College recruiting has history of issues
The practice of recruiting high school athletes to continue their playing careers at the collegiate level has long been a subject of speculation, accusation and deep mystery.
There have been recruiting scandals in the most high-profile sports — football and basketball — that have gained great notoriety and led to many levels of punishment for offending schools and programs.
Money, improper benefits and all manner of other “perks” have been given to prospective athletes over the years and, in a few cases, have caused scandals that have rocked the foundations of the sport.
Stories will occasionally pop up even now, but not nearly with the regularity of the past.
You might say, “That’s all nice, Mike, but what does that have to do with golf and a golf column?”
I was getting to that.
Well first, there are no golf recruiting scandals in the news. And this isn’t about that.
But at a high school golf event recently, a conversation with some coaches enlightened me to the fact that there is a problem in golf, but it’s not an illegal one.
Unlike football and basketball where most commitments to college take place in the athletes’ junior and senior years, it has become more and more common for high school golfers to verbally commit by the time their sophomore year in high school begins.
And believe it or not, Baylor University has received a verbal commitment from a FRESHMAN girl, Britta Snyder, of Ames, Iowa. But if you look at recruiting lists like the one in Golfweek Magazine you’ll see there are sophomores from across the country, boys and girls, who have verbally committed.
To me, that’s a situation fraught with risks for both sides. These are high school sophomores we’re talking about, 10th-graders who sometimes have trouble choosing what classes they want to sign up for. They change their minds several times each morning about what clothes to wear that day.
They’re making decisions about colleges as a 15- or 16-year-old?
And on the other side, how about schools that take commitments from sophomores? What happens if these youngsters don’t continue to mature as students and players? They get to their senior year and they can’t break 75? Do the schools honor those commitments?
I’ve talked to college coaches who admit the system is broken and it’s been driven by schools in the SEC. Nobody has come up with a solution yet, either.
The only high school golfer from Western Pennsylvania to appear on Golfweek’s list is Brady Pevarnik, a sophomore from Greater Latrobe High School.
He verbally committed to Penn State last week for a very simple reason.
“My dream school had always been Georgia and when I started looking into them this summer, I found out their class for 2019 was already full,” he said. “So it has become a situation where if you want to go to a particular, big-time school, you have to get started really early.”
This is a situation that pertains to only the elite golfers in high school, but to me, this is one that’s teetering on the edge of something that could get ugly.
n n n
The West Penn Golf Association’s 31st Mid-Amateur Championship had a familiar winner this week.
For the third time, Pittsburgh’s Nathan Smith had his name put on the championship trophy after shooting rounds of 69-71 for a 140 total, good for a two-shot victory over Mike Marron, of Parker, and Rick Stimmel, of Pittsburgh, both of whom finished at 142.
Smith previously won the tournament in 2006-07. He joins John Jones and Arnie Cutrell as three-time champions in the event.
Smith, along with Stimmel and Cutrell, competed this weekend in the first two rounds of the U.S. Mid-Amateur, which is being held at Stonewall Links in Elverson, Pa.
n n n
Do you have an interesting story about your club or course or an individual who has done something special, let me know. Send your story ideas to mike.dudurich@gmail.com.