Kid duped by fake Tedford

I met a guy in college who was visiting my roommate one weekend.

He was telling everybody that he was the starting tight end for Central Dipshit University, about two hours away.

I happened to be good friends with the starting running back on that team. I asked "Do you know Mike S. Runningback?"

"No."

Uhh, OK.

Point is, 17, 18 and 19-year old kids pull shit out of their ass all the time. But to do it to this extreme, and have an assembly where you get a standing ovation, borders on having a severe mental issue if you ask me.

 

Kid duped everyone

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/news/story?id=3234302

 

He is exactly who I thought he was:

 

I would have loved it if the kid would have said to everyone:

"I made it all up and fooled you. See, you got tricked. Now get a life and stop being so concerned about where high school kids want to go to college to further their education. Get your priorities straight and start paying attention to the really smart kids who are going to school and will one day be paying for your Social Security."

Too bad it would never happen though. Actually, it sounds like a halfway decent WWE heel-turn script to me.

 

It'll be in the made-for-TV movie.

 

http://www.rgj.com/blogs/preps/2008/02/kevin-hart-fallout.html

Ironic. It's talk like that from Irons, which you hear a lot of in the recruiting business, that in part drove the kid to do what he did.

I hope things work out for him, but I don't know if he's going to get this anvil off of his shoulder for a looooooong time. Can he even go back to his own high school? And even if he gets a chance to play again, every snap in a game -- hell, probably every damn day in the locker room -- he's going to hear about it.

 

Great line from Irons, but if he wanted it so damn bad, maybe he should have spent more time in the weight room to begin with to overcome that "lack of upper body strength." Too many kids today think they want it, but they are not willing to pay the real price.

 

I know David Irons Sr. and he's like that ALL the time. He's the best.

 

I was talking to someone about all this, and he said it reminded him of the Tito Lee story from about 10 years ago.

Lee was a Tennessee kid who told everyone he had a scholarship (I think to UT) and stuck to his story, even to the point where his proud and happy family were leaving the house to drive him to Knoxville. Lee told them he'd forgotten something in his room, went upstairs and shot himself.

Tragic. There's enough glancing mentions of it through a Google search to suppose it's true, but I'd never heard the tale.

 

The kid is the smartest dumb person you may ever hear about. He got national media coverage for an event he totally made up and had a national columnist write about him. Wrong way to go about it, but you have to give it to him.

 

Some of its true
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bridgetslife/message/3230
Excerpt:
Lee was an all-state linebacker. When grades didn't measure up to
his football ability, Lee attended Georgia Military Academy in hopes
of getting a scholarship. He later dropped out of school. He
eventually told friends he was going to Middle Tennessee State on a
football scholarship.

"Tito was a very special athlete and person,'' Carlton Flatt
said. "He felt a lot was expected of him.''

The day Lee's parents were to take him to Murfreesboro, Tito must
have felt the world closing in on him. He shot himself to death.

 

I wish I could hear from the school administrators to explain why they permitted Kevin Hart to use the gymnasium to announce his bogus commitment.

I would also like to hear the coach's thoughts about this such as "If there was no recruiting mail coming to Hart through you, did his commitment announcement surprise you?"

It appears in classic school administrator fashion, they are not talking, no doubt hoping they can stonewall and outlast this, although it would be far better to just put out statements now. These are often the same people who complain, "You don't cover us enough."