Part I

This week DCSportsFan is going to be going behind the scenes of the intricate courting process involved with college football. The three-part series will cover recruiting from the three parties involved: the high school coaches, the college recruiters, and - of course - the players.

This might surprise people, but across the board, the first thing that coaches point to as a requirement for an athlete to be recruited by Division 1A universities is for them to be a talented football player.

“Number one, you’ve got to be a player,” Good Counsel head coach Bob Milloy said. “You’ve got to have the size and the speed for the coaches to want you. More and more, lately, they want to know- what are his grades? What is his GPA? Another question I’m happy to see asked more and more is what kind of kid is he?”

And with the current demand for talent on college teams, it is little wonder that the process begins earlier and earlier for college recruiters to contact and offer scholarships to the best talent.

“A kid can be recruited as early as the ninth grade nowadays,” Friendship Collegiate head coach Aazaar Rahim said. “If a kid is starting for you in tenth grade, and you think he can go division 1A, you definitely want to get the kid’s tape out to as many schools as possible.”

Once this tape gets out and the athlete’s eligibility is established is when the serious recruitment begins. The school puts the recruits they are targeting on their mailing list, and the athlete talks with representatives from the school about the merits of their university. If an athlete shows interest in the university, the coach will forward that to his superiors, and a scholarship offer will be extended to the player.

“The coach will call, and he’ll want to talk to the kid,” Good Counsel recruiting coordinator Kevin McFadden said. “He’ll tell the kid how well he’d fit in the program and how they want him to be a part of their program and to keep their school in consideration.”

Every recruitment is like a snowflake – there are certain similarities among all of them, but each one is also uniquely different.

“The coaches let me know they were just trying to recruit good players to come and try out for the season,” Eastern Michigan defensive back and Friendship Collegiate graduate Jaron Gillespie said. “The coaches couldn’t sell me on the university because they had just gotten there themselves.”

In Gillespie’s case, he was initially recruited to Louisville, but once the coaches moved from Louisville to Eastern Michigan, Gillespie followed his relationship to the coaches and committed to Eastern Michigan even though they had not been on his radar before.

“I was scouted by the Louisville coaches, but then they went to Eastern Michigan, so they scouted me over there, and they knew Coach Hakim,” Gillespie said. “They liked me at Louisville, they were going to offer me at Louisville, but the coaches moved so they had to offer at Eastern Michigan.”

If the recruitment of H.D. Woodson graduate and Illinois defensive back Tavon Wilson teaches anything, it is that recruitment is never over until a player signs his letter of intent to a university.

“I was committed to the University of Maryland, but near the end of my senior season, I started second-guessing my decision to go to Maryland,” Wilson said. “I opened my recruitment back up and I was still talking to North Carolina, but then I committed to Illinois in December.”

Some kids aren’t given those type of options, however. The decision to pick between a single Division 1A scholarship or a multitude of Division 1AA scholarships from elite teams can prove difficult for prospective players.

“Your choices go hand in hand with how heavily you are recruited,” Rahim said. “Some kids may only have a single 1A offer, and that means their only choice if they want to go 1A is that school, or a good 1AA school, so I think where you’re recruited has more to do with your choices.”

For those who are heavily recruited, the deciding factors are usually varied and different from player to player and from school to school.

“Football side,” H.D. Woodson head coach Greg Fuller said. “Always the football side is closest to my kid.”

“The mom could be from the Midwest and that could influence it,” Good Counsel head coach Bob Milloy said. “A lot of times they have family there. Obviously their reputation is involved – when Florida comes to town that turns heads. There are so many different reasons. They could really be interested in the academic portion.”

McFadden pointed out that he usually tells parents and students to look at various factors such as the academic component, social aspect, the coach’s time of service with the university, the football program and the alumni association when considering a school. The alumni association is meant to help getting graduates a job, assuming the athlete isn’t playing on Sundays.

DeMatha head coach Bill McGregor also advises athletes to go to a school because they like the head coach – he believes the area coaches that recruit players will probably leave to be coordinators or head coaches, whereas the head man will stay with the university for the four or five years players spend at the college.

Both McFadden and McGregor emphasize that once an athlete commits to a university, either verbally or in writing, the recruitment is over – they do not allow kids to change their minds.

“We tell our kids that you don’t have to commit, but if you choose to, do it,” McGregor said. “If not, just wait until you are sure and see where the cards fall.”