February 12, 2008
Wednesday morning I went to Hood River Valley High School to
watch Adam Coerper decide were he would play college football.
In a small, quiet
ceremony in a school office, Coerper, flanked by his father and
coach, signed to play for the Washington State Cougars.
It was a happy moment
for the tight end/defensive end and his parents to see him sign
his letter of intent to play for WSU, where he intends to major
in Kinesiology.
Meanwhile, across the
country, mega-recruit Terelle Pryor held a press conference in
front of throngs of media and fans to tell the word…well
nothing. He decided not to commit to any school on the day that
was supposed to bring an end to the recruiting process for this
year.
According to Pryor, he
is still deciding between Michigan, Oregon, Penn State and Ohio
State.
The way this kid has
been talked about on message boards and in newspaper columns
over the last year, one would think that not only does the fate
of the four programs depend on where the kid signs, but the
safety of the free world itself hangs in the balance.
The scene at Hood River
Valley on Tuesday was how the recruiting process used to end: a
few people, maybe a small celebration, and the kid puts on the
cap of his new school. Now it is an affair. ESPN.com devoted the
entire top portion of its Web Site to who was going where, and
an entire industry has sprung up to give devoted fans a
year-round look at who the latest savior of their school’s team
might be, as soon as said saviors are old enough to drive.
And it is a year-round
business. At his conference call to announce his recruiting
class, Washington State coach Paul Wulff said he was looking
forward to getting started on his next recruiting class ––
tomorrow.
There are publications
and Web Sites ranging from rivals.com to
insertyourstateherepreps.com devoted to the process. They try to
project where the kids, and yes they are kids, will go from the
time they are sophomores or junior. Who have they visited this
week? Where might they be heading next? Who is still in the
running? Apparently there is quite the market for ranking high
school kids.
What’s next? Tracking
where the state’s No. 3 marching band trombone player might end
up? Projecting which unit a kid enlisting in the army will end
up with?
The whole thing has
turned into a spectacle, and for at least one kid, the spectacle
turned into a nightmare.
In Nevada, where
“heralded” offensive line recruit Kevin Hart based his decision
to pick California over Oregon on how impressed he was with Cal
coach Jeff Tedford during his conversations with the coach, the
whole thing turned into one big farce.
After it came out that
not only had neither Cal, Oregon or any other Division I school
not recruited Hart; he blamed the whole thing on a shady
recruiter, and then finally admitted he made the whole thing up.
His coach and his
parents expressed shock at the situation as well, but
considering that most of the time, recruitments of highly
regarded players include campus visits and sit-down talks with
the player’s parents, one has to wonder if they were in on the
deception as well to help Hart cover his tracks.
Of course, since coaches
can’t actually talk about which kids they are recruiting, there
was no way to know that Hart’s tale was a bunch of bologna.
Before they are actually
signed, much of this is all based on speculation and rumor.
For example, a few weeks
ago, Oregon was supposedly Pryor’s first choice, then it wasn’t;
then he was coming to visit Oregon, then he wasn’t; then Oregon
was out of the running all together...but wait, he might visit,
or maybe he won’t (for the record at his signing day press
conference to announce that he was not signing anywhere, Pryor
said he plans to visit Oregon, for whatever that is worth).
Many of these youngsters
who are saviors today will likely be bench scrubs next year,
some may not even see the football field.
Until any of these kids
have actually signed their letters of intent, why is it a big
deal where they decide to go to college? Leave them be. If they
invite the intention on themselves and create a media circus out
of it, so be it, but otherwise, can’t we wait until they have
actually set foot on campus before anointing them the saviors of
a football program?
After Coerper signed his
letter, Jackson said what made him happy about the whole the
thing was that Coerper’s parents got to be proud of their son
and to know that his education would be taken care of.
And that, not the
possibility of championships or Heismans, is what matters.
