National Signing Day 2012: High School Holiday Is Too Much Hype Too Early

Be ashamed of yourself, America. Be very ashamed. 

We will all wake up and wipe sleep from our eyes in anticipation of one of the biggest and most overblown days in amateur athletics. 

A bunch of boys that are just old enough to be considered young men will be entering into what might be the first binding contract of their lives. The decision to matriculate is done in private for millions, but for hundreds it will be public. 

Some very good athletes will create such a buzz that adult fans will cringe, shout and debate whether the right decisions will be made. Names like Eddie Goldman, Gunner Kiel and Dorial Green-Beckham will be placed on a pedestal of hope that no 18-year-old could measure up to. 

Shame should come to a nation that is mad for sports. 

ESPN will start coverage on young men going to college at 9 a.m. on ESPNU and ESPN3. From there, celebration as well as vitriol will fill the air. 

If you want to see how ridiculous things have become, consider the case of Mr. Landon Collins. The young man has proved that all men are created equal and is going to Alabama against his mother's better wishes, quite possibly, because of a Crimson Tide girlfriend. 

Collins' mother showed her disgust on live TV and has since given a piece of her mind to just about anyone that will listen. Instead of loyalty to her son, she gave the LSU Tigers rally cry—during a moment staged for her son. 

The point here is not that her son was driven to college by a girl; there are worse reasons, really. It's that his mistake or success has been trumpeted loudly through the national media. Even I have opined on his situation. 

In reality, this is a person that has yet to take one college course or experience what it means to truly live on his own. 

We all forget what it meant to be 18 years old and being susceptible to outside stimuli for our decisions. I once thought Zubaz pants were bitching if you want evidence that well-thought-out ideas never come from our youth. 

But that is all to say that these kids are making huge mistakes when they are not. They chose what they chose, and that should be that. 

What bothers me to no end is the debating and discussion that is held on kids that are yet to suit up for a collegiate program. 

And then we sit back on our pedestals of disgust when Jim Tressel looks the other way to win or the Miami Hurricanes come under fire for some horrendous allegations. 

There is no excusing programs skirting the rules, but the love and passion we have for football is a full-on fanaticism. 

The chicken or egg solution has been solved, and the hype we put on these kids and the programs to sign them is Public Enemy No. 1 for future NCAA violations and stress on amateur athletes. 

The shame should come as we dissect kids that are just picking with their hearts, and never in a million years believed that someone they have never met would fine adoration or disgust because of it. 

If the mania starts at high school, it is certifiable lunacy by the college level, and that is what these programs have to answer to. 

We can't have it both ways. We can't place so much hype on amateur athletes and wonder why so many programs are caught in tenuous situations. 

The national signing day hoopla will continue and only get more absurd in its measures. Of that, I have no doubt. 

Shame on all of us. 

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