The Recruiting Grind

It’s supposed to be the culmination of a young man’s hard work and sacrifice, but in a lot of cases, the young man’s biggest sacrifice is simply the ability to enjoy the experience of the recruitment process as a whole. For the lucky few young men who are in a position to choose their destination to play major college football, the experience can be one of distress, manipulation, and separation. The world of college football recruiting has turned into a massive business and year round pursuit of these top caliber athletes, and instead of being able to fully embrace it, recruits often find themselves in a position of withdrawal and isolation.

While the majority of kids that we talk to seem to still find some enjoyment in the process, the pressure that is placed upon them from fans, media, and schools recruiting them can be daunting at times. There were several instances in 2013 and previous years also, in which kids have declared a “media blackout” on Twitter or Facebook, letting all reporters know they will no longer be participating in any type of interview. Kids have also found ways to distance themselves from fans that flock to their Twitter and Facebook accounts letting them know why their school is the only one that makes sense, and how much they want to see them there.

Once a kid announces his verbal, that is when the real fun starts. Typically they have to deal with extreme remarks, wishes of failure by fans of schools they didn’t choose, and continued pressure and pursuit from those schools also. Of course the situation differs wildly from one kid to the next, and can range from minimally annoying to downright uncalled for. Here is what one top 150 player told us whose experience wasn’t as bad as most –

Since being verbally committed, the toughest part is telling so many coaches that visit you all the time that you are solid, and you don’t necessarily want to visit or that you’re not interested in what they are offering, and doing that in a nice, polite way. It’s definitely the toughest situations I deal with now.

While another recruit told us

It’s just the constant pressure from every coach, it never ends.

 

So while the above statements are more on the annoying and disruptive side, these are some of the easier situations that big time recruits have to deal with. We have spoken with many top current and prior 150 recruits over the last 3-4 months, and have been told stories of manipulation, dishonesty, and promises that are never fulfilled. These kids deal with this on a daily basis, and while some of it is to be expected, most of it is not. Another recruit relayed the story of coaches and media bad-mouthing other programs or just simply lying about other programs to sway the his allegiance, in hopes of getting that all mighty letter of intent. One recruit talked to us about getting over 150 calls and texts in a single day, and calls being made to his family, friends, and current coaches trying to convince him that XYZ school is where he needs to end up at.

Even if you take the fans and media out of the equation, these kids are dealing with multiple days of being away from what most of us would could consider normal. One recruit actually mentioned how this was the hardest part of it all

The worst part is the constant traveling and being away from friends and family on the weekends. Not that it’s not worth it, but you sure do lose a lot of free time

While another mentioned

It’s not just the travel, which is hard itself, but you really are giving up so much of your high school time. People don’t understand what type of pressure we feel, and a lot of that comes from people outside of our circle. At first it’s a lot of fun, but after awhile it starts to really become anything but fun. It just really becomes a grind because it seems everybody always wants something from you- always.

It’s easy to talk about how a lot of these kids seek out the publicity, and crave the attention, but truthfully in most of our conversations we had with these young men, that is simply not the truth. A lot of these kids have worked very hard, been blessed with talent, and want to utilize the opportunity to better themselves. Most of the kids we spoke to really just want coaches to be honest with them, and to be treated like anyone else.

We posed the question to one of the recruits if they thought there was a different way that recruiting should be approached, and here is his response –

I’m not really sure if there is another way to do it, but it probably needs to be done in way that doesn’t have such an impact on our everyday lives. It sounds like I’m whining, but I’m really not. It got to the point where I had to tell people that they could text or call me only on certain days, at certain hours, because it was happening all the time. Even with doing that, it still happens all the time.

As fans, we love to blame the kids for the spectacle that recruiting has become, but in reality a large percentage of the fault falls back on the media, as they have created this red carpet mentality with year round coverage, sites dedicated to just recruiting, and weeklong coverage of National Signing Day. We want it, some kids like it, so everyone wins, but that isn’t the truth. We label these kids before they even step foot onto campus, and in a lot of cases place unrealistic expectations upon them.

From the outside the simple view say’s these kids have it all, and maybe in some aspects they do. That doesn’t mean that we should forget that underneath the helmet and jersey they don on Saturdays, remains a young man who is just as susceptible to outside influences as the rest of us were at that age. As coaches, fans, and media, we need to remember that the texts that we send, the messages on Facebook and Twitter that find their way on their accounts from us, and the phone calls we make, in a small way deprive the kids the chance of just growing up normal, and for what? They simply play a sport at a high school or collegiate level.  We would like to thank all the kids that took the time to talk to us again, and out of respect we have granted them anonymity.