Wait, some coaches do ask for our advice!?!

Got this e-mail today ...

Finally, I really can cost a kid a scholarship!!!

 

With great power comes great responsibility.

 

Let him know when he can listen to you if you do that soccer color commentator gig.

 

I've had a couple of D-III coaches ask me if I thought there were some college level players. I didn't see the harm in giving a few names.

 

I would do it, too, just because their parents were snotty.

 

When he was an assistant at Wisconsin, and before all the success at Platteville and elsewhere, Bo Ryan got VERY chummy with me because I was covering South Beloit (Ill.) High School, and there was a kid there they really wanted. He called me all the time, drank with me, everything.

Kid committed to Illinois. Next time I called Bo Ryan on a basketball matter, he basically had no idea who I was.

And I hold no animosity toward him, because he has been good for hoops at my alma mater. Just noting.

 

Is there a line crossed by discussing players with him? I don't think so, but I'd like to hear opinions of those who think there is.

 

No, no line crossed. Someone asked for your opinion, you give it to them. Besides, it's not like this stuff isn't out there for anyone to find online or in a newspaper archive at the library.

 

Oh, I didn't mean passing on the all-state teams or whatever. I meant a coach using a reporter as a scout.

 

What that tells me is that State U. is going to suck, suck, suck.

When a coach is using the damn newspaper to figure out who he should recruit ... hot damn, he's in over his head.

Be honest: It was Lane Kiffin, wasn't it?

 

Inky, was this was a Div. I state school? Because I'm still trying to wrap my head around it even being a low-level DIII team.

 

I'd pass.