RECRUITING MIDDLE SCHOOL-AGED PLAYERS: Early start or exploitation?

Kyle Hawkins, an honor student at Woodward Academy, works out almost every day in pursuit of his dream of playing college football. He wants to play for Urban Meyer and the Florida Gators.

Hawkins works with a personal trainer, attends football camps throughout the summer and played in a national all-star football game on New Year’s weekend. A catch he made in the game was witnessed by thousands live on the Internet, and clips of the catch and his camp workouts soon could be available on the Web.

But unlike the thousands of high school juniors and seniors whose camp exploits and game-day highlights can be found on various recruiting Web sites, Kyle is a 14-year-old eighth-grader.

He is among the thousands of youth football players being cultivated by a new company called Football University (FBU), the same group that organizes the U.S. Army High School All-American Game in San Antonio, which is broadcast live on NBC. FBU also organizes the underclassman combine the same weekend, which ranks the nation’s top juniors.

Some argue that the process of evaluating 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds has taken college football recruiting to the next level —- a level where it doesn’t need to be. Others, including players and their parents, see nothing wrong with the phenomenon.

“We’ve gotten into this for the right reason, which is to take kids who have shown some ability [in football], give them proper training and make them as good as they can be,” said Rich McGuinness, president and founder of SportsLink, the company that operates FBU. SportsLink also organizes the McDonald’s High School All-Star basketball game and the ultra-competitive Five Star Hoops camps.

Northview football coach Jim Showfety said the process is “utterly preposterous. It’s ridiculous. They’re taking an existing problem with the whole college recruiting [industry] and taking it a step further. These kids are entirely too young for something like this. … Having a site with kids’ highlights on it is uncalled for and unnecessary.

“All this is going to do is cause conflict between the high school coaches and these scouts, just like you have with AAU coaches and high school coaches in basketball.”

Coming to Henry County

In June, New Jersey-based FBU will hold a camp/combine in Henry County for middle school-aged players. It will be one of many camps the company hosts during the summer while searching for the nation’s top sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade players. Area scouts employed by FBU select the cream of the crop and invite them to participate in a select camp in Orlando in July.

After that, an even more select few will be highlighted on the FBU Web site and invited to participate in a national all-star game, played on the same weekend in San Antonio and in the same venue —- the Alamodome —- as the high school game. Players and parents who are selected have to pay for their transportation and lodging, but other expenses, including ground transportation and meals, are covered by FBU.

“It was a great experience for Kyle,” said Greg Hawkins, Kyle’s father. “The football game was anticlimactic. While they were there they got great coaching and mentoring by the instructors and coaches. They learned about maturity and respect for the game. It was all first-rate.”

And it comes with a first-rate price tag. The FBU camp/combine in Henry County on June 5-7 will cost $549.

Greg Hawkins said he has had to fend off jabs from friends and acquaintances, who say this sort of thing is too much, too soon.

“But I look at it like this,” he said. “This is no different than noticing that your child has a special talent in math or science and getting him or her a tutor to help them compete in a math or science competition, or a spelling bee. The way I see it, this is like an AP-level or honors-level course in football.”

Rob Roark agrees. His son, Austin, a linebacker in the eighth grade at Woodward, participated in the youth all-star game.

“When we were leaving, I asked [Austin] how he liked it,” said Roark, who has his son work with a personal trainer in the offseason. “He said it was the best day of his life. To see how happy my son was and to see how well he was treated there brought tears to my eyes.”

Woodward coach Mark Miller agrees that the mind-set of the player is important, but he cautions against expecting too much.

“As long as it is something that the kids want to do, and not something their parents want them to do, I don’t see a problem with playing in an all-star game,” Miller said. “As long as it is for the right reasons.

“But if you are going to start ranking kids, or if parents are looking at this as some sort of way to get their child a college scholarship somewhere down the road, then I don’t think there is any place for that sort of thing.”

Too much too soon?

There are critics who think this type of specialization and acclaim for middle-school athletes isn’t healthy. Others question how FBU personnel can make accurate growth projections for 13-year-olds, some who might not grow another inch during their high school years.

Oscar Dillard, a former high school coach who runs the Oscar Dillard Football Academy —- he charges $50 per session and $250 for three-day camps —- says if it’s good for baseball and basketball, why not football, especially when scholarships could be at stake.

“FBU is only for kids who eat, breathe and live football,” said Dillard, who is one of two Georgia regional scouts for FBU and also scouts Alabama. “This will help your kid learn the proper technique and fundamentals and compete against the best of the best in his age group. When he gets to high school, he’ll already be prepared on how to compete at the various college camps.

“This way, if you have a high school coach who is not working to help your child get noticed by recruiters, it won’t matter. He’ll be able to go to the [college] camps and get noticed himself. As a parent, why would you put your child’s future solely in the hands of his high school coach?”

Showfety and Carrollton coach Rayvan Teague bristled at that statement.

“None of them are professional educators like high school coaches,” Teague said. “These guys have found a job where they can prey on the ambitions of kids and their parents. Their livelihoods are based on this.”

“What’s next?” Showfety asked. “You’re going to have adults starting to shop their kids around to different high schools. Are these scouts going to start going by the preschools to check out the athletic 5-year-olds? All of this is very discomforting to me.”

Getting an early jump

Dillard insists that rigorous training and competition helped his son, Ryan, become a starter at defensive back on Woodward’s varsity squad this season as a ninth-grader. Ryan has participated in FBU camps and at his father’s football academy, where he regularly worked out with older players, including Georgia freshman defensive back Brandon Boykin.

“Working with him and watching how he went about his business definitely helped me,” Ryan said. “It gave me a lot of confidence.”

And that, McGuinness argues, is what FBU is all about.

“We’re not going to rank players and give them stars,” McGuinness said. “We are going to list who our scouts think are among the best players at each position. But ultimately, it’s not about that. It’s about giving these kids an opportunity to be the best they can be, and we don’t apologize for that.”

WHERE THEY STAND

PRO: “We’re not going to rank players and give them stars. We are going to list who our scouts think are among the best players at each position. But ultimately, it’s not about that. It’s about giving these kids an opportunity to be the best they can be, and we don’t apologize for that.”

Rich McGuinness, president and founder of SportsLink, which operates Football University

CON: “It’s ridiculous. They’re taking an existing problem with the whole college recruiting [industry] and taking it a step further. … All this is going to do is cause conflict between the high school coaches and these scouts.”

Jim Showfety, Northview High School football coach