GoGamecocks.com

Morris: Race for first offer turns absurd

kids

USC has already offered a football scholarship to Lexington quarterback, Shaq Roland, a rising sophomore. Roland was a football and basketball star as a 9th-grader at Lexington.

Tim Dominick/tdominick@thestate.com

Posted on 06.27.09
email print reprint or license
Comments (0)

Related Content

Ron Morris

Columnist

rmorris@thestate.com
(803) 771-8432

THIS BUSINESS OF OFFERING college athletic scholarships to kids who have not yet begun to shave has gotten a little silly. What’s next? Making offers as the youngster comes out of the womb.

Entirely possible.

“I guess you could offer somebody out of the crib, if you wanted to,” says Steve Spurrier, who did a little robbing of the cradle recently when he and his staff made a verbal scholarship offer to a rising sophomore at Lexington High.

“But, as you know,” Spurrier says, “sometimes the offer may go away between then and when it comes time to sign. Sometimes a lot of things happen in between.”

Actually, there is a lot that could happen between now and when 15-year-old Shaq Roland graduates from Lexington High. He has six semesters of high school remaining. He has three football seasons and three basketball seasons to play.

By the time he leaves Lexington High, Roland likely will have entertained hundreds of college football and basketball scholarship offers from across the nation. He also will have learned to shave by then.

What makes this all so silly is that the offer USC made to Roland means nothing. It is not binding on USC’s part. A month, a year, two years from now, USC could change its mind and withdraw the offer.

Likewise, Roland could make a commitment next week, next month, next year to play football at USC. Then he could change his mind. He could make another commitment to USC. He could change his mind again.

So why does a reputable school like USC, with a reputable coach like Spurrier, make a scholarship offer to a kid who six months ago got his driver’s learning permit?

“There is less evaluation of kids, and it’s harder for schools to get much contact with them,” says Allen Sitterle, Roland’s football coach at Lexington High. “So (schools) get a kid in for camp, and they see he’s a good athlete and see some film on him and they try to jump on him quickly and be the first one to offer him.”

Being first is what it’s all about. Sitterle says there is merit to that. He has been coaching at the high school level for 29 seasons and has seen varying reasons for athletes choosing a particular college. There have been some, he says, who selected a school because they liked its colors.

More often than not, the decision comes down to who showed the most interest in a player the earliest, according to Sitterle. So he understands why USC jumped on Roland with an offer after he attended the school’s 7-on-7 football camp June 6.

“I think it’s kind of smart,” Sitterle says. “You see a good athlete, you better jump on him quick, or someone else is going to. As long as there is not a rule saying you can’t do it, people are going to do it.”

There is little question about Roland and his athletic abilities. He was an all-region performer as a ninth-grader in football and basketball. He played safety in football, often switching to cornerback to match up against an opponent’s top receiver. Sitterle plans to switch Roland to quarterback this season. On the basketball court, Roland played every position except the post under coach Bailey Harris.

“He could be a world-class high jumper the way he gets off the ground,” Sitterle says. “There’s a lot of things he could do that he hasn’t touched yet.”

That, ultimately, is the upside to Roland. He is 6-foot-1 and 160 pounds. His long arms make his coaches believe he will grow, perhaps a couple more inches. He is likely to get heavier as he gains strength.

Still, he is far from being a SEC-caliber athlete. Therein lies the rub with scholarship offers to such youngsters. High school and college coaches alike have concerns about whether 14- and 15-year-old athletes can handle the recognition that goes with a scholarship offer.

“It all depends on the maturity of the kid,” Sitterle says. “A lot of times I think it can work to the advantage of the kid, and the kid will buckle down academically and make sure he works hard the rest of the years.

“On the other hand, you may have some kids that are a little hard to coach after that. They think they’ve got it made and they pull back a little bit.”

Spurrier agrees.

“They can get a little too cocky,” Spurrier says. “That is a problem because most kids can’t handle people telling them how good they are.”

For that reason alone, Spurrier would prefer to see an abolition of scholarship offers of any kind until an athlete’s junior year of high school. Of course, Spurrier understands such a rule virtually would be impossible to enforce.

Eric Hyman, USC’s athletics director, says making offers to freshmen and sophomores in high school violates the spirit of college athletics. Yet Hyman understands the competitive edge gained by making such early offers.

“There are things we do that I don’t agree with,” Hyman says, “and that’s one of them. I struggle with that. I struggle with being involved with young people at that age.”

Yet USC, and just about every other college, will continue to attempt to be first with scholarship offers. The athletes on the receiving end of these offers continue to get younger and younger. The Kentucky basketball program not long ago offered scholarships to a seventh-grader and eighth-grader.

The only end in sight is when college coaches begin gathering outside hospital maternity wards with scholarship offers in hand. Hey, at least they will be first.

Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM.

  • Search
  • GoGamecocks.com
  • Web search powered by YAHOO! SEARCH

Recent Video

Latest Forum posts