From the Bench

Fans Question Pinnacle of Recruiting Services

Robert Shields

Following the escape of an Arkansas football player to an out-of-state school on national signing day, the message boards went into overdrive over a man in northwest Arkansas named Walt Williams who is the latest Springdale persona to bring drama to Razorback football. Why am I the only sports writer in the state who has tackled this subject? Good question.

For those who have better things to do than spend every moment following the recruiting wars, Williams is president of a recruiting service called Pinnacle Preps. He lit up the Razorback message boards and a couple of other SEC message boards and was mentioned on a few radio call-in shows. T. Biddy, who runs the Rivals message board and appears on “Drive Time Sports” to talk all things recruiting, was asked about Williams on the show, as was Wally Hall on the lesser-rated “Sports Animals” program.

According to Williams’ web site, Pinnacle Preps offers services for high school football players to promote their skills to college recruiters at prices billed to their parents ranging from a couple hundred dollars to a premium package of $3,000. These services can include making a web site, video package, and post cards about these gifted high school athletes.

Some fans seem to be up in arms over the idea of this business that they say pimps these high school kids. However, there is nothing illegal about it. A parent could just as easily pimp her son out by hiring some high-powered marketing firm to do the same thing. Maybe Williams can do it more cost effectively and keep the business in state, unlike the UA athletic department, which outsources its non-stop marketing e-mails to an out-of-state company.

Why a parent would ever do this is beyond me. If your kid is a major college athlete, he will be found. If a kid is of average ability, I am sure his high school coach would help in trying to place him. But that is just my opinion. For whatever reason, there seems to be a market for this service as some parents want to farm out some of their responsibilities in a period where college recruiting has gone off-the-charts crazy.

Ultimately, what got some fans fired up about Williams was that he apparently bad mouthed Razorback football coach Bobby Petrino, and that is a no-no on the Internet. Some Razorback fans took umbrage with the perceived attack on Petrino as it could be seen as a conflict of interest since he has potential recruits as his clients. (Note to Mr. Williams: Only sports writers and fans are allowed to bad mouth the coach)

Williams regretted the decision and made an apology on a message board that was not very well received. Some fans took it more as excuses than an apology.

Further, some fans seemed to grumble at the fact that Williams once played at Shiloh Christian under Gus Malzahn, who is now the offensive coordinator at SEC foe Auburn. Williams appears to look up to Malzahn, according to what he wrote in his apology. Some fans also found it distasteful that Michael Dyer (all-time leading rusher in Arkansas high school football history) decided to attend Auburn on signing day.

Some fans also seemed sickened that Williams’ recruiting service apparently has Michael Dyer as a client. A video of Dyer is available from the Pinnacle Preps web site that includes some good music. The web site created for this high school kid, michaeldyer5.com, is well-done and oddly includes a Nike swoosh that links to the Nike site. Pinnacle Preps also does the web design for the Shiloh Christian football site, which is also very well done.

Some fans wonder why a five-star recruit (the highest rating) needs any help promoting himself to potential colleges.

What level of services that Dyer actually paid Pinnacle Preps, is unknown. Either party can tell me if they so choose, but private business does not have to publicly disclose its information, so we may never really know. If they want, they can send the details to fromthebench@yahoo.com .


In conclusion and if nothing else, I’d like to welcome a new player into the Springdale soap opera and thank him for providing yet another column’s worth of good material.

You can receive a 15% discount on President’s Day on my latest book, “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided” by entering the coupon code “washington” at http://www.fruitbatbooks.com/