Remember when committing to a college meant dialing the head
coach’s phone number, and a recruiting trip was just a tour
of the campus gym?
Well those days are long gone.
Nowadays collegiate recruiting is big business, and the top
football and basketball programs around the nation will practically
roll out the red carpet through the main quad when a potential
superstar comes for his official visit.
The saga of Loyola High senior Omar Wilkes is proof of that.
Wilkes, the son of former Bruin great Jamaal Wilkes, was courted by
a host of elite programs including Kansas, UCLA and Cal before
scheduling a press conference on Wednesday to announce that he has
committed to the Jayhawks.
What’s ludicrous is that the entire event was broadcast
live across the globe over the Internet. Not to knock Wilkes, who
is undeniably a gifted athlete, but I am sure the basketball-crazed
populace of the Netherlands was on pins and needles waiting for his
announcement.
The sad part is that while Amsterdam was not collectively
holding its breath in anticipation of Wilkes’ decision,
pencil-necked Internet geeks in Lawrence, Kansas may have been, as
they huddled around their computer screens like Boy Scouts crowding
around a bonfire.
Reportedly thousands of these unshaven recluses neglected their
duties in the wheat fields for hours to camp in front of their
monitors, waiting for a high school student to declare in a tinny,
distorted voice that he “will be a Kansas Jayhawk next
year.”
The Wilkes press conference is yet another ominous sign that the
media scrutiny of high school sports stars is starting to get out
of hand. Whether they are capable of coping with the glare of
spotlight or not, young athletes like LeBron James are often
labeled as the next big thing before they are legally old enough to
drive.
It is funny to joke about it now, but the way things are going,
toddlers will be alerting local television stations if they manage
to ride a bike around the block without training wheels.
Earlier this year, St. Bonaventure High running back Lorenzo
Booker announced on signing day that he was headed to Florida State
and not Notre Dame as had been rumored for months. A nationwide
audience was able to see his press conference on ESPN, and
afterwards the network’s top recruiting gurus debated the
merits of his decision.
Watching these talking heads babble incessantly, you would have
thought they were debating whether or not to invade Iraq and not
the merits of a decision made by an 18-year-old football
player.
To the delight of message board fiends across the nation, 10 of
next year’s top football recruits are in negotiations with
ESPN to allow the network to televise their press conferences on
signing day.
Meanwhile, distinguished head coaches with decades of experience
like Penn State’s Joe Paterno or Arizona’s Lute Olson
have to put pride aside as they are forced to pander to high school
juniors and seniors to keep their programs competitive.
Don’t blame Omar Wilkes for having a press conference or
the public relations company that declared Wilkes “a
pioneer” for being the first to broadcast his decision live,
worldwide.
Instead the responsibility falls squarely at the feet of
recruiting mongers who build up these young superstars in their
teenage years only to rip them to shreds if they don’t live
up to expectations.
Hopefully Wilkes will live up to his hype at Kansas. Otherwise
Wednesday’s press conference may have been his last.