From the Bench

Recruitniks Don’t Make the World Go Round

Robert Shields

John Robert Starr called them Recruitniks, and last week was the culmination of a year of listening and reading about where “Johnnie My Head is Too Big” was going to college for the Recruitnik.

Why someone cares where some 17-year-old kid is going to go to college to major in something like kinesiology is beyond me, but there is a huge industry dedicated to just such an endeavor. Web sites, newsprint, and magazines dedicated time and space for this endeavor, which means there is money to be gained.

Grown men spend time calling these kids asking them where they are “leaning” this week. Then everyone waits breathlessly as the kid has a couple of hats on the table with a Longhorn or Gator on it as he fakes to pick up one, then grabs the other, and then drops it to reveal his T-shirt under his Georgetown sweatshirt has a USC Trojan mascot on it.

The reality is that for the other 99.9 percent of us, where this kid goes really will not have a bearing on your life to influence if you get a raise, keep your job, pay your bills, or feed your children. It is immaterial to you except for entertainment value, such as if the big girl that you like on “Biggest Loser” makes it another week.

It does these kids a huge disservice as they are lied to by adults promising them a scholarship only to wait by the phone to find out they are not going to be faxed a Letter of Intent. Kids then make what is called a “Commitment,” although it’s nothing even close to that word as they switch hats constantly and take paid visits from other schools.

You should never be surprised when one of these kids messes up as they have received signals that they can do whatever they want and adults and other authorities bow to their needs. How could the kid think he was anything but special and above the rules?

Now after my annual belly aching about recruiting -- and I will bypass my annual diatribe that recruiting should be ruled illegal and all athletic scholarships should be stopped and a school should actually have to field its team from its student body -- I will wade in this one time about this Razorback recruiting class. I wade into it because so many fans seem to be wringing their hands on this low-rated class by SEC standards and the fact one of the top kids in the state went to Auburn.

If this class will be good or not will have little to do with stars that the players were assigned when being recruited. What will matter the most is if this class arrives on campus intact and that they make it the four or five years.

Remember the highly regarded recruiting class of 2006? On paper it was a very good class. But some of the stars left for one reason or another and it was too heavy in receivers making it a very unbalanced group of players for future needs.

This current class, at least on paper, seems to be balanced across the board, so if it stays in tact it should add depth through the coming years. Another class like it will do the same, and thus the Hogs break the cycle of reaching and getting lots of one type of player to fill the gaps on the team. So, in that vein, I like this class.

Also, if just one of those two kickers pans out, it will change this team remarkably. The kicking game over the last several years has cost the Hogs big game after big game. If this recruiting class brings that to an end, it will be nice.

Lastly, as a fan, you have to hope these recruits from out of state also pan out. These kids were the ones that the major college in that state turned their back on for one reason or another. You have to hope that school made a mistake, and many times they do. This all happened because football in Central Arkansas was down this past year. The Hogs need Central High to have great teams not a team that loses every game over a two year span.

A final word on recruiting: Critics of Houston Nutt often complained that he wasn’t “building the fence” around the state to keep players from going elsewhere. But what I get from the new regime is that they aren’t even trying to build the fence. That can only last so long before the in-state folks start to complain that Mikey from Junction City isn’t being looked at. Maybe the only difference is that the new coach didn’t make any promises about in-state recruiting.


Send your complaints about Recruitniks to fromthebench@yahoo.com.


Relive the soap opera of Houston Nutt’s final two years in Fayetteville with my latest book, “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided,” which is now available at fruitbatbooks.com.