Is recruiting coverage the answer?

[deskslave]

This doesn't make any sense. The kids who are worth their salt get their names in the paper on their appropriate days. If they're going to play Division I football at USC, they'll have plenty of chances. If they're going to play Division III curling at Western State, they will take their sentence and like it.

Western State is in Division II, jackass! :)

 

[93Devil]

Run decent streaming video of the high school games.Show certain games on the internet, with a decent video quality. Even a fan sitting in the stands filming would be fine. Do a game of the week.

Have fans submit videos that can be edited into a long running clip.

Of course, charge a $20 yearly subscription to the website for this or something like it.

There are much more creative ways to take advantage of the paper's website than posting rumors about where a kid might be attending college.

The internet gives away something for free. I know the paper is trying to put something on their website that people may want to pay for someday, but I just don't see this idea working.

Figure out other types of media people would only receive through the paper's website.

I think a video of a game or a podcast of a high school coaches or selected player interviews forum would be a better avenue.

 

[trench]

Bad idea for so many reasons:
1) People are interested in recruiting from the collegiate side, not the high school side. Therefore, the only prospects who will generate interest in this instance are those who are considering local colleges. Are there enough of them to warrant the shift in priorities? Unlikely.
2) If you're going to do recruiting as described in this example, you'll have to devote more than one person to it And how long before you burn people out?
3) The outlets that succeed in recruiting coverage are those that are willing to check their journalistic integrity at the door and become de facto recruiters for the colleges they allegedly cover. I hope we're not about to sink to that level in print.

Your No.1 point is the most insightful remark on the entire thread. Reader interest in recruiting absolutely funded from the college side of the fan base, and a newspaper that saps resources for prep coverage in order to compete in the recruiting game is not thinking straight. The smart ESE's are adding to (or at least maintaining) prep coverage, not subtracting from it. Preps is the only element of the sports section where the internet can be beaten with regularity, and the market for it (though small compared to pro/college sports) is growing and as well, more loyal to print than pro/college fans. Your No.3 point, however, casts a blanket stereotype that just isn't entirely true. Many newspapers that cover recruiting do it with integrity, break their share of news (or at least, what is considered news in recruiting circles), and do it without publishing a single rumor. There are websites that do the same. It's just the bad ones that perpetuate the stigma.

 

[93Devil]

Trench, IMHO, it's all rumor until the kid signs a letter of intent (not always binding) or signs the scholarship paper.

Up until then it's all jerking around and tail wagging dog.

 

[trench]

Trench, IMHO, it's all rumor until the kid signs a letter of intent (not always binding) or signs the scholarship paper.

Up until then it's all jerking around and tail wagging dog.

Don't disagree with that. Recruiting news will never fall into the definition of hard news. I just don't think that necessarily means newspapers can't devote some resources to it with successful results.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Yes, recruiting coverage can be icky. But part of that is because of the current saturation of it. I don't remember feeling that way when it was, say, just Tom Lemming and a couple other independent dudes beating the bushes. The kids took the occasional phone call, those guys relayed the info to everyone else through their toll numbers and magazines and that was about it. I bet the kids even enjoyed getting the attention. Now these kids take as many phone calls from recruiting sites and, increasingly, newspaper beat writers as they do coaches actually recruiting them. They avoid your calls, which makes you feel like a stalker, of course, all in service to your readership.

Every time I want to completely rag on people who follow recruiting, I think of myself, thumbing through my "Baseball America Prospect Guide" during spring training baseball games. I know the difference is that those guys are 22-25 years old, but the concept driving it is the same - "Who's next?"

Oh, and a kid verbally committing, I'm sorry, but it's news in this day and age. This isn't 1953 where Furman Bisher or whoever could refuse to print a kid's name until he appeared in a game for the Dawgs. At least 90 percent of the kids who verbal do end up at that school. I would say it's closer to 95 percent.

The school I cover had all of one "decommitment" this year. That's it. I imagine it might be different in the SEC, though.

Like anything else, sports is more fun and engaging the more you know about what you're watching. At least that's how it is for a lot of people. I think that the people who follow it are pretty disconnected from the parts of it that make us uncomfortable. They can come off as nuts, but with the media acting as sort of a firewall for them, they're relatively oblivious to the stalking-a-16-year-old aspect of it. They don't see the sausage getting made. It's an extension of following the team, no different to them than someone knowing which Dodgers third base prospect might develop some power (Blake DeWitt, BTW).

 

[spnited]

You can't have a "decommitment" because there is no "commitment" until the Letter of Intent is signed.
And that's why all this breathless coverage of 16- and 17-year-olds declaring as juniors in a total crock of ****.

 

[WaylonJennings]

You can't have a "decommitment" because there is no "commitment" until the Letter of Intent is signed.
And that's why all this breathless coverage of 16- and 17-year-olds declaring as juniors in a total crock of ****.

Well, coaches decide who else to recruit based on who hasn't "committed." Should they simply promise spots to as many kids as possible and then let the first 25 LOIs faxed in on signing day stand?

I understand that it's not official. But what qualifies as "breathless" to you? Should we also no longer report on coaching changes or free-agent signings until the ink is dried and the press conference is called?

Clearly, some of the recruiting coverage is over-the-top and silly. "Leans," "soft leans," "hard leans," "firm verbals" - I mean, c'mon. But when 90-95 percent of these non-commitment commitments stand, how does it not qualify as news? I could see if it was an utter joke, but I think the number that change their minds is greatly exaggerated.

Most good reporters will include a line in their commit stories noting that it's non-binding.

 

[spnited]

If it is non-binding it is NOT a commitment...it is a declaration or an announcment of where Johnny Overrated plans to go. He's just as likely to change his mind as not, despite what your numbers say.
I have a big problem with the language of "verbal" or "oral" "commitments", especially when kids "commit" at the start of their junior seasons.

 

[Ace]

That's a bad, bad, bad idea. God help the poor bastards answering the phones when the parents of 99.9 percent of the circulation area's high school athletes figure out why Johnny and Susie aren't getting their names in the paper.

I'd wager that at a major metro, 99 percent of the time when little Johnny and Susie get their names in the paper, it's from a clerk taking a call from a coach -- not because the Prep Writer was covering their lacrosse match.

 

[Ace]

The bottom line is that it takes someone plugged in and knowledgeable to cover recruiting -- however much that is -- while pretty much any part-timer or freelancer can go cover a prep game.

 

[WaylonJennings]

If it is non-binding it is NOT a commitment...it is a declaration or an announcment of where Johnny Overrated plans to go. He's just as likely to change his mind as not, despite what your numbers say.
I have a big problem with the language of "verbal" or "oral" "commitments", especially when kids "commit" at the start of their junior seasons.

OK, so your issue is with the terminology, not the actual reporting? That I can accept. But it's so ingrained by now, old habits die hard. It's a colloquialism that the vast majority of people grasp the meaning of, particularly when you spell it out for them in your copy.

 

[Ace]

If it is non-binding it is NOT a commitment...it is a declaration or an announcment of where Johnny Overrated plans to go. He's just as likely to change his mind as not, despite what your numbers say.
I have a big problem with the language of "verbal" or "oral" "commitments", especially when kids "commit" at the start of their junior seasons.

It is frustrating, but it is still news if they are committing to a big program or they are a local hot shot. People are interested.

Does your paper run stories when someone is charged with a crime or do they wait to see how they court case plays out?

 

[WaylonJennings]

If you cover major college football and you don't report verbal "commitments," you will be irrelevant in about 30 seconds.

 

[Ace]

If you cover major college football and you don't report verbal "commitments," you will be irrelevant in about 30 seconds.

My favorite is the silent commit, though.

 

[Shifty Squid]

The bottom line is that it takes someone plugged in and knowledgeable to cover recruiting -- however much that is -- while pretty much any part-timer or freelancer can go cover a prep game.

This is an excellent point, Ace.

So if you're leaning heavily on part-timers for your foray into recruiting coverage being the No. 1 priority, it would seem you better have a hell of a good group of part-timers who are pretty well-paid, knowledgeable and reliable.

They'll also need a good plan designed to make it work. You don't want 5 reporters from your paper calling the same kid. So much of winning recruiting news wars is about building relationships, not just with the athlete but often with the athlete's mom/dad/hs coach/AAU coach/best friend/hangers-on/parole officer/pimp.

Speaking of AAU ... I've always thought the slimy world of AAU is rife for a big enterprise story by a major metro. In fact, it's probably been done and I missed it. But if you're hitting recruiting really hard, does it make you more likely to shy away from being critical of AAU, since you'll certainly be relying heavily on AAU coaches for your information?

 

[spnited]

We report when any big-time player "commits" to a big-time school. But I became convinced of the nonsense it when our top FB lineman committed early to Notre Dame, then Fat Charlie changed defensive coordinators, the kid said he was reopening the process and the next night Urban Meyer was at his house getting him to change his mind. The kid is now at Florida.

Then there was the QB who made a "commitment" to a certain school, whose coach jumped to the NFL. He bailed on that commitment, was courted by 5 or 6 other schools, then decided just before signing day to sign with the school he originally "committed" to.

The only good part of these two stories is we had writers who were on top of both situatuions because they were high-profile players and the players actually called our writers to keep them up to date on what was happening so we had both stories before the so-called State paper.

 

[WaylonJennings]

We report when any big-time player "commits" to a big-time school. But I became convinced of the nonsense it when our top FB lineman committed early to Notre Dame, then Fat Charlie changed defensive coordinators, the kid said he was reopening the process and the next night Urban Meyer was at his house getting him to change his mind. The kid is now at Florida.

Then there was the QB who made a "commitment" to a certain school, whose coach jumped to the NFL. He bailed on that commitment, was courted by 5 or 6 other schools, then decided just before signing day to sign with the school he originally "committed" to.

The only good part of these two stories is we had writers who were on top of both situatuions because they were high-profile players and the players actually called our writers to keep them up to date on what was happening so we had both stories before the so-called State paper.

In both of those situations, something unforeseen and drastic changed. Not the best examples of flighty high school kids apt to change their opinion as often as their shirt.

 

[spnited]

Oh, and a few years sgo we had a big-time kid who has been a starter for 3 years at USC. We followed his recruitment very carefully, wrote about Pete Carroll showing up unannounced at his schjool one day, about another USC coach parked in his driveway when he got home from school one day, etc.
And when he went on ESPN on signing day to make his announcement, we already had it in the paper that morning becuase he called our guy the night before.


And we got a bunch of vitriolic e-mails for fawning over one kid while ignoring hundreds of others.

 

[Ace]

We report when any big-time player "commits" to a big-time school. But I became convinced of the nonsense it when our top FB lineman committed early to Notre Dame, then Fat Charlie changed defensive coordinators, the kid said he was reopening the process and the next night Urban Meyer was at his house getting him to change his mind. The kid is now at Florida.

Then there was the QB who made a "commitment" to a certain school, whose coach jumped to the NFL. He bailed on that commitment, was courted by 5 or 6 other schools, then decided just before signing day to sign with the school he originally "committed" to.

The only good part of these two stories is we had writers who were on top of both situatuions because they were high-profile players and the players actually called our writers to keep them up to date on what was happening so we had both stories before the so-called State paper.

We report when any big-time player "commits" to a big-time school. But I became convinced of the nonsense it when our top FB lineman committed early to Notre Dame, then Fat Charlie changed defensive coordinators, the kid said he was reopening the process and the next night Urban Meyer was at his house getting him to change his mind. The kid is now at Florida.

Then there was the QB who made a "commitment" to a certain school, whose coach jumped to the NFL. He bailed on that commitment, was courted by 5 or 6 other schools, then decided just before signing day to sign with the school he originally "committed" to.

The only good part of these two stories is we had writers who were on top of both situatuions because they were high-profile players and the players actually called our writers to keep them up to date on what was happening so we had both stories before the so-called State paper.

In both of those situations, something unforeseen and drastic changed. Not the best examples of flighty high school kids apt to change their opinion as often as their shirt.

Yeah, spnited. Why the venom?

If your kid had committed to a school and the coach left, would you tell him that it's tough luck or back him if he wanted to look at his options again?