I don’t like all of the attention given to high school football players on “National Signing Day,” which was this past Wednesday. Insteead of just reading in the papers who the top local guys decided to play for in college, it is now a television event, with the ESPN “U” channel devoting 10 hours of coverage to show announcements, interview athletes and coaches. It’s a bad side show, but I must admit that I did read about who is coming to play at Northwestern.
But USC coach Lane Kiffin is pushing the envelope in a ridiculous way. Kiffin, who has made a name for himself as the infant terrible of football coaches, first as fired head coach of the Oakland Raiders, then going to the University of Tennessee where he got into verbal battles with Florida coach Urban Meyer and officials of the SEC; then caused students and alums to cry and damn near riot when he bolted after only one year to USC.
Well, the Dennis Rodman of football coaching this week made another headline – making a scholarship offer to a 13-year-old seventh grader for the 2015 freshman class. Admittedly, this is not just any kid – his name is David Sill. A clip on YouTube says that this kid from Bear, Delaware is “the best young phenom since Tiger Woods.” (No puns, please.)
The kid has spent time at DreamMaker, a quarterback camp established by QB guru Steve Clarkson, whose past students include Matt Leinart, Jimmy Clausen and Matt Barkley. He has been followed since the age of 11, and is already 6-foot tall and has more growing to do. Colleges and the NFL drool over big quarterbacks. And this isn’t the first time Kiffin has done this - last year, he offered a scholarship to 13-year-old Evan Berry, the younger brother of star Tennessee safety Eric Berry. The Berrys’ father, James, played at Tennessee, and Evan has a twin brother named Elliot, so, it makes sense that if you have an athletic father and older brother, perhaps you try and lock up one of the twins and perhaps get the other one as well.
But it’s sick. Sick for parents to send an 11-year-old kid to quarterback school. It’s sick for scouts, both paid and unpaid (the football version of pimps) looking out for children who may (the key word being MAY) be a top prospect some day. How many of these kids will end up injured, or not living up to the expectations? What happens if the kid isn’t interested in sports, or grows tired of it? And let’s not forget the skewed view of reality these kids get – do they ever really grow up and be normal, or at least happy? The poster boy for this of course was Todd Marinovich, a young kid groomed to be a quarterback his whole life by parents and coaches, and was drafted by the same Oakland Raiders and was a bust. He got into trouble with the law before disappearing into oblivion (at least from public view).
I don’t have boys, but I do have two beautiful girls who may want to play sports one day. The key word here is WANT – I don’t need them to “fulfill some fantasy” of mine to be rich and famous or play a sport. I hope that I’m secure enough in myself to not push them to do anything (other than homework).
The NCAA will probably institute new rules prohibiting coaches from doing this before Kiffin offers a scholarship to the unborn progeny of Tom Brady.