13-year-old 'commits' to USC

[mr. pony]

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/b ... aaf,217861

[SMUSA2013]

so stupid. this hardly works

[smuuth]

Talk about exploiting the young! This isn't about Kiffin offering a 13-year old kid. This is about Steve Clarkson and making him more $$$$$$ for his camps for young QB's. How many more parents will now fork out thousands thinking that Clarkson will make there son a D1 player. And to think, Kiffin is helping him do it. Shameless.

[mrydel]

The question being asked here is that if the kid actually committed to Kiffen, what school will he end up going to? They figure Kiffen will move 2 or 3 more times before 2015.

[No Quarter]

This thread does raise the question of who - recognized as a potential scholarship athlete - was the youngest to commit to a program and have the action recognized by the college and then eventually to enroll on scholarship and play there. I have no idea. Maybe someone will share a story.

An opposite case of sorts would be the youngest to be awarded a college athletic scholarship. I can share a story about that that will be hard to beat. Let me say as an introduction that I grew up in Texas, attended SMU, and moved to Georgia in 1961 with my wife. We live there yet. I was an avid football fan when we came here and remain one today.

I was surprised to find that interest in HS and college football in Georgia compared very favorably with that in Texas. In part it was because state loyalties were mostly divided between two big programs then - Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia - and of course both of those programs are good today. I moved to Georgia before integration and black players went out of state or to one of several black colleges. There was no local pro team. There was no major college conference that was in state except for one school.

I won't go into the interest in HS ball in Georgia. Wright Bazemore and the Valdosta Wildcats have a history and legends to rival any team in Texas and there were several good smaller programs. (Overall I think Texas certainly had a lot more strong HS teams.) A measure of the interest in college ball might be the coverage and popularity of the annual freshman football game between Tech and Georgia which drew upwards of 40,000 fans. Moreover, the Atlanta newspapers published a three deep with photographs of both freshman teams. I don't believe I ever saw anything like that in any Texas newspaper.

Bobby Dodd was the Tech coach and AD. The school was famous for having had only three football coaches in the schools history up to that time and they had all served with no contract. I suppose that Dodd had more influence and authority than most coach - ADs anywhere, any time. (Bear Bryant and Woody Hayes and a few others have probably been in similar positions.)

There was in ATlanta in thise years a well known sports editor who was a great Tech fan and advocate. His son graduated from HS and enrolled at Tech on a football schholarship but never joined the football team I don't recall if he had played in HS but he was evidently not college material. When questioned, Bobby Dodd said in effect, that he had known the family and had awarded the scholarship on the day the boy was born. After some controversy the schhalarship was given up.

Can anyone recall a similar scholarship?