College Camps Benefit Kids, Community, Universities
ODU players coach kids at Monarch Football Camp (Photo: Andy Hilton/recruit757.com)
It’s camp season and everyone wins. Colleges throughout the region provide the backbone for camps that build confidence and teach skills to local kids. Additionally, college camps like the ones taking place at William and Mary, Hampton and Old Dominion allow kids to rub elbows with pros that provide star power and a positive example.
The camps are great for the kids, great for the community, and great for the colleges that put them on.
Football is a great game that teaches teamwork, leadership and the value of hard work. The community benefits when players grow into community leaders. There’s also the side benefit of getting kids out from in front of the television or computer and onto the field excercising. Involvement in team sports is rewarding in many ways.
The colleges benefit as well. They provide community service through the camps, but also get the benefit of showing their campus and facilities to campers, plus they get the scouting benefits, especially with high schoolers that participate in the programs.
Landstown Coach Tommy Reamon administrated Hampton University’s Michael Vick Football Camp a few weeks ago. He sees a huge benefit for everyone involved. “At the Michael Vick camp, I had seven college coaches there just to come and observe. We try to do that so that kids can be exposed (to college coaches),” said Coach Reamon.
Hampton Coaches observe local players (Photo: Andy Hilton/recruit757.com)
“At the Michael Vick Camp, we had 447 kids. That’s all ages from 8 to 18. There were 172 high school players there. Hampton University had the luxury that they’ve never had by getting that many kids on their campus. Coach Rose and his staff did a great job hosting the event. All of the coaches in the area are trying to expose their kids (to college coaches) and give them an opportunity to improve their skills. It all comes down to exposure,” Coach Reamon stated.
High school players have to work hard to get exposure in any way they can. Many travel for camps at the bigger schools that they’d love to attend as college athletes. The camps at schools like UVA, Virginia Tech and other BCS schools routinely bring in Division IAA coaches that thrive on bringing in players that BCS coaches might pass on. Exposure. That’s what it’s all about and the benefits go both ways.
NCAA Ends Coach-Group Recruiting
Head Coach Gene Chizik and fired up Auburn fans (Photo: Bernard Troncale)
The NCAA handed down a new ruling on Thursday limiting the number of coaches that universities can send on recruiting visits. The NCAA limits coaches visits for evaluation and face-to-face conversation to certain periods of the year, but until now never limited the number of coaches that could come to visit a school or player. Effective immediately, the NCAA limits any university to two coaches visiting a school for the purposes of recruiting a high school football player.
According the NCAA, the rule was initiated by activity in the Big East but one of the most notable programs affected is Auburn University. Auburn was recently known for a recruiting tactic known as “the Tiger Prowl” where an entire team of coaches would show up for an official visit to a high school, quite often showing up in a limosine in order to make a big impression on a recruit.
According to a statement by the NCAA, “Many institutions are unnecessarily expending resources in order to have multiple assistant coaches attend these evaluations as a result of the perceived recruiting benefit.” The statement went on, “By permitting only two football coaches per institution to visit a prospective student-athlete’s school on any given evaluation day, it would preclude institutions from sending a large number of assistant coaches to a school just for perception purposes.”
Feedback from Auburn and its detractors varies, of course. Auburn brought in one of the nation’s top recruiting classes in 2010, and Head Coach Gene Chizik has already changed the terminology within his program. A “Tiger Prowl” in Auburn parlance is part of a Fan Fest event, not a recruiting visit according to Chizik. Fans around the SEC have already been quick to say that Auburn recruiting needs more than one good class in order for the program to become truly competitive.
Either way, the NCAA is trying to level the playing field by keeping expenses to a reasonable level for all. This way, ”big time” programs can’t flex too much financial muscle and beat out smaller programs just because their budgets are bigger. Is it Socialism? In a way yes. What choices are there? There are so many ways to discuss this type of “leveling the field”, but in the end the bigger programs are always going to have more advantages. It’s up to the smaller schools to recruit smartly and train their recruits to become big time ball players.
Five Star Academy Event Draws Players, Families
Oscar Smith Coach Rich Morgan (Photo: Andy Hilton)
Oscar Smith High School and its Head Coach Rich Morgan hosted a Rivals Five Star Academy Event today, which attracted numerous high school athletes looking to get photographed, measured and weighed for listing on the site. The highlight of the event was a 45 minute talk by Coach Morgan, who offered a complete analysis of the recruiting process including NCAA Clearinghouse procedures, guidance on academics and advice on navigating the minefield of scholarship offers and college choices.
Athletes from all over the region were in attendance and a number of athletes from as far away as Washington D.C. and Maryland attended as well. The message from Coach Morgan was well received, especially from the parents in attendance. Coach Morgan reinforced the value of academics, leadership and starting the process early.
The event was open to all players in the 2011 and 2012 classes, from future Five Stars to players bound for smaller schools. Attendees at the event included Oscar Smith standouts Quinta Funderburke and Raysean Richardson, Bayside’s Tra Nicholson, Ocean Lakes’ Lafonte Thoroughgood, Tyler Clark of Grassfield, and Rex Harrison of Tabb.
There are tremendous challenges for athletes and families entering the recruiting process. One of the biggest allies for the high schooler looking to get recruited is preparation. You can never start too early and you can never plan too well for positioning yourself for a scholarship. The recruiting game is full of arcane rules that can confuse even the smartest student athlete and the most well intentioned of parents.
Recruit757 is a scouting and recruiting service that works on behalf of student athletes and their families in order to minimize the confusion and get your recruitment on track. If you’re a student athlete that wants to cut through the fog that is the recruiting process, please check out the player’s resource on recruit757.com. We’ll consult with you and your family, guide you through the process and give you the materials you need to get the scholarship you deserve. Get in touch and we’ll get your recruitment on track!
For more photos from the event, go to recruit757 on Facebook. While you’re there, become a fan of recruit757 and you’ll be notified everytime new content is posted to recruit757.com and the recruit757 blog!
recruit757.com is Open!
The recruit757.com website is up and running as of today!
To you Blog readers and Facebook followers, thanks for hanging in there and growing with us while the website was being built. You can now surf on over to recruit757.com and see what all of the fuss is about.
For too many years, 757 area football players have been underrecruited. We’ve had great football players come out of the area, including Bruce Smith, Dre Bly, Allen Iverson, Ronald Curry, Michael Vick, and the list goes on from there. The top names are fun to watch. Too often, big time college programs don’t look deeply enough and end up coming into the area to cherry pick players, or they write off the area and figure there’s not enough here to bother with a recruiting effort. Smaller colleges often don’t have the resources to gather information and recruit as deeply as they’d like to. Recruit757.com is here to change that.
We’re here for the benefit of area high school football as a whole. We’re also here to showcase the kids that deserve college scholarships but might not otherwise land the scholarship offers they deserve. NFL dreams are within reach for only a select few players. For many others, the goal should be moving to the next level to get a college scholarship at a college that is the best fit for them. Playing college football on scholarship is a dream very few people get to enjoy. The biggest benefit out of the experience is the college education. A college diploma will serve a student-athlete for the rest of his life.
Browse the site. See who’s who in Hampton Roads. The list of player profiles is growing as we continue to add to the site. The resources of the recruit757 Blog, Facebook and Twitter will keep you informed of what’s happening in the area on a daily basis. We cover college football as it relates to our area too, so you’ll be able to keep up with a lot of news on college programs that recruit here.
Be sure to tell your friends about the site. If you know of players and coaches that should be featured here, be sure to let them know about the site and tell them to get in touch. We’re always gathering information, editing video and working on making the site bigger and better for you. Watch us grow!
Videos Wanted for recruit757.com
High School Coaches! Recruit757.com will launch soon and we’re regularly adding videos to the site from our library of highlights from the 2009 season. If you have 2009 game film that you’d like to see cut-up into highlight packages on recruit757.com, please contact me at andy@recruit757.com.
There is no cost at all to have your players featured on recruit757.com. We’re looking to get local high school football players off to college on scholarship at a school that fits their abilities. You let us know who’s college bound, you provide the video, we edit it and get it on the web for all to see.
You can see a small library of our highlight videos on the recruit757 Fan Page on Facebook. recruit757.com will launch soon and we want to see every school in the 757 represented there!
Recruit757 is now on Facebook!
Become a fan! Recruit757 is now on Facebook. Join the group and get updates on news and information via Facebook. Additional photos and information beyond the blog will be posted. Stay tuned for more news related to the growth of Recruit757: your comprehensive resource for high school football in Southeastern Virginia.
Search for the recruit757 fan page on Facebook and join the community!
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We’re on Twitter! If you’re there too, you can sign up to get a tweet everytime the blog is updated. Look us up at twitter.com and subscribe to follow Recruit757. Now you can always know when the latest news and opinion has been posted here on the blog.
National Signing Day Recaps Tomorrow – More News To Come!
Tomorrow we’ll recover from the Signing Day hangover and recap all of the 757 area signings, plus tell you who’s still out there. There were 50 area commitments last year at Signing Day, and it looks like we’ve passed that tally this year.
Check back tomorrow to get Southside and Peninsula recaps, local college recaps, an overview of which schools did well and which schools are still scrambling for players.
Thanks for making Recruit757 your source for local high school and college football information. There’s more good stuff on the horizon! Be sure to bookmark www.recruit757.com and keep an eye out for our new full service recruiting website coming soon!
Happy National Signing Day!
Keep checking in for the latest news from around the area. Some area high schools are delayed and others are closed today, so that will make it a little less dramatic, at least in terms of formal gatherings and signing day parties.
We’ll keep you up to date as the news rolls out and the commitments are made. Happy National Signing Day!
Kecoughtan Hires Their Man
The search for a head coach is over at Kecoughtan.
The head coaching position has been open since head coach Glen Tidwell resigned in November. Tidwell was 15-25 as head coach and the Warriors did not make the playoff in his four years with the school.
New head coach Scott Woodlief is returning to Kecoughtan to change that. Woodlief is a 1982 Kecoughtan grad and he was an assistant coach for the program in the 1990s. Woodlief comes to Kecoughtan after coaching the past four seasons at Potomac Falls High School in Northern Virginia.
Coach Woodlief has lots of experience with Peninsula District football. In addition to his assistant coaching stint at Kecoughtan, Woodlief was head coach at Gloucester in 2000 and 2001, and he was an assistant coach at the Apprentice School for five years. Woolief played for the Builders and also logged time as a semi-pro football player after his time as a Builder.
Woodlief was an assistant at Kecoughtan under Curt Newsome who is now an assistant coach at Virginia Tech. …as if Tech needed anymore Peninsula connections.
There’s now a new coach at Heritage and a new coach at Kecoughtan. Phoebus, Hampton and Woodside will still be formidable foes next year. It’s easy to get from the bottom to the middle of the Peninsula District. The toughest sledding comes when you try to get to the top. Both Heritage and Kecoughtan should be rejuvenated next year. Heritage and Kecoughtan fans hope that new fire translates into wins, with good kids, discipline and good coaching.