Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Note

These kids court the colleges

By VINCENT THOMAS
Published March 26, 2006

As I watched Texas and West Virginia arm wrestle each other for a last-second Sweet 16 victory, I saw a familiar face in the West Virginia team huddle. There was Alex Ruoff and his bald head and lithe frame, standing on the periphery of the Mountaineers' huddle, probably listening to his coach say everything but "Hit Pittsnogle on a curl at the top of the key so he can shoot a 22-foot fallaway jumper."

It must be weird for folks here in Hernando to see one of their local products on such a grand stage, even if he is in a warmup. It has been well-documented that Ruoff was a Hernando rarity - a blue-chip player. Colleges courted and swooned over Ruoff. They dated him, asked him to marry them. That's usually the case with college recruiting when it comes to the ultra-talented teen.

But we don't have a glut of those kids here. We're not Pinellas or Hillsborough or Polk counties. Here, the kids recruit the college. And if you're not out there pounding the pavement and marketing yourself, well ... the last football you throw or basketball you bounce will be for your high school alma mater.

Springstead's AB Rodriguez is our all-Citrus-Hernando Co-Player of the Year. The first time I talked to his coach, Craig Swartout, it was during the last few weeks of football season. I had never met AB or seen him play. Swartout told me he was "legit."

The first time I saw him play, it was clear AB was better than his local peers, but not exactly a Ruoff or kid who would have Tubby Smith sending him text messages. Still, as the year went on it was obvious the kid had game. So, when I spoke to him after the Eagles' region quarterfinal loss and asked him about college, I thought he was going to run down a list of some Division II or III schools he was looking at. I was surprised when he said he hadn't contacted any. "All that starts now," he said.

Considering all that's required for local athletes to get schools to bat an eye at them, I feared he had underestimated how time consuming and involved the process is. I remember sitting at an Eagles girls basketball game talking to Springstead football and basketball player Kenny Beeker. He told me how proactive he had to be to market himself to colleges.

He made calls, wrote letters, sent out tapes. His football buddies did the same. There's no telling the countless hours coaches such as Hernando's Matt Smith, Nature Coast's Jamie Joyner and Springstead's Keith Tincknell have spent working phones and contacts and pitching players and splicing tapes; all to get their players some face time with these smaller colleges. Tincknell's office is basically a PR firm for the Springstead football squad, with about eight VCRs and stacks of tapes and applications. Joyner is like a tour guide, escorting his seniors such as Jon Woodberry and Mike Allen to recruiting fairs up, down and across Florida.

And the recruiting fairs aren't always useful. You could sense the frustration in Andrew Ortiz, Springstead safety, when he talked about taking a four-hour trip to Tallahassee for a recruiting fair, only to arrive and see just a handful of uninterested schools. Teammate Mike King was there, too. A couple of weeks later, as track practice was winding down, King said this whole process of recruiting a college can get overwhelming at times.

"Sometimes, you almost start feeling like it's not worth it," he said.

But King and the rest of the local kids keep forging ahead. Gradually, Hernando athletes are getting snatched up. Andy Leavine, Chris Sabilia, Beeker and Chris Ferguson have signed with schools. Woodberry, King, Ortiz, Allen, Tim Plumadore and Rodriguez shouldn't be far behind.

Their quests to keep playing in college and get a degree on the schools' dime is light on chivalry and heavy on self-promotion. When the process is over, though, the schools should just give these kids an honorary degree in marketing.

Vincent Thomas can be reached at vthomas@sptimes.com or 352 848-1430.

[Last modified March 26, 2006, 00:25:14]