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In Wednesday's post, we ran part of a Q & A with PJ Fleck, recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach for Northern Illinois University. Fleck downplayed the importance of high school combines to college coaches in general and gave his insights so to why, in spite of this, we are seeing more and more of these events in prep football. Today, we post the rest of the interview.

"What we look for is consistency. In game film, we want to see consistency. The big thing is a kid coming to our camp. We can have a (recruit) at our place under our format. We can have our own watch and properly evaluate a recruit. This has become a premium which is why our camps are so important."

Continue reading "RECRUITING HAS BECOME CRAZY, part 2"

I used to love going away to summer camp. Was there anything better than the smell of watered down powdered eggs in the morning?

But this post isn't about Sleepaway Camp. It's about prep football camps and the cottage industry of combines and competitions that has spun off from them.

We addressed this in Friday's post. Today, we have insights from someone who can speak from authority. PJ Fleck is the recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach at Northern Illinois. He is in his 2nd season as a coach at Northern. Fleck is responsible for the Huskies' recruiting efforts.

How much stock do you put in these things? 

"All these combines, we get the results, but it's someone else's watch, someone else's ruler, someone else's scale. We used to attend these, but now we can't (the NCAA prohibits Division 1 coaches from evaluating student-athletes at independently held combines). We'll get information from a big one, like a Nike camp, but stay away from the little ones." 

Continue reading "RECRUITING HAS BECOME CRAZY"

Prep football, and covering prep football, is no longer an August-November pursuit. Although summer camps are nothing new, they have developed and spun off a cottage industry of

QUARTERBACK COMBINES, LINEMAN COMPETITION AND LINEBACKER CHALLENGES

My question is, what's the point? Is it for these athletes to showcase their skills, does it promote team chemistry or is it just another example- albeit at the prep football level- of our country's insatiable year-round appetite for anything with a pigskin?

Tim O'Halloran, otherwise known as Edgy Tim, breathlessly blogs from the Maine West 7-on-7 camp that took place last week.

The Sun-Times has a report from the Bolingbrook Lineman Challenge. Apparantly, the Naperville North Huskies, the defending 8A champs who also won this competition last year, had a bunch of lineman show up this year. The competition consists of a 40-yard-dash, an obstacle course and a medicine ball throw.

Continue reading "Camps, Combines and Competition"

Jeff Christensen believes the quarterback position is broken. 

And he’s just the guy to fix it. 

“Kids today,” says the founder of Throw It Deep Passing Academy, “and when I say kids I mean 19, 20, 21 years old. They think because they throw a pretty spiral they’ve done something. It’s mind-boggling.” 

Christensen’s soapbox is a sweaty gymnasium on a rainy day in Bolingbrook.

He’s moved his army of ball slingers inside until the weather breaks.  This is his 4th session of the day, yet his throat doesn’t have a hint of raspiness as he rattles off a repeated cadence of jargon that is familiar only to his band of pigskin pitchers. 

Continue reading "THINK FIRST, THEN THROW IT DEEP"

July 1st is a key date in the recruiting process for most sports. With the exclusion of basketball, it is the date college coaches can initiate phone calls with prospective recruits.

If you are a prep football player, a phone call will not be your 1st contact from a college, but it's an essential step on the process. Sort of like when you ask someone out. If you don't at least ask, you'll never get a yes. Of course, there's always the chance you'll get rejected, but I digress (not that I would know anything about rejection...I have friends that have had this experience).

9 days into this "contact" period, if you haven't gotten a phone call from a coach, that doesn't mean coaches aren't interested. It just might mean they aren't interested- yet. Here are a handful of ways to know if you are on a college coaches' My 3 list (OK, I know it's My 5, but this is a blog, and short and sweet wins the day):

Continue reading "Think you're being recruited? 3 ways to know for sure..."

Are swirling in college and prep football. The topic- early signing date.

If you are a recruited high school student athlete, a college coach can offer you a scholarship at the start of your junior year. Football is the only sport where that commitment is verbal for 18 months! The rules say you can't sign with a school until February of your senior year. Why is this creating problems? Like you would expect from 16 and 17-year-old teenagers, many are changing their minds, verbally committing to a school their junior year, only to sign with another when it is time to put pen to paper.

You can imagine this is not sitting well with college coaches.

A recent poll in the the Daily Oklahoman said most Division 1 college football coaches favor moving the early prep football signing period up, to sometime during a prospects senior year.

Continue reading "Winds of Change..."

Whether it be a date to the prom, a job change or a college choice, how someone harnesses Leverage will determine success or failure in life.

Not happy with your current situation? Seek out another option.

In the case of Mike Emerick, that is just what he did.

Unhappy with his coach, his playing time, and the overall outlook of his career at Lindenwood University in the winter of 2008, the college volleyball player decided to explore other options.

"I applied to a few other schools," said Emerick, which included Iowa State, where Mike had friends attending the school.

After another incident early in the season sent Mike over the edge to the point where he was conviced he would have to transfer, he came to an enlightened decision, one that would change the course and direction of his life.

Continue reading "College Athletics? Reality Check 101, part 4"

At 5'7", Mike Emerick is not your typical volleyball player. With the dimunitive stature of a prep football kicker, he chose to play sport where a premium is given on one physical characteristic.

"They like height," said Emerick.

Since no pill or creme could help Emerick shake his "Little Mike" nickname and help him grow taller, he knew that in order to get to the collegiate level, he would have to outwork everyone else.

Which he did, working with strength and speed trainers in prepartation for a collegiate career. When Mike arrived at  Lindenwood University  in the fall of 2006, he may have been the team's best athlete.

But after his freshman year, a year where he saw little playing time, all of that hard work and training had yet to gain the notice of his coaches.

Continue reading "College Athletics? Reality Check 101, Part 3"

There are well over 100,000 high school students in this country who also play sports, from prep football to prep tennis. For some, kicking the soccer ball around is nothing more than an after-school activity, a calorie-burning alternative to a job at the mall. For others, it is serious business. Sports is perceived as more than a way to stay in shape, it is a vehicle to a different lifestyle, a meal ticket to a college of their choice, expenses included. 

Or is it?

"The truth is, less than 1 percent of kids in this country get athletic scholarships," said Jack Renkens, a former college basketball coach and president and founder of Recruiting Realities.

Renkens travels the country speaking on issues surrounding the collegiate recruiting process. It is a murky subject, where the lines are blurred between fact and fiction.

Continue reading "College Athletics? Reality Check 101, Part 2"

There is an ongoing ad campaign by the NCAA that at the end of each advertisement, has a punchline that's hard to ignore-

"Most NCAA student-athletes will graduate in something other that sports"

If you are a high school student-athlete with dreams of playing your sport in college, here's a bit of advice. You may want to inject a few facts into your ambition, even if it may permanently ground it.

A recent  NY Times article cited the gowing divide between the culture of reality in college athletics and the expectations of those who want to participate. An analysis of  NCAA data reveals the average college athletic scholarship is just north of $8,700. With the average cost of a public education in Illinois close to $20,000 per year, private upwards of $30,000, those who play and their parents need to get real.

Continue reading "College Athletics? Reality Check 101..."