The Recruiting Hat Dance

Who winds up with the losing hats?

 

That's kind of the fucked-up thing about the recruiting game, though. You can point to his two rings, or you can point to how he likely will have to wait until his senior year to start and even then could be topped by an incoming recruit.

 

The little kid is thinking "Now remember Landon, they told you I'd get a new car too."

 

It's just part of the peripheral stuff that surrounds sports now. It's fun for the kids.

Glad I no longer have to cover recruiting, mind you. As Whitman's story (the "abomination in san Antonio?" That a reference to that Army stupid thing?) displays, covering recruiting can be a humiliating process.

 

I was living between Charlottesville and Blacksburg at the time and never will forget Marcus Vick and his hat dance. He had a few hats on the table -- maybe just two, Virginia and Virginia Tech -- and said something along the lines of, "I choose the University of," and started reaching for the UVa hat, then went the opposite way and concluded with, "Virginia Tech." Yep, he chose the University of Virginia Tech.

 

No thread about recruiting is complete without the story of the kid who made up his whole recruiting process. Last I heard, a juco in Northern California gave him a chance:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=3236039

EDIT: Juco, than Div. II http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/football/story/_/id/7525340/kevin-hart-recruit-lied-california-golden-bears-sign-missouri-western-state

 

As a random aside, I wasn't covering it, but I had an opposite experience last week. We were waiting to go through security in the Orlando airport and a bunch of football players in All-America Game gear (I think it was the Under Armour one) were ahead of us. My two-year-old was getting restless and didn't want to stand in line any longer, and one of the players started talking to him and making goofy faces at him. He helped get us through that line. I'll root for him wherever he goes.

 

The same people who get the losing teams' NFL Super Bowl champion hats and tees.




Poor people in Africa!

 

I agree with almost all of what you said, but, technically, the NCAA does have some jurisdiction over HS athletes. It's why they're made ineligible if they accept an improper cup of coffee during their recruiting.

Otherwise, yeah, you're right. I found it real funny when that one recruit (I think he went to Clemson) made it clear that he would only go to a school that also gave his best friend a scholarship as well. There were screams of illegality and cries about morals, but the two kids did get their scholarships.

What really bugs me about the hat dance, besides the sheer douchines of it all, is when schools decide to hold assemblies for the rest of the students during school hours. Let's make the other kids forgo their instruction time so they can glorify another kid's "academic" pursuits.

 

Well he was going to Penn State!

 

And to echo Dick and others... The recruiting shit drove me out of sports.

 

Collins played quite a bit this year on special teams. My guess is he starts next year.

At any rate, he'd have had the same deal at his other finalist, LSU.

If Collins wanted to start all three years he's in school, he knew where he could've gone.