Recruiting Season Smells Like Children

I’ve been watching Friday Night Lights and I’m probably 3/4 of the way through Season 2.  The tremendously talented Smash Williams just offered a verbal commitment to Rick Barnes, who was serving as an agent of the fictional TMU (texas methodist university).  He had overtures from the University of Alabama, Michigan, tiny Whitmore College, Miami Southern (also fictional) among others, and he decided to stick with his home state TMU, stating it’d always been his dream.

During the recruiting saga, his mother was accosted by an overzealous recruiter offering his mother a job and money to land him at Oklahoma Tech and a guarantee of Smash getting a shot at NFL dreams.  He had multiple visits at his house from recruiters.  He had a debauched party with the wild players at TMU.  And he got into an extremely intense argument with his mother over his process.

Between doing this show every week and watching Smash go through the process of being a highly touted recruit, I can’t help but think about what the recruiting system should look like.  Here are some observations:

1. Smash and his family seem completely overwhelmed by the recruiting process.  Until a young lady, a young lady that visibly annoys his mother, comes on the scene who saw her brother through the recruiting process, I felt sure that Smash was about to put himself into a terrible situation.
2. The recruiters are relentless.  From phone calls to drop-ins to texts to meeting his mom to following him in the parking to being at practice, they are ever present.
3. Everyone’s pushing for a verbal commitment, an idea that seems rather absurd since it doesn’t necessarily commit a recruit to a school.  They are not binding to either the school or the athlete.  An athlete must have a verbal commitment to sign a letter of intent.

Here’s how I fix the recruiting system.

I think Smash’s family is probably much like many other families that are entirely unprepared for the process they’re about to enter.  How could you be unless you’d been through the process before?  Coaches can certainly provide some excellent guidance, but that’s assuming that the coach has navigated the process before.

I’d advocate that college athletes actually do need agents, someone who knows the college process and can guide players serve as guides through the process. I think most people can cognitively get behind this idea.  The problem is how you fund it.  In my mind though, this goes back to the fundamental disconnect between college athletics and reality.  Players are recruited like the big money assets that they are, and they’re expected to navigate the system like the amateurs that everyone wants to act like they are.  Open up the system and allow the players to get agents need them and they can pay the agents through endorsements and their salary that they earn from their exploits on the field.

Recruiters are relentless.  This is a problem.  How can you justify a recruiter being able to gain access to a minor’s world in the way that recruiters are depicted as doing.  I think the proposal about agents would help to stem the tide.  If the player is contacted by a school, they can direct them to their agent, who can handle all negotiations until the athlete is ready to commit and serve as a bottleneck for all these contacts by recruiters.

Why does this verbal commitment exist?  Really?  I’ve said on the show that I think the system of how an athlete commits to a school should be overhauled anyway.  I’d like to see them get rid of verbal commits – either you’re in or you’re not.

The natural complaint about my proposal is “you’re turning these young men and children into adults and professionals”.  Can we just stop pretending that’s not what this is already.  That’s all I’m asking.

RIP Joe Pa

Joe Paterno passed away early on Sunday at the age of 85 as he battled hard to fight cancer while trying to preserve his legacy/reputation. It’s just a shame how short his life was once his passion was gone from his day to day life.

Joe, along with coaches like Bobby Bowden, is likely to be the last of a generation that used to be a part of college football – a person who became larger than life not only because what he was able to accomplish on a football field, but because of all the people he mentored along the away to become successful people in athletics and in life. Back in the day, coaches stayed at one institution for the majority of their careers and had an impact like this. Now, that doesn’t mean college football coaches don’t do that today, it’s just that the majority tend to always be on the look out for green pastures since neither they nor their employers have much patience for losing. There’s too much money at stake.

Joe spent a remarkable 62 years at Penn State. He started first as an assistant coach for his old coach at Brown, Rip Engle. After Rip retired, Joe took over for his mentor and catapulted Penn State to an era of success that helped the institution bring in lots of revenue and national recognition for their institution.

However, he did have his faults like every other human being. Ever since the Sandusky tragedy had come out, it brought to light a side of Joe Pa that was never shown before. He was a man that may have been too loyal to Penn State and his football team, deciding to protect that over other priorities. With that said, he made some mistakes and it seemed that he was genuinely remorseful for his role in this tragedy.

I mentioned this on twitter and I’d like to put it out here as well: I really hope his supporters do not make him into a martyr because he wasn’t. At the same time, he wasn’t some evil person either. He was a person who was able to follow his passion in life and be very successful at it, it’s really that simple. Every person makes mistakes and every person accomplishes things in life – his just happened to be in a fish bowl with lots of invested people watching it every day for several decades. I’ve done my share of criticizing Joe recently (and he deserved it) but I also believe that overall his positive contributions to society outweighed the negative…by a lot.

Rest In Peace Joe Pa