Fear and Loathing On The Recruiting Trail

Over the past 10 years the fiasco that is college football recruiting has reached the point of frenzy.  Recruiting hasn't just recently became an important part of college football, it's always been an immense priority to coaches nation wide but never has so much information been so readily available to the general public.

If there is anyone out in today's sporting world left that doesn't follow recruiting just Google "football recruiting" and see how many websites on the subject pop up. The 3 main sites are Rivals.com, Scout.com, and Maxpreps.com.

For around $90.00 a year one can recieve a golden parachute full of information about their favorite college team(s) around the clock, 24/7. There are literally 100's of millions of eyes' on collegiate coaches across the land, hoping and praying that they can reel in that blue-chip recruit that will help put their respected team in to championship contention.

I remember the day's when the only bit of info. available on highschool recruits was the good 'ole Forrest Davis Recruiting Guide. I will admit, I am a junkie when it comes to college recruiting. I immerse my self into it the same way a fat girl sinks into a Tempur-Pedic mattress. So I guess in some sick, twisted sorta' way I'm part of the circus that is quickly becoming college football recruiting.......

Presumably, a team will need to finish in the top 10 nationally 3 years in a row to be at championship level competitiveness. So, landing a 5 star blue-chip recruit and four or five- 4 star recruits could very well be the deciding factor in a team going to the Music City Bowl or the Sugar Bowl the following season.

Millions of dollars are at stake.

The world of big time, FBS recruiting is without a doubt the ugly, putrid underbelly of college football. You have snake oil salesmen posing as coaches, making promises to 17 and 18 year old kids that they'll never be able to keep. Head coaches jumping ship quicker than a crab louse off of freshly shaved genitalia and while we're on the subject of crabs and genitalia let's not forget  Lacey Pearl Earps and the Orange Pride hostess'.

Let's hope that Lane Kiffin didn't use a USC version of Earps and Orange Pride to recruit their latest commitment, 13 year old David Sills. If so this kid will pledge life, limb, and his enitre jr. high football team to USC.

The latest epidemic sweeping across the recruiting trail is the foulest of the foul, the absolute epitome of wretchedness. Parasitic insects that like to call themselves "mentors" or "handlers".  Defacto agents that have found a "grey area" in the NCAA rulebook and are milking it for everything that it's worth.

The "mentor" or "handler" is a greedy and selfish person seeking to profit by being the only conduit to a star athlete.Now, like a crooked Washington politician, "The Mentor" likes to project himself as a doer of good deeds, a selfless individual making personal sacrifices of time and resources to help his "constituents" - or in this case budding athletic stars.

The most well known case of this recent plague is a New York Times article titled "Helpful Mentor or Outright Agent". The article tells the story of Brian Butler, a former small time rapper turned "mentor" who handled all workouts, recruiting visits, and media requests for the brothers Arthur and Bryce Brown, both high profile, blue-chip recruits.

Here's a small part from that article: "On a Web site, Butler sells updates of Brown’s recruitment for $9.99 a
month or $59 a year. He also seeks contributions that he says are used to take
players on a tour of colleges each summer.

Butler, a former rapper and cellphone call-center manager, is among a new
breed of entrepreneurs inserting themselves into college football recruiting.
Some say he is navigating gray areas of N.C.A.A. rules and brokering his clients’ futures for personal gain. Others say he is providing his clients with exposure they would not normally receive by leveraging connections he has made during the recruitment of the Brown brothers to create a market for lesser players.

Butler encouraged Huldon Tharp, a linebacker he trains, to spread word that he got a scholarship offer from Miami to raise his recruiting profile. A Miami spokesman, who checked with Hurricanes Coach Randy Shannon, said that the Hurricanes did not offer Tharp a scholarship or seriously recruit him.

Butler’s efforts are not even limited to the realm of college athletics. He said that he was considering having Bryce Brown skip college and play in the Canadian Football League. “I’m doing a dang good job,” Butler said. “I know that I’m the most connected guy in Wichita and probably in Kansas. Probably in the Midwest, and let some people tell, probably in the dang nation when it comes to high school recruiting.” "

Kansas high school coaches have many points of contention with Butler and his tactics.In his representation of about 30 players from around Kansas, Butler has
upset many local high school coaches. They say he persuades players to skip
school-organized summer workouts in favor of his own — an assertion Butler
denies. Coach Brian Byers of Wichita East High School said he suspected Butler
of telling the Brown brothers to “shut it down” in games once they piled up big
statistics.

Byers, who has coached football for 30 years, described Butler’s
philosophy this way: “It’s all about me, me, me. That’s not what football is
about. We’re a proven fact. We had supposedly the best football player in the
country in high school, and we went 6-3. We didn’t have a team because of
that.”

Another rotten degenerate cut from the same cloth as Brian Butler is a fellow named Otis Yelverton; the Greensboro, North Carolina High School version of Scott Boras. Several North Carolina stars have decided the West Coast was best for them, with the kind, selfless help of Otis Yelverton.

Yelverton was the "handler" of 5 star Safety/WR Keenan Allen and Keenan's half-brother Zach Maynard. Allen committed to The University of Alabama early in November and remained a solid commit until his older brother decided he wanted to transfer from Buffalo due to Turner Gill leaving for Kansas.

That's when Yelverton got involved, he started trying to push Allen and Maynard as a combo package. If Bama wanted to keep Keenan Allen they were gonna have to offer Zach Maynard a schollie as well. So for about a week Keenan Allen's future was up in the air.

The general hypothesis was that Allen and Maynard's mother wanted the two brothers to play together and to remain close to home. Blood is certainly thicker than water and a parent should be close enough to watch their kids play. So after things started to turn sour at The Capstone for Yelverton Inc. their interest quickly turned towards Clemson.

And Clemson looked like a shoo-in for the brother's signatures'. It was close to home, both Allen and Maynard had been offered a scholarship and both players had a better chance of recieving early playing time at Clemson rather than at 'Bama. But it looks as if Yelverton stomped the balls right out of that plan too.

Neither Nick Saban or Dabo Sweeney wanted any part of the game that Yelverton was playing. It appears that Keenan Allen's two top choices were snuffed out only because Yelverton was looking for a sweeter deal. But surely this was all done with Keenan's, Zach's and Mother and Father's best interest at heart......

The world of college football appears to be a two-sided coin. On one side there's the camaraderie, the tailgating, and the pleasure that comes with beating the Holy Hell out of a rival team.

But on the other side you have all the trimmings of a hostage negotiation mixed with the sneak thievery of a 1980's CIA and DEA joint narcotics task force across the Columbian border. But Sweet, Bleeding Jesus on the Cross I love it!!

I suppose I'll end this rant similar to how it started; with a quote from the late, great Hunter Thompson. Because I think it pretty much sums the entire situation up in a few words: "In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."