|
Wrestling
FORUM
HOME | WRESTLING
POST
NEW TOPIC | POST
REPLY | LOGOUT
| TOPIC:
A fascinating glimpse into real-world recruiting... |
By
MBIB
Posted
on 5/18/2006 - 11:55:46 PM
"Promises" made, kept, or otherwise. What a mess. I'm not sure what the parents' claim really boils down to in the legal sense (and where would venue be? Doesn't seem to amount to a federal case, so wouldn't they be going before a BFE Blacksburg judge?), but I do believe that, whatever the particulars, "promises" were indeed made. Or, to put it squarely into legal vernacular: "statements upon which a reasonable parent would have inferred a promise was made..."
The interviews with the parents reminds me of a piece in Harper's magazine years ago that followed the recruiting then-9th grade hoopster (or thereabouts) Stephon Marbury. It was right around the time of Hoop Dreams. The thing that was really fascinating about the whole enterprise (and recruits of "lesser sports" at Michigan, Iowa, Northwestern, and Wisconsin have all voiced similar experiences, regardless of the sport -- soccer, volleyball, definitely hockey) is just how seedy the process is not just with the usual suspects but it goes all the way down the food chain way past the likes of St. Bonaventure into Div II schools and even NAIA programs. And the Ivy's "no scholarships for athletes" rule? How does "full financial aid fellowship" sound? It's sick, it's unreal.
Makes Zalesky's maturity surrounding Mocco look better every day, incidentally.
Reply |
|
REPLIES
|
By
Illini Hawk
Replied on 5/19/2006 - 9:15:25 AM
How right you are, MBIB, about Z's handling of Mocco.
VPI will come out of this looking bad. There are 5 recruits and their families that are saying they were told the same thing, plus VPI's history of releasing minor sport athletes, plus circumstantial evidence (why would kids from Iowa and Michigan go there in the first place, if not to follow Brands). Reply |
By
T-Bone
Replied on 5/19/2006 - 10:46:55 PM
Sadly,what is missing here, and you can see it an early age at any Dan Gable wrestling camp, are the parents living through their kids...what these "adults" should be telling these cauliflower ear heads is that pick a school where if the coach gets fired, you get injured you want to be..where you can get a great education..not "Tom Brands coaches there" or "they have a winning program" I would like to see these parents make good decisions for their kids overall well being not a promise, Gable, Brands or any other idiot Div I wrestling coach makes to them...
BONE Reply |
By
dwatowski
Replied on 5/20/2006 - 12:41:27 PM
"what these "adults" should be telling these cauliflower ear heads is that pick a school where if the coach gets fired, you get injured you want to be..where you can get a great education"
That's crap. This is the problem with the NCAA. Kid's commit to a coach, to a style of a program, to a person they do not commit to the institution itself. Coaches are afforded the luxury of leaving mid-contract and moving on to another university without any impunity, but a student-athlete who wants to play for a specific individual isn't afforded the same luxury. They are tied to the university whether they like it or not.
As a fan of any university you obviously don't want your best player to transfer, but you also should want the student to make their own decisions in life (isn't that part of the lessons college imparts?). We allow any college student to transfer as they choose to any other university, except when they play a sport, then they are stuck with us. That's a horrible thing to force an 18 year old kid to live with and it's unfair to say the parent's aren't doing their job to make the kid "stand by his word". The coach didn't, why is the child expected to? Reply |
By
LPiowa
Replied on 5/20/2006 - 7:53:40 PM
The problem is,....both of you are right. This knife cuts both directions. As a teacher, coach, and school administrator,...I have seen the adults with tunnel vision and a total lack of true parenting skills. Nothing that T-Bone says is going to change any of them. Why? Because they do not recognize it in themselves.
And, Dwatkowski, the reason for some of the NCAA rules is because of athletes (and/or their parents) who sold their services to the highest bidder....and changed locales when the bid got better somewhere else. Innocent kids get hurt because of the crappy track record of previous people. (We should be able to go through the airport and onto a plane without our persons and our luggage being X-rayed and searched from stem to stern,...but we can't because of the actions of other people.....Maybe an extreme example, but it goes to the fact that stringent rules are in place because of previous incidents.) Reply |
By
MBIB
Replied on 5/20/2006 - 11:57:49 PM
LP:
How's about this...all THREE of you are correct to some extent.
But what, precisely, is normatively wrong about "services to the highest bidder"? What is about 18-22 athletes, actually, really just football-basketball-wrestling players (hockey, tennis, and baseball players can, after all, be contracted with professional franchises)
that requires that THEY and THEY ALONE can't contract out to the highest bidder?
People go to grad schools where they get the best deal. If you go to music school to follow a particular professor, and they retire, can you not bail sans penalty? Can that same hotshot player not take outside gigs for cash? (Yes, many many majors ago). You know the only time a musician can't take such gigs? When he is walking on to the football team.
The only rule -- the ONLY one -- that should be on the table vis a vis transfers et al should be those to whom state or federally funded grants are secured for their attendance. So, now that we've eliminated everyone but grad students, what's the problem with these kids?
Wisconsin's athletic dep't is an $80 million a year enterprise up here in Madison.
Are you going to tell me this is an amateur enterprise? You somehow have to find a way to do so, otherwise any student-athlete here who selected Wisc over, say, Loras College has just "sold out to the highest bidder", no? Reply |
By
LPiowa
Replied on 5/21/2006 - 12:14:22 PM
Tommy Trumpet doesn't help fill a 70,000-seat stadium nor a basketball arena complete with national TV audience. He can toot his horn for any professor he wishes and it really won't make any difference to anyone else. Five wrestlers leave VT and it does have an immediate impact. Same thing if KF left Iowa City for Columbia, Missouri and took half the roster with him....to be immediately eligible. (I know the numbers are a little extreme, but it takes that to prove a point, I guess.)
As for coaches leaving with no penalty and players can't: Remember, it is "Do as I say, not do as I do." And life goes on....... Reply |
By
LOKI
Replied on 5/21/2006 - 2:00:49 PM
Good points all around. Obviously, there are many aspects of recruiting that are not that savory. However, you'll never change parents who are determined to give their kid the best shot at NCAA or Olympic titles. If that means "following" a coach, they'll tell the athlete he should do that. What's at issue here is if VTU's AD promised something, then went back on his word. Legally, I don't know if it can be proven, but VT's reputation will certainly suffer. The positive news is that those wrestlers that want to come to IC can still do so. Too bad they'll miss a year, but LP's right--life goes on... Reply |
You
must be registered and logged in to reply.
|
