There are plenty of examples of today being a much different
world than even 10 years ago.
In August 2011, I had my 20-year high school reunion and one of my
classmates was talking about how she had old notes that she used to pass in
class saved up in a shoe box. She says, “That was the original text message.”
I responded by saying, “Yeah, and we had to wait until the
teacher had their back turned to pass the note.”
Nowadays you have everything from iPhones, Instragram, Pintrest,
Twitter, Facebook, etc.
With National Letter of Intent Day for college football taking
place today, one discussion I find myself revisiting quite bit is the increased
hype of college recruiting either as it pertains to signing day or just general
media hype.
In my former career of sports reporting, I was fortunate enough
to cover several high school football players that signed letters of intent to
play at Div. I schools: Ed Blanton, Mike Gibson and John Boyett from Napa; Justin Clayton from Justin-Siena; Chris Seisay,
Jomon Dotson and Jon Bade from American Canyon; Randy Tscharner from Calistoga; Carlo Trinchero and Gannon
Laidlaw from St. Helena. Charles Bertoli (also from St. Helena) did not sign a
letter of intent but eventually earned a scholarship after walking on to Boise
State’s football program.
I could use examples of other sports but their signing letters
of intent isn’t grossly overhyped like football. Go to any message board and
you’ll hear, “School X, Y or Z just signed the No. 1-rated linebacker in the
country.”
These kids haven’t even played a single down of college football
— and in some cases, have yet to finish their high school career — and they are
already being tabbed the savior of their program.
When you see these rankings, you wonder how much of it is truth
and how much of it is conjecture.
Perhaps the best story I ever heard about recruiting rankings
involved former San Francisco 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis, who is from
Bruceton, Ten., population 1,400. You frequently hear the term “five-star
recruit.” At one point in his high school career, Willis had just “one star” to
his name. Well, we saw how much that mattered. All he did was enjoy a
Hall-of-Fame worthy NFL career.
The one response I constantly have to recruiting hype is, “I get
it, but I don’t quite get it.”
Is the excitement warranted? Well, perhaps so within reason. I
understand the excitement for fans leading up to signing day.
It’s a chance to celebrate the next generation of your favorite
team and it’s a chance for the youngster’s high school to say, “he’s one of
us.”
However, I do believe that the hysteria surrounding recruiting
and signing day throughout the year has crossed the line of common sense.
There’s just way too much attention given to way too many kids,
many of whom are not benefiting from the media crush.
The truth of the matter is that less than half of these athletes
— and that’s probably a generous estimate — will not live up to all of the
attention.
If you want to celebrate your school’s recruiting class, fine.
Have a signing day party for all I care. Just spare me some of the media
attention and the fixation on these young kids.
The truth of the matter is that signing day has become so
overhyped that it’s anticlimactic. I don’t mind a few updates during the year,
but phone calls out the wazoo to website publishers, network scouts and now the
newspaper writers seems over the top.
It’s also got to be a pain in the butt for the kid to answer the
same questions about 40 times — college lists, favorites, bench press numbers
and when he is making a decision.
As a result, the athletes are becoming prima donnas at an
accelerated stage.
Not that it’s their entirely fault.
I guess I’m more than a little old school when it comes to
recruiting coverage. I’m not opposed to acknowledging that a youngster is
drawing interest from school X, Y or Z, I’m just not going to do any massive
spreads until the ink is on the paper.
Just another example of how college sports recruiting coverage
has been grossly overhyped.
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