Signing Day
TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer had an excellent view on the slime-fest that is college football recruiting. Weeds was detailing the seediness and the underbelly of recruiting and how schools sell sex.
He’s right, and it’s part of the problem. But truth be told, as Weeds wrote, it’s a growing part of the troubles we face across multiples swatches of our society. As for football recruiting, which hits its pinnacle today with national signing day, about the only thing positive we can say about this any more is at least it’s not basketball recruiting. And we’re serious.
Days of the hat dance – the ceremony with a few ball caps on the table and the player dramatically picks one – feel campy and dated. So too does the feeling that this day should be a celebration about the opportunity athletics afford these kids.
Yes, that may be the case for the families and kids like Robert Riddle, the former McCallie quarterback who joined Press Row on Tuesday and shared his recruiting stories. (Side note: This was a strange year locally for QBs. Cole Copeland at Bradley picked UTC and former Baylor School star Nick Tiano transferred to the Mocs from Mississippi State. Riddle, who had a great senior season, did not get as much traction early on the recruiting cycle, but here’s believing he’s going to do big things at Mercer over the next few years.) Those stories feel like the exception rather than the rule, though.