Jefferson High School opened its doors this weekend as it welcomed Division II, Division III and NAIA schools looking to make a splash and find a handful of college players from the Tampa Bay Area at the 2012 recruiting far.
“We’ve sent 30-40 kids to college out of these fairs in my eight years,” East Lake head coach Bob Hudson said. The Eagles were represented by nine players at the fair.
In addition to the opportunities available to the players trying to find a home to continue their football careers it is also a great opportunity for coaches like Hudson, who just finished his ninth season at East Lake, to build a connection with a large number of college coaches.
“It’s fantastic; that’s the reason we do it,” Hudson said about the networking possibilities between high school and college coaches. “You become on a name basis and they begin to trust us as coaches. If we tell them a kid is good enough to play and then they have one of our kids up there then you build that trust relationship.
“I’ve only been doing this for nine years so building these networks is big for me personally. It’s good for the future kids too.”
Tampa Catholic offensive coordinator Mike Gregory attended just his second recruiting fair, but was impressed at the efficiency of it.
“I’m just impressed because everything is so organized. The county does a good job running it,” he explained. “It’s great for the kids to see that there is other football out there that they don’t see on TV; It’s still really good football and they have a chance to get a really great education.”
Robinson head coach Mike Depue has attended each of the 14 recruiting fairs in the area. He has used each fair to continue to build his relationships.
“These guys call me throughout the year; it’s a special thing,” Depue said. “It’s a lot of fun to sit down with all of these guys a couple times a year – guys you’ve really built great relationships with. I go up to New England and play golf with some of these guys in the summer; it’s a really important network to us.”
Although a different aspect than Division I football, high school coaches agree that the Division II, III and NAIA schools are just as important.
“I’ve always said that everyone is not Division I, but everyone is Division something,” Middleton head coach Alonzo Ashwood said. “In the real world we wish all our kids would go to the bigger Division I schools, but you build relationships. I treat these coaches that are D-III just like I treat the D-I college coaches.”
Robinson’s Depue added to Ashwood’s point.
“It’s not just the D-I network, which is vital to us, but the D-II, D-III, NAIA schools are just as important because we have all kinds of kids we want to get into school,” he said.
Academics and test scores were the theme of the day. A number of Division III schools expressed they would not even talk to a player who had a grade point average below a 3.2, a test score below 1,200 or an ACT score below 23.
“It’s a selection process. Here they’re looking for a good academic scenario and football is almost secondary,” Depue said. “It’s more of an academic fair than a football fair.”
Because most of the schools in attendance don’t have athletic scholarships to offer it is a balancing act trying to come up with scholarship and grant money to fulfill the full tuition requirements, which isn’t always easy.
“When people think about Division II or Division III schools people think that they’re easy to get in to, but really sometimes those schools are even harder to get in to,” Ashwood said. “They don’t have a lot of athletic money so they rely a lot on academics and money from the government. If there’s a package that can be put together, as far as what they can give you, and supplement that with money from the government that is really how it works.”
While it’s a great opportunity for the high school players and coaches, it is also a great opportunity for the college coaches in attendance. Some of these coaches will see over 100 players in one day – a feat that would never be possible without holding a large event.
“It’s good for these schools that they get to come down to Florida and see the talent in Hillsborough County and around the state that they might not normally get to see,” Gregory said.
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