Baylor and Auburn and Oklahoma State and so many other powerhouses down there all got runnin the place a superbooster who jest cain’t help himself. He loves that team so much. He names his first-born after it. He plans to be buried on its fifty yard line. He takes over the board of trustees and bullies the president and jest runs with that ball, buying players and covering up rapes and arranging seven million dollar a year salaries for coaches — all of which accounts for the tremendous football dominance of those three schools plus so many other universities (howdy, Bama!) located in the Lower Jock belt.
And twernt long before our nation’s powerhouse high schools got wind of how it’s done, so now you got even the New York Times writing about Valdosta High down in Georgia, which followed the southern jock school template to a T and got to the top of the national high school football pile!
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But shucks. Comes a time in a man’s life when his overt totally insane levels of vileness and corruption catch up with him and not even Touchdown Jesus will his sins forgiveth. He gets fired, the coach gets fired, the school gets hammered, and hey if you’d checked out the entire template for football universities, you’d have noticed that things don’t work out too well in the long run for a lot of them either.
April 18th, 2021 at 5:34PM
A quaint, highly contagious notion persists that college football teams scour inner cities, midwest prairies, and overpopulated ocean bordering states to find unique talent for their rosters. Once a candidate is identified, coaches show up at prospects house, and over cookies and milk, induce the kid, and his parents, that junior will best be served by attending the supplicant’s institution of higher learning.
Uhhhhh, no, that ain’t how it works. The most important element in this high school-college-pro sports cycle is the high school coach. He, with help of the high school administration and school district, is going to put together a system which recruits talented young teens to attend the high school. It’s the high school coach who determines what colleges will recruit their players, which colleges the kids will attend, and do what’s needed to get that kid delivered. Power 5s aren’t going to waste resources trying to find cadre when they know that certain high school programs will churn out turn players ready to perform. IMG Academy, in Brandeton, FL was created primarily to prepare teenagers for college and pro sports. It’s analogous to Nick Bolletteri’s development of the the tennis boarding school, which manufactures pro tennis’ inventory.. Football is following the same business model by utilizing a few high school programs to create 5 star recruits.
But, successful high school coaches need resources and facilities, and as the NYT points out, that where the boosters show up. They’ll connect player to coach, school to family, raise money, which is how the game is rigged. It’s not a coincidence that two of the most dominant high school athletic programs in USAAmerica are SoCal catholic high schools, Mater Dei, and St.John Bosco. Look at how many 5 and 4 star football players are created at both schools, and look where they end up. The corruption is apparent if you bother to look…
April 19th, 2021 at 8:37AM
charlie: Well said and so true. I seem to recall you were yourself a player, and that you know much of this from the inside. Anyway – no one should be surprised when high school football scandals exactly mirror college.
April 19th, 2021 at 5:45PM
Yup. UD, I was recruited for college football. My parents weren’t involved, nor approached. My high school coaches were the ones who told me which schools had interest, which programs I should respond to, and which ones to ignore. I can’t remember any recruiting propaganda ever sent to the house, but I received quite a lot at school, and the athletic director would be the one that gave it to me.
You’ll read media reports regarding head coaches doing crazy stunts to lure a highly rated high school player, ala, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, and his antics. That’s nothing but PR schtick. Player recruitment is done by the position/assistant coaches and coordinators, not the head coach. The main reason, IMO, is to create plausible deniability when cash is handed out, cars given away, or recruits having sex with hookers. Not that anything such as that happened with me, but I was kicked out of high school start of my senior year, which ended all college recruitment. If that hadn’t occurred, I would have a more detailed account. Despite that, it was the assistants and position coaches that spoke with my high school coaches, who in turn, would create the meet and greets.
Funny thing, the three uni programs that were coming after me the hardest, Cal-State Fullerton, Cal-State Long Beach, and University of the Pacfic, all dropped football a few years after they stopped recruiting me. I’d like to think that if I had shown up, they’d still be playing the game. More than likely, they were simply poor judges of athletic ability….