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Q&A with a parent who has gone though and is going through the football recruiting process – Part Two

One of my favorite features to bring readers is question and answers from parents who have been through the athletic recruiting process themselves.  They have done everything they can to help their kid get a chance to play college athletics.  Afterwards, they are kind enough to share their story with the readers of Recruiting-101.

In this look, we had a chance to ask some questions to a parent who just went through the football recruiting process.  His son is in the Class of 2010 but has already verbally committed to a college program that is close to home.  Find out what this parent went through and their advice for readers out there now!  This is part two of a two part article.

Briefly describe the overall recruiting process that your son went through?
Thomas started varsity as a freshman. We are a 6A high school, the highest class in in his state, but not a terrific team. He plays DL and OL. People talked about him playing D1 football from that time forward. At that point, it was just kind of a wait and see what happens deal. He also starts on a very good basketball team and is on the track team. He placed second in the state last year in the Discus.

During his sophomore year, I decided I needed to get to work for him. One thing I have always told him and now his brother is, let’s decide what it is you can’t live without, and then let’s go get it. Somewhere, somehow I ran across a writer for Rivals. I then went to work trying to get him to put Thomas’ profile up on Rivals. It took me a few months worth of emails and then one day he said, “Call me and we will get it up there”. He was getting the usual letters at this time, questionnaires, etc. at home and at school.

Let me interject at this point, and I will try not to refer to it again, but Thomas’ coach who had attended and played at State University when they won the Orange Bowl, and coached briefly in college, left after his sophomore year. This guy loved to talk to college coaches and had a lot of contacts. He loved the spotlight. After he left, one of the assistants was promoted. Although this guy was an All-American at a D2 school, and was the recruiting coordinator at the same college, has not been overly helpful in this process. He will usually do what you ask him, but you have to figure it out and ask him. I found out that Thomas’ got a lot of mail from schools at the school office and the coach never bothered to pass them along, among some other things. He really likes Thomas and me, and he really got excited when coaches came to visit, but for some reason, he did not return calls to some coaches, etc. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but bluntly I think he is just lazy.

Things just kind of grew from there, he continued playing well, got a few honors, and kept getting the attention that was allowed. Let me also say here that we never experienced any school or coach doing anything that remotely seemed to be against any rules. I think most want to really do what is right. However we are not 5 star recruits either. He got letters and questionnaires from just about every one in the world it seemed. Every big conference, every little conference. By the time it got down to handwritten letters and phone calls, probably about ten or so good D1 schools. But the truth is, it is very hard to tell who wants you today and maybe not tomorrow.

We made a sophomore highlight tape and sent it around the old fashioned way, by mail and I made a crude website and linked to the film. We did go to three one day camps the summer after his sophomore season. This was valuable because if we had attended any camps after his junior year, we would know the ropes.

We were contacted by several “recruiting” services, but it was not hard to see what the bottom line was there, their bottom line. I took from them and other sites that I looked at, including Recruiting-101, and tried to do those things that I thought would work. All our film, I put together, and then had a local service do a final package. This cost me around $150 or so for each film as I had done most of the work, but thought we needed a bit extra to finish them off.

Before his junior year, the first school that invited him for an unofficial visit was an out of state program. Even though it is not a great football school and five hours away, you could not have kept us away with a team of mules. We went and it was a very good experience. The tradition rich stadium was I guess the high point. They really latched on to Thomas, pulled him out of the group to go meet the head coach before the game, etc. I kind of knew they would be interested because as our website progressed, I added a “tracker” that allows me to see who is looking at his website. Yes, I saw you, lol. It is really easy to tell if a school looks at it, because they have a unique identifier, and this program had looked.

At the same time here, we subscribed to College Coaches Online. If you are familiar with it, for I think $50, you can look up info on all the schools and coaches in the country from D1 on down to JUCO. I sent out mass emails to schools with a letter personalized for each school, not just a form letter, and a link to the website. Yes it took some time. We got quite a bit of response form that from every level. More so from the lower divisions, but nonetheless, all divisions.

We got everything from; I can’t pull up the site, to personal handwritten letters asking for more film and to come for an unofficial visit. We went to a lot of game day unofficial visits. We got many invites, but as most of them are on the same day, you kind of have to pick and choose.

We talked about Oklahoma, and knew we were not good enough to play there most likely, but at the time, they were playing Texas Tech and the game had National championship implications, so we said the tickets are free, what the heck. Good experience even though you may remember they got pounded. But compared to the other schools, you would think Oklahoma would be a bigger deal, however it is not.

Of all the schools we visited, an in-state school has the nicest facilities, except they have a twenty thousand seat stadium. Nice but small. Then we got some invites to junior days, quite a few. Thomas at that time decided that he really wanted to stay in state to play if he could, so we went to a number of junior days.

Right about now, you start to realize that other people are getting offers and start wondering, where is mine. The pressure begins. I don’t know if it is worse for the player or the parent. As a parent of course you know it is very, very hard to be objective.

I played college football and my dad played college basketball and my wife’s father played professional baseball for a brief stint, so we have the genes and the size, right now Thomas is 6’3 ½” and 304 lbs of solid lineman. This was measured at the Scout.com combine in Cincinnati at the end of May. None the less, I think I tend to be very reserved about my son’s talent, but maybe not. I seem to find that through this maze of little league, middle school and high school, the waves of parents who think they are raising the next NFL QB are immense. It seems that the ones who are the worst are the ones who never played any sports and, as I am sure you know, live their dreams through the kids cutting the throats of other kids along the way.

I will say I am very, very proud and think my kids are fantastic, but I really make an effort to keep it real. It is hard. Through all of this, we tried to maintain contact and get Thomas out there any way we could, by hook or by crook. I tried to make contacts etc.

One thing that we found that I doubt very many could but let me stress, it was invaluable, was a Coach at a D1 FCS school, who had been an assistant at Ohio State. Thomas made “friends” with him very early on when he sent an online questionnaire and he and the coach began to email each other. This guy has answered every question we have had, and given us his experience now and from Ohio State.

The biggest thing I think he did for us is that during the period you are wondering how good am I, he looked at a couple of game films of Thomas and gave us his opinion. He told us this after reviewing the film, “Got a chance to watch your film this weekend and was really impressed. You’ll be an outstanding college player, wherever you end up. Obviously the first thing we look for on the D-Line is a guy’s “motor”–people get bigger, stronger, and faster, but it’s awfully tough to teach somebody how to play hard. You have that for sure. Add on top of that some pretty dominating physical abilities and you could end up being awfully good.”

Another thing he told us which kind of goes against the grain, and I was a little bit surprised, is that the last year he was at Ohio State, they received over 2,700 DVD’s and they watched every single one. He said that all the good schools will do that. Hmmmmmm. But this guy again is special and most would not have that access. He and Thomas still talk and obviously he knows that Thomas is not going to attend his school.

Anyway, most of the schools treated us very well, some better than others. As I have read on your site, the number of people at these events varied. I am only estimating but State University #2 had about 20 at junior day, Out of State University #1 60, State University #3 150 and State University #1 hundreds. They all pulled us aside at some point and gave us individual attention. We were still waiting for that offer.

About the next thing that happened is that State University #1 really started giving us attention. I might mention here that Thomas really wanted an offer from State University #1. It has always been his school. He has always followed them. After junior day, he called them and ask to come up again and look around. This would be our third trip there. We did that and again Thomas really wanted them to offer. We just at that point ask our recruiter, “what is a scholarship looking like”. He said it was looking good, he wanted to come to our school and see his transcript and talk to his coach, and then talk to the State University #1 head coach one more time. I thought maybe he was dragging us along, however he did that within about a week.

Two days later he called and offered Thomas a scholarship to State University #1. The written offer followed in about three days. Thomas almost took it on the spot, I was with him and could hear over the phone, but he knew better. Again, this was his “dream” school if you will. We talked about it and I tried to put every scenario in place for him to think about. His general reply was that if USC called, he would not go there. He wanted to stay in state, leaving us two real choices State University #1 and UK. He just did not like State University #2. I still made him continue to think about it until he could not stand it.

Then we got with his coach and a couple of other people who I know for some advice. The basic response was, if that is his school and he would not really consider anywhere else, go ahead and pull the trigger. As coincidence would have it, the state track meet was two weeks away and being held at State University #1. Thomas’ mother had not visited the campus. We of course wanted her to be happy, but she had kind of left this recruiting thing up to us. She was involved, just did not make all the trips. So we decided to make a date to visit again on the day before the state meet, and if everything still looked good with Mom, he was going to commit. She was more than impressed with the academics and the academic program at State University #1.

I would say of the schools we visited it was the best. Also it probably had the best facilities and most importantly the best people in those facilities for Thomas. If you look at things, he will most likely have and opportunity to play early as their line on both sides is depleted. Of course they told him he would and also that this year’s center went in the first round and he could do the same. Blah, blah, blah.

He just really felt comfortable at State University #1 and really liked his position coach and the head coach. Some others have a lower opinion of the head coach and wonder whether he will be there if they have another sub par season. We talked about this and decided that the direction of State University #1 athletics has been more than positive. The AD is top of the line, and we felt that if the coach went, they would get the best possible coach they could, and I really feel certain of that. The fans got too used to the Orange and other bowls for this program to stay down another year. We also felt that State University #1 is going to compete for conference championships, State University #2 is not. Fans ask about State University #2, like don’t you want to play in the SEC. Well the answer from his point is, he is a State University #1 fan, and State University #2 is in the SEC, but they do not compete, never have in football.

So he decided to go ahead and commit. They seemed really happy and a weight was lifted off Thomas’s shoulders. He can now concentrate on the upcoming season. We are still getting contact from several schools, State University #2, State University #3 and lately Out of State University #2 has been on the band wagon. They did give him a phone call during the contact period in May, but have kind of stepped up lately. He is unwavering in his decision, and I would be very surprised if he had second thoughts.

Let me interject as well that his coach and I feel that if Thomas had gone to camps at most schools, he would have ended up with an offer. He was also told that at the Scout combine by their evaluators for what ever that is worth. Right now, he is rated 3 stars by Rivals.com, three stars by Scout.com and also ranked the number 12 center in the nation by them, and he is also on the ESPN 150 Watch list. So we are not superstars, but somewhat respectable.

I will say that coaches have told me and I observe that Thomas is a very, very hard worker. In the weight room and in the classroom, whatever, his coach told the media he brings it every time he steps on the field. This has paid off. Another big thing that we did which is hard to do in a town our size is he worked out with a professional trainer last summer. An acquaintance of mine from college ball knew a trainer that has really helped him.

One other thing I might mention is I schooled and practiced him on these internet interviews. He must have done twenty of them from Rivals, Scout, ESPN etc. But DO NOT let the athlete read the message boards and forums. Two reasons. I didn’t want his head to swell, and after he committed, every other school that had acted like they wanted him, the fans bashed him pretty good. They still are. One day you are the savior, the next day you probably couldn’t play college ball anyway. I’m not bashing the people back: I really believe that the vast majority of folks who love the game of college football have pure motives. But the sad truth of the internet is that total anonymity of posters has made it easier and easier to objectify the young men who play the game. If you ask me, it’s a little bit depressing that the fortunes and mood of a 42 year old middle manager in downtown hinge upon the decisions you are making as a teenager just starting your adult life. I guess we just use the negativity as fuel and motivation for your preparation, and let everything run off your back like water off a duck.

I am kind of rambling here, so I will end this by saying we are kind of middle of the road talent wise, school wise etc., but we got this done because we dedicated ourselves to this. He wanted it and I wanted the opportunity for him. I sound like I am taking credit, but Thomas has earned this through his hard work and dedication and some measure of talent. He knows that he is very, very fortunate. Living in this state, getting a scholarship to his favorite school, and a good shot a getting to play and go to some bowl games. He is one of only a very few and I know he is truly grateful.

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