HS Sophomore Gets Sixty-Five Recruiting Letters From Texas In One Day

[LewPatt]

The University of Texas is recruiting sophomores now, and they’re pressing hard for Jalen Campbell, a defensive back for Flour Bluff High School in Corpus Christi, TX. Recently Campbell’s mom went to the mailbox and … BOOF! 65 letters from Mack Brown fell out. That may seem strange to you and me … well, to me … but more so considering that Campbell has already verbally committed to the Longhorns. I’d hate to see his mailbox if he were still deciding.


http://static03.mediaite.com/sportsgrid/uploads/2013/09/texasletters550.jpg


Link: http://www.lewpblog.com/2013/09/12/hs-sophomore-gets-sixty-five-recruiting-letters-from-texas-in-one-day-and-one-lonely-letter-from-arkansas/

[LH Panther Mom]

I'd like to know what the 65 letters contained, since they're only allowed to send certain materials. :thinking:

[regaleagle]

Could have very well been congrats messages from different coaches, staff members, and certain players on the team for committing early.

[LewPatt]

This problem seems to be more widespread than I thought.

From Busted Coverage: (http://bustedcoverage.com/2013/09/11/high-school-football-recruits-family-being-buried-by-recruiting-letters/)

California’s Nifae Lealao isn’t exactly a five-star defensive end who is a must-get for a college coach looking to make a splash in the high-stakes game of high school recruiting. ESPN has him at 299th on its Top 300 rankings.

We’re not talking the next Dwight Freeney.

So why is this kid and his family being buried by recruiting letters? Is this really what high school recruiting has come to? Do we, as a society, want our high school football players to lose their kitchen table to recruiting letters from Washington, Alabama, LSU, BYU, Temple, etc.?

Nifae’s family can’t even sit down for a nice dinner because, as you can see, there are piles of letters making it impossible.

His sister(@Jordaaynaa) tweeted this photo:
http://coedbc.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/btwhyfmcqaa11ko.jpg

“College Football letters have takin over the dinner table! #D1Bound“

Letters are the least of the worries for most recruits. As CBS reported earlier this year, some recruits also get ridiculous text messages.


Here’s how the nation’s No. 1 recruit describes the current climate regulating calls and texting: “All night, every night,” Loganville (Ga.) Grayson High’s Robert Nkemdiche said. “Sometimes 12:30 at night when you’re trying to sleep I got my phone vibrating. People are always texting me.”
Meanwhile, the Nifae family needs a giant garbage can for the piles of letters that won’t stop invading their table. It’s college football recruiting porn.

[LewPatt]

By Michelle Brutlag Hosick
NCAA.org

The Division I Board of Directors Monday suspended two of the 25 pieces of legislation it adopted in January, responding to extensive membership feedback that despite the benefits of the proposals, the new rules could have a negative impact on prospects and their families, college coaches and administrators.

The Board postponed new rules deregulating who can perform recruiting tasks and what printed materials can be sent to prospects. Board members also considered suspending a third proposal that eliminated restrictions on modes and numerical limitations of recruiting contacts, but they ultimately agreed to let the membership decide that rule’s future through the override process.

Suspending the rules means they will not become effective unless and until appropriate modifications are made. The Rules Working Group, which proposed the changes as part of a package of legislation the Board adopted in January, will continue to study the concepts.

The Board’s action came about 10 days after the Rules Working Group recommended the presidents suspend the printed materials deregulation and the removal of restrictions on who can perform recruiting tasks. The working group considered the deregulation of recruiting communication as well, but it wanted to let the membership decide the rule’s future through the override process.

Board chair Nathan Hatch, president at Wake Forest, convened the presidents to respond to the Rules Working Group and membership feedback as quickly as possible.

“We are listening to our member schools and hope that continued discussion of these issues will enable us to reach a decision that helps our student-athletes and their institutions. We look forward to reviewing the result of further collaboration between coaches, administrators and student-athletes and members of the Rules Working Group,” Hatch said. “The other presidents on the Board and I had a strong desire to be responsive to the concerns expressed by our colleagues.”

Of the 25 proposals adopted by the Board in January, the three reviewed by the Board Monday generated immediate discussion among the membership. However, the majority of measures proposed by the Rules Working Group and adopted by the Board were supported.

“We are committed to the reform effort. We will move forward with these concepts with collaboration from all interested parties,” said NCAA President Mark Emmert. “Suspending these proposals for continued review will provide our coaches, administrators and student-athletes the additional opportunity to have their voices heard.”

Some coaches and administrators expressed concern that deregulation in this area might lead to a recruiting arms race that could overwhelm prospects, college coaches and athletics department budgets. Much of the tension is specific to football, though the concerns could translate to any sport.

The Board suspended the rules to give the Rules Working Group and the membership more time to determine the best course of action on the concepts presented in the proposals. For example, the working group will determine if there is middle ground between banning schools from sending any printed materials to prospects and allowing schools to send whatever they want to prospects.

Board keeps texting rule

The Board decided to leave in place the rule that eliminated restrictions governing modes and numerical limitations on recruiting communication because it felt that many concerns were addressed through the suspension of Prop. No. RWG-11-2.

Suspending RWG-11-2 eliminated the fears about having an unlimited number of staff members contacting prospects an unlimited number of times. When it initially proposed the rule change, the Rules Working Group believed the measure acknowledged both the increased use of text-messaging by prospects over the last several years and the growing difficulty of distinguishing between text messages, email and messages sent through social media. The rule also is expected to relieve a significant monitoring burden from the shoulders of compliance administrators.

Before making its decision, the Board discussed that football coaches are currently permitted to make an unlimited number of telephone calls to prospects during the fall contact period, which runs from late November until the Saturday prior to the National Letter of Intent signing day in February. Given this, the practical impact of RWG-13-3 will be to permit unlimited calls for only a few additional months.

The Board members also noted that coaches are already permitted to send an unlimited number of emails or other direct messages on various social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), so deregulation in this area provides consistency and simplifies the legislation.

Men’s basketball has operated without numerical or mode restrictions on recruiting contacts for nearly a year, and feedback has been positive.

As with all proposals adopted as part of the reform effort, RWG-13-3 will undergo a review after two years.

Source: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/resources/latest+news/2013/march/board+suspends+two+recruiting+proposals

[LewPatt]

From The Sporting News (http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2013-03-19/ncaa-recruiting-rules-proposals-calls-letters-stanton-truitt-butch-jones)

The deadline is fast approaching, everyone. Brace yourselves. Recruiting as we know it will change forever.

Pay no attention to that 66-year-old man juking and jiving and Harlem Shaking while the cameras are rolling. Remember, this is all about protecting the innocence of high school recruits!

http://dy.snimg.com/story-image/3/27/4486471/150645-650-366.jpg

“The biggest sham going,” says one BCS coach.

And what a surprise, recruiting is at the center of it all.

By Wednesday afternoon, we’ll know if the NCAA’s new relaxed recruiting proposal (nutshell: call whoever you want, whenever you want, however many times you want) will be upheld to allow grown men to take advantage of young men—or if those true do-gooders get their way and protect high school recruits from the overwhelming burden of ignoring a phone call.

Now, some perspective: they’re one in the same.

The same coaches who complain about the new recruiting rules of unfettered access to recruits, are the same coaches who will send 100 pieces of mail to the same recruit on a single day.

The same coaches who decry where recruiting is headed and how it has left young men unable to concentrate on academics, are the same coaches who go until the 11th hour to try and flip recruits.

The same coaches who say new NCAA recruiting rules have turned the process into a glamour show of he with the most money wins, are the same coaches dancing on those “impromptu” Harlem Shake videos that magically appear on social media. There’s a reason Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer, a stoic and reserved man publicly, was channeling his inner Jay Z for a suddenly viral video: recruiting.

He looks cool. And if he looks cool and connected to the younger generation, well, that’s one less hurdle to navigate when those four- and five-star recruits show up in Blacksburg, Va., on an official visit.

“The biggest thing is connecting, building relationships,” says Arkansas coach Bret Bielema. “It’s about reaching a young man and having him trust you. But ultimately, they control the process.”

College Football Recruiting

Finally, some sense in this overhyped, overreaction of a rules change that will actually change nothing. No matter what happens at the Wednesday deadline —whether the proposal is adopted or overridden—players still control the board.

Why else would some coaches offer cash or illegal benefits to land players? Why else would some coaches risk multimillion-dollar contracts—risk their very livelihoods—to land a recruit by breaking the rules?

The process is broken, everyone, because players control it.

Soft commitments. Silent commitments. Fake commitments.

Verbal commitments, but still taking official visits. And on and on.

Earlier this year, for the first time in five years, a mega recruit didn’t extend the recruiting process past National Signing Day. Think about that for a moment: Recruiting starts as early as their freshmen seasons in high school, yet a player decides he’s going to wait two or three weeks beyond NSD to make his decision.

After four years of hearing every possible sales pitch, Bryce Brown, Terrelle Pryor, Seantrel Henderson and Jadeveon Clowney (and plenty of others) needed a little more Me Time. Now all of a sudden, unlimited phone calls will be the end of recruiting as we know it.

We’re giving players too little credit—and not nearly enough criticism. A majority verbally commit prior to their senior seasons, yet take official recruiting trips anyway to see different cities and meet new people and be treated like they’re the only player on the board.

These are the guys football coaches want to protect. These are the guys who understand the process of a soft verbal (I’m still taking official visits, coach), but can’t comprehend the ignore button on a phone. Or simply can’t tell a coach you’re out.

These are the guys we must protect from the system designed to “exploit” them.

Last month, new Tennessee coach Butch Jones was speaking to a Vols booster club when the subject turned to the NCAA’s new recruiting proposals. One of the reasons the NCAA decided to eliminate limits on phone calls was the inability to enforce.

Jones spoke about the need for “young adults to have a life” instead of the constant harassment of the recruiting process.

“We have a speed limit for a reason,” Jones told the booster club, according to The Tennessean. “But you never hear the law enforcement agencies say, ‘We can’t enforce it, so we’re just going to do away with the speed limit.’”

Less than a month later, Stanton Truitt (http://247sports.com/Player/Stanton-Truitt-26620), an elite tailback from Georgia, walked to his mailbox and found 102 letters stuffed inside—all from Tennessee.

The biggest sham going.

[gatordaze]

Unless you have lived through it you could not believe the volume of mail that is involved. At first everything looks personalized until you realized that the same handwritten envelope shows up everyday. The schools actually print the envelopes to look personalized. I have 5 bankers boxes of recruiting letters saved up for my son to read someday as after 3 weeks into his Junior year he had had enough marketing material and only opened things from Texas, Stanford and Florida.

Some schools actually print up cards that look like were hand written in sharpie. Jake received a card from Purdue that said that he was their #1 priority. He thought that was cool until he opened the next envelope that same day and it was a duplicate.

The best memorabilia that he has is a letter from Penn State claiming to be the cleanest program in the country. It is dated 1 week before everything blew up and is signed by Mike McQuery!