a school with not as good coaching and development and misses out on playing top talent and going to the NFL, not to mention the money he could make in college now as well. The kids will be making a major sacrifice to please folks who already have gotten theirs in life. For some folks on both sides of the political spectrum, it will never be enough until we are fully segregated 100% again unfortunately. I've seen enough on social media to make me want to get off of there. Rage bait is real and so are folks from other countries or working for other countries trying to split us down the middle internally based on any differences we have race, gender, age, income, height, weight, religion, politics... etc. All I know is this, the college football I loved in the late 90's-2010's is dead, peak social media from the late 90's, instant messenger with cringe-worthy screen names and original facebook and myspace were the best it ever was. Things always start good until toxic folks come in and ruin it. I feel for the younger generations that missed what I got to experience. Folks didn't always hate each other, and things weren't as corrupt as they are now. My advice to everyone is the same to myself, less technology and more touching grass, sand, or dirt. God bless all of you and Happy Memorial Day!
Im reminded of a story of a black man whose goal was to collect KKK hoods from members he convinced to leave. He would buy them adrink and talk to them, eventually asking them why they hated black men and then got the normal response that they were criminals or dumb or whatever stupid shit was spewed. Then he would ask them if they thought he was that after sitting with them calmly talking and dressing nice and buying them a drink. They would think and say no. Then he would call them a serial killer cause turns out they are almost always white men. And at the time there was no known black serial killer (i don't know if there was one now). Thos got them thinking about stereo types and if the man veggie them wasnt what they thought there must be others because they weren't a serial killer.
The point of this is bots on the internet tell you things that just aren't true in life. Like life, meet people and remove the difference based hate. Hate people because they suck not because of something they can't control.
Coaches employed by public universities may have some difficulty publicly commenting on some political issues as state employees
This may impact that pledge for some of those schools.
Nope. Why? Money Talks and Bullshit Walks
This may sway a few individuals, but I don't see it driving any macro changes.
Even in the pre-NIL era, we've seen movements attempted to push young black athletes towards HBCUs instead of PWIs. None of them have taken off (Deion/Jackson State being the exception that proves the rule).
Beyond that... locker rooms are a mixed of politics, races, backgrounds, etc. As a population, college football coaches skew quite right of center; that's never stopped recruits from signing before.
Finally, it's really hard to get people aligned. The only time I can think of in the last 2-3 decades where college athletes forced some sort of political change was Missouri football in 2015 (maybe the Chuba Hubbard/Mike Gundy thing?). I think that was possible because it was a group of folks who (1) already knew each other and (2) had a clear goal in mind. Contrarily, the Out of Bounds campaign aims to align a bunch of unconnected not-yet-professional athletes from across the nation until "fair representation is restored" - that's a lot of coordination required across a wide geographic area, across a wide variety of people who don't know much about each other with a relatively vague goal.
I'm sure there will be a handful of politically informed/motivated families for whom this will play a role. I'm sure we all know a few folks who have relocated (in part) to live somewhere that more closely matches their political values. I'm sure we'll see the same things with some college athletes. But I would be shocked if this happens at the scale necessary to drive political change.
I want this to work, for no other reason than that it would help improve our recruiting. ;^)
James Franklin has always said on the recruiting trail that he wants to be the first black coach to win a CFB natty. I hope he uses this as leverage to sway kids towards VT. I feel sure he will.
Id rather him to be the first VT coach to win a championship
I'm okay with him doing both. 🤷🏻♂️
I can't see it having any real effect in an era where the size of the bag determines where recruits go.
Yeah, there are few enough "premiere" spots that I think you'll still have kids lining up to make "best for me and my family"-decision. You might see some recruits at a different school than they would have been otherwise, but leaving that kind of money on the table to perhaps not go at all or to take a lot less is a big ask.
Sounds like another part of this push is to convince people to stop financially supporting the schools in certain states. No idea if that will do much, but I understand the idea. If you can reduce how much people donate to clemson as a way of protesting actions in SC, you can reduce clemson's bag size and therefore lower the quality of their team
Let's call this exactly what it is - a group advocating for a boycott which is one of the few ways individuals/consumers in a capitalist society try to rein in behavior they don't like from powerful entities.
As such, it's likely to have next to zero effect.
When you want to throw rocks but have only sand, you throw sand.
Ya go with what ya got.
And also, sometime, somewhere, I want to buy you a beer.
What did I do to deserve such treatment? /s
Dunno. You just seem like somebody I'd like and while Bruce is more of a northern thing, the GoKartMazart always intrigued me, as I love the turn of a phrase in a good song. And you're a musician, that too.
Hell yeah, brother.
Gus as Tap-Man (Psych)
https://www.reddit.com/r/psych/comments/1g7yrp/gus_pocket_sand_fail_xpos...
If anything, I can see the recruits using this as a bargaining chip for a bigger bag.
I am with many of the comments above...
The NAACP is operating under the assumption that the money follows the players when, in fact, it is the players who follow the money. I am reminded of the 1986 NFL strike (there are differences of course). The Washington Redskins won a Super Bowl at the end of that season with a QB they picked up during the strike (Doug Williams). I supportive of these young men doing whatever they feel like they need to do for themselves, for their futures. and for whatever cause they deem important. But this is going to be a big nothing burger IMO.
Much ado...