Web sites keep recruits in spotlight with fans

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Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006

Web sites keep recruits in spotlight with fans

By Andrew Staub
Penn State University - The Daily Collegian - Staff Writer

When high school football players and their families come to Penn State for an official visit, it's often the job of Guido D'Elia to escort them around campus for a weekend.

D'Elia, Penn State's football communications and branding director, sometimes even goes as far as to meet the recruit and his family at the airport.

While National Collegiate Athletic Association rules state the university cannot publicly announce these visits, the public often does catch wind, thanks to recruiting Web sites like Rivals.com and Scout.com.

According to a story in The Oregonian, the two sites have more than 350,000 subscribers who pay either monthly subscriptions of $9.95 or yearly subscriptions of $99.95.

The sites provide up-to-date information on all top football and basketball prospects, as well as message boards that allow users to pass along information to each other. With so many users between the two sites, word easily gets out when a recruit is planning a visit to a school.

D'Elia said the recruits are often recognized at the airport, long before they even make it to campus.

"The cab driver knows who they and their family are," he said.

With information so readily available, it can be difficult for universities -- Penn State included -- to stay within NCAA guidelines.

When Pat Devlin, one of Pennsylvania's top-rated high school quarterbacks, attended a men's basketball game on a visit to Penn State Jan. 21, several students at the game held up signs bearing his name and yelled for him to stand up. The attention prompted a meeting between fan leaders and Penn State NCAA Compliance Coordinator John Bove, said Jennifer Owsiany, who is president of the Penn State basketball fan club, the Nittwits.

The point of the meeting, Owsiany said, was to make sure no violations had occurred. In this case, none did because the fans acted on their own volition and were not informed by the university Devlin was coming. Owsiany said the Nittwits were not involved in making the signs.

An NCAA rule interpretation from Feb. 27, 1991, states that, in order to meet NCAA guidelines, when notified of such fan actions, Penn State must show an effort to stop the extra attention.

NCAA Associate Director of Public and Media Relations Kent Barrett said Penn State has complied with the guidelines by meeting with students. Nowhere does the NCAA say students cannot yell for recruits. If the students were to continue making signs and chanting names, Penn State would have to continue to take action to prevent it.

However, while students may have signs confiscated at games by Penn State officials, the NCAA cannot reprimand them for their actions.

"You can't control the actions of individuals," Barrett said. "However, it's a requirement in this rule that the institutions try to keep it from occurring. Nowhere in the rules is the yelling of names impermissible."

In recent years, sites such as Rivals and Scout have gained negative reputations as being too aggressive when trying to obtain and publish information, and have been criticized in ESPN the Magazine.

Bob Lichtenfels, a Scout.com writer, said people rarely try to find the positive story about recruiting Web sites.

"People paint it like we're telemarketers," he said. "That's not what we do."

Lichtenfels said without the services recruiting Web sites provide, such as prospect highlight reels and results from combines, many college coaches would be missing key information vital to recruiting. Because college coaches can view high-school combine results for free, Lichtenfels said they can learn much more about recruits across the country. Sometimes, he said, the increased publicity can help recruits land more scholarship offers.

"The more you know about a kid, the more his name gets out there, the better for him," Lichtenfels said.

Devlin, who credited much of his successful recruitment to his high school coaching staff, also said the Web site exposure may have helped him.

"I'm sure it helped by getting my name across the country," he said. "I had offers from Oregon, which I never would have figured."

A tool for coaches, recruiting Web sites may be most popular with sports fans.

"Everybody wants to know who is going to be the next star of their team," Scout.com Regional Editor Miller Safrit said.

Garret Girouard (junior - crime, law and justice) checks Rivals.com everyday after class to keep up with recruiting news. On National Letter of Intent Day (Feb. 2), he invited friends over for a party to watch ESPNU's signing day coverage. About 20 people showed up and about 10 stayed all day, he said.

"Outside of the season, recruiting is really the only thing you can keep up on," he said.

While the Web site does provide many useful tools for coaches and fans, Safrit admitted the abundance of information on it can cause problems for athletic departments. It's something he calls a "major issue."

"It is a headache for athletic departments to ensure that every little detail is followed," he said, "not just by their own coaches, but by fans and boosters as well."

Some recruits love the recruiting process. Others tend to shy away from it.

"I'm not really a guy to go into the spotlight," Devlin said, adding he was a little bit embarrassed by all the attention paid to him at the basketball game.

For someone who doesn't like the limelight, one might think Devlin would have gotten annoyed when dealing with Rivals or Scout during the days leading up to his decision, but he said his recruiting process was great.

"I was always glad to answer anybody's questions if they called," he said. "All the guys that I talked to were great."

Not all recruits are as well adjusted as Devlin, though, Safrit said.

"As we found out in movies, 17- and 18-year-olds are not made to be celebrities," he said. "Quickly you find out who lives in the spotlight, who's going to thrive in it, and who shouldn't be in it. I think there's certain players out there who eat it up too much."

As to whether the fans gave Penn State an unfair advantage in recruitment, Devlin didn't think so in his case.

"I don't think there was anything unfair," Devlin said. "To tell you the truth, I didn't really think about it."

When another top recruit, wide receiver Vidal Hazelton came to Saturday's basketball game against Wisconsin, fans again had signs and cheered for the recruit. D'Elia said the fans couldn't be tuned out.

"You couldn't help but notice," he said. "They chant their names, and their signs are obvious. Photographers are snapping their pictures. It was very hard to ignore."

With sites like Rivals and Scout still increasing in popularity, D'Elia may have to get used to fans and cab drivers continuing to notice recruits.

"I just don't know how you can avoid it," he said.