Summer is basically here which means for many high school students the grind is almost over. Well only for a certain segment of high school students. Football players are already in full-swing with their offseason conditioning programs and 7-on-7 tournaments and for the more gifted there’s the handpicked All-Star Teams representing different clubs or organizations.

Trouble is brewing though, and to borrow a line from the CCR classic, “I see…a bad, moon a risin’…I see, trouble…on the way.”  Hard to challenge the fact that “the game” being played out behind-the-scenes is no longer a clandestine activity. It fuels legendary stories being told at watering holes across the land off the record amongst coaches and boosters across the country. The battle for a teenagers athletic services has become disturbing. It really has. Or has it always been this disturbing and I’m late to the party?  Quite possibly the latter is true, but then why is the Ohio State fiasco being mentioned in the same breath as the Pony Excess days at SMU that were highlighted on ESPN’s 30-for-30?

My true intentions are not to turn this into some sort of political diatribe or chastising you into a moral inventory. I’ll freely admit that I can’t help but feel a minute bit of hypocrisy in even expressing this opinion since one of the “functions” of this site is to provide coaches and fans a means in which to keep track of the local recruits in the area. Ask me my personal feelings about it though, and your liable to find out that I’m not an internet bully. I’m not going to write something for the sake of writing it. I really do have angst towards many, if not all of the people (including myself) for feeding into this.

I’m going to once again draw on my experience of being in the classroom before being in this profession first, before I draw on the “training” I had while majoring in Sports Journalism. I’ve truly wrestled with my feelings about how it is we’ve arrived to the point of damn near canonizing children that have not played one ounce of football at the level we expect them to play on Saturdays. I realize each situation is unique and deserves to be treated on a case-by-case basis, but someone tell me where the recruiting “business” has improved the quality of life for kids? Sure, it’s improved their CHANCES of getting recruited, but is generating a media buzz providing definitive PROOF that you’re getting a full ride? Funny, as I was talking to a coach from a D-1 school on Friday Night, he STILL wasn’t backing off the fact that your overall attitude and your grades are going to determine your success.

Programs are STILL watching attitudes and mannerisms close enough to make the creepiest of stalkers of blush. Especially now since we live in an entitlement era where it’s a running joke about what sort of “perks” were either negotiated or requested (this is usually found with the BIG recruits) in order to land their services. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but I’ll say it nice and clear. Let me ask you this question. Since when is it prudent to give a kid cash, cars, and offer him his choice of sorority sisters while on a recruiting trip? When has it been prudent to give anybody anything when they’ve never had it before and have shown no ability to handle this sort of windfall of benefits?

I’ve wrestled with the fact that I see updates on offers being made to kids who hold numbers in the triple-digits and nearly want to break my Blackberry. This is like updating me that once again Kim Kardashian is engaged, or Linsdsey Lohan has violated probation. What is going on? What in the name of you-know-what has happened to us? The very second I see an article about a kid getting offer #87, the next link on my timeline is about one that was pulled due to oversigning. What if this common practice occurred to YOUR kid and it was one of only 3 or 4 offers? What if he happened to say no to all the other because his “dream” offer was dangled in front of him? Then what? You going to tell me it’s part of the business? Don’t insult me and everyone else that knows what happened. You might as well have gone to Vegas and put it all on 32black then. Since your into gambling in and all.

Who else needs to look at themselves in the mirror? Well, there’s always the easy targets such as the coaches that ARE trying to bend the rules that ruin it for everyone else. There’s the parents (and this is often THE most out of control segment) that believe that their child is simply the next 1st-rd draft pick and by the power invested in them they and the 47 advisors plus 3 recruiting services hired will see to it that Jr IS going to get that scholly. Then there’s that group that nobody wants to really take on. Pretty crazy how some (not all) of these recruiting services have risen to power quicker than Tony Montana and are so hypersensitive about their territory that they make me want to invoke the line, “just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean the world is out to get you.”

Here’s what needs to be done in my opinion. We’ve got to get in front of this instead of trying to maintain this myopic vision of what we believe recruiting to be or what we want the recruiting process to be. First and foremost. Get rid of these all-star collection of kids during the 7v7 season. This IS and ALWAYS will be the easiest route for these greaseballs that want to steer or influence kids into a certain direction. You might know them as “friends of the program” wherever that program may be. And just because they’re wearing a scouting services or major network’s polo shirt doesn’t guarantee they are agenda-free.

My second suggestion is tied-in to the 7-on tournaments and that’s eliminate the eligibility of all non-interscholastic teams and make it crystal clear that only the kids that were on that teams roster from the year before or have transferred and be cleared by the FHSAA to play for that school may be eligible. It’s unfair to sit back and bash these tournaments if they are truly allowing opportunities for schools to work on their cohesiveness during a time of the year that’s just as important.

This next though may really rub some people the wrong way, and quite frankly I don’t care. I’m that fed up with it. CAN WE PLEASE stop anointing these young men the second coming based off the offers alone? I’m looking straight at the media outlets (INCLUDING OUR OWN) that specialize in updating us on the absolute mundane. Although there are a few that get it, not many of them do in my opinion.  It’s really hard to knock a man’s hustle, but what exactly is he in the business of hustling?

How many of you reading this know a dude on your block RIGHT NOW that back in the day would’ve shattered the record books of offers if they could either make grades or not injured or worse off incarcerated? You want to celebrate student-athletes, specifically football players? I challenge you to send me stories of kids making plays on the field, but are making even bigger plays off the field. I’m not, nor will I ever back down from highlighting a kid that needs it.

I’ll stake my track record on that. Go back and check my blog entries on student-athletes and give me ONE instance where I didn’t give a kid credit he deserves. Do I want a cookie or a gold medal? Nope. I want to see our kids look someone in the eye and say “I’d be happy to play for you.”  Not, “Coach, I’d really love it here, but all these guys says I’m 5-stars and I should be playing coach. Oh yeah coach, my Mom’s car ain’t running right so I’m going to need you to help me out. And another thing coach,”….only I KNOW that’s not what the kid is thinking. That’s what he’s been told to think.