Internet recruiting services....

[JerryBeeds]

In the July 5th edition of ESPN the magazine, there was a big article about how alot of these internet recruiting services (especially rivals and scout) are pushing kids to join their school of choice. Doing things like calling them everyday and trying to sway where they will go to school. Some of the kids just wind up telling the recruiting gurus things they want to hear so they will leave the kid alone for awhile. There was also alot of coaches complaining about these sites in the article. I think some of these sites have gotten out of hand and should monitored in some way. Just wondering how y'all felt about this. Sorry no link to the article, it's only available in hardcopy.

[SilverBritches]

Look at what Tom Lemming did. He gets accused of talking up Notre Dame to all of the recruits he talks to. In the case of Leon Washington, Lemming is telling him how bad and how out of control FSU football is while talking about the great traditions and coaching staff that Notre Dame has. Then, Gene Williams (FSU rivals site mod) and Tom Lemming start getting at it. The end result, Tom Lemming is no longer employed by ESPN.

At UGA's signing day party last year, someone asked Rodney Garner about these sites. He said that the vast majority of these recruits get on the message boards and read them. In some cases, it hurts the school when their fans say negative stuff about the particular kid.

As for the constant phone calls, a lot of kids like all of the attention. However, if the kid really doesn't like the interviews, all he has to do is ask the reporter to stop calling. In the case of Marcus Sims, he asked for just one Rivals.com reporter to call him.