Taylor Bell: August 2009 Archives

In a recent article in the Washington Post, veteran recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons was asked about the growing concern by NCAA officials and others over an increasing number of fans who are creating Web sites, obtaining media credentials and becoming amateur recruiters for their favorite colleges.

"It really has gotten worse," said Gibbons, who has traveled the summer circuit while evaluating players for 30 years. "We have a whole different set of communications than I am familiar with, and that existed when I first started out, went to camp, watched the best players and did a report on them.

"They have taken it to different levels. There are multiple problems that need to be resolved, and I don't think anyone knows the exact solution to it. How do you legislate these people who claim they are media representatives?"

Major league baseball scouts insist the fastest route to Yankee Stadium or Wrigley Field is to be a catcher or a left-handed pitcher.

NFL and college football scouts claim the most difficult position to fill is defensive line.

That became abundantly clear the other day when Dave Revsine, Howard Griffith and Gerry DiNardo of the Big Ten Network commented during one of their stops while touring the conference preseason training camps that they hadn't seen any great defensive linemen or defensive lines among the teams they had seen.

But defensive line is a strength in the SEC, another reason why the SEC is a stronger football conference than the Big 10 and another reason why the Big 10 lags behind other major conferences.

Teri Sampson was a reserve on Simeon coach Bob Hambric's 1984 state championship team and his 1985 Public League championship team. When he learned of his old coach's death last week, he e-mailed his feelings about the man who played an important role in his life and helped to shape him as a man.

Hambric was an enigma to many basketball fans who saw him as a tyrant, an uncompromising boot camper who turned basketball into his own version of Hell Week. But Sampson and others who got as close to Hambric as he would allow found him to be someone who helped to develop boys into men.

Here is what Sampson had to say:

Bob Hambric was a very private person. He also was a very principled person. Anyone who ever had an opportunity to know him--administrators, teachers, students, athletes, coaches, even sportswriters--came to quickly understand that he did things in his own fashion and was uncompromising. Call him stubborn. But his way was the winning way.

Hambric, one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in state history, died early Friday after a long illness. He was 69 years old.

In a brilliant 24-year career, he coached Simeon to a 551-145 record and produced a state championship team in 1984. He never coached a losing team. He won 20 or more games in 19 of his first 20 seasons. he was 167-11 during a six-year period in the 1980s.

Is it only a coincidence or can you make something of the fact that very few multi-star athletes have surfaced since the era of AAU or summer basketball began to negatively affect high school sports?

The latest athlete to choose specialization over versatility is Mount Carmel junior Adonis Filer, who was touted to be the next great linebacker in a distinguished line that included his older brother Steven, now at Notre Dame.

I don't know Adonis from Brian Urlacher but I know his brother was a talented two-sport athlete at Mount Carmel whose football credentials didn't seem to suffer by a season of basketball.

It happens every year. While the leading recruiting services usually come to some agreement on the top 100 football players in the nation, it never fails that a few fall through the cracks. One service will rate a prospect in the top 10 while another won't even rate the same player in the top 100.

For example, recruiting analyst Tom Lemming rates C.J. Fiedorowicz of Johnsburg as the No. 13 player in the nation. But Rivals rates the Illinois-bound tight end as the No. 108 prospect. A few months ago, he wasn't even rated in Rivals' top 200.

Even more glaring, Lemming rates Christian Lombard of Fremd as the No. 30 player in the country. But Rivals doesn't even rank the Notre Dame-bound offensive lineman among its top 250 senior prospects.

Another spring and summer of high school basketball is over--or is it ever really over?--and it is time for the NCAA to revamp its outmoded and obsolete and unwieldy recruiting process before the colleges are struck with another embarrassing scandal.

It is time for the NCAA to re-evaluate the recruiting process and come up with a new design. The old model has broken down and the ones who are suffering are the kids it is supposed to help.

Many coaches are complaining about being forced to pay as much as $600 and as little as $175 or $200 for a packet of information and entrance to a tournament or camp. For the money, you might expect to get accurate jersey numbers, correctly spelled names and maybe even a home address and telephone number.

Perhaps you noticed that Illinois' prize basketball recruit, Waukegan's Jereme Richmond, wasn't named to the ESPN/RISE Boost Mobile Elite 24 roster for the fourth annual event on Aug. 21 in New York City's Rucker Park. It will be televised via tape delay the following day on ESPNU.

The 24-man roster features most of the top-rated players in the nation in the class of 2010, including Harrison Barnes of Ames, Iowa, Ohio State-bound Jared Sullinger, Florida-bound Austin Rivers, North Carolina-bound Kendall Marshall, Texas' Tristan Thompson, Tennessee's Josh Shelby and Memphis' Will Barton.

Why didn't Richmond earn a spot?

The leading football players in the Chicago area are anxious to make their college decisions before the 2009 season begins, so they can focus on having the best senior year they can have and not be caught up in the recruiting process.

The commitment list includes Johnsburg tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz, Proviso East safety Corey Cooper and Downers Grove South quarterback Chandler Whitmer (to Illinois), Fremd offensive lineman Christian Lombard and Lake Forest quarterback Tommy Rees (to Notre Dame), Lane Tech offensive lineman Laken Tomlinson (Duke), Lane Tech linebacker Louis Trinca-Pasat (Iowa), Homewood-Flossmoor offensive lineman Zach Fulton (Tennessee) and Wheaton North quarterback Taylor Graham (Ohio State).

But the best may be yet to come.

My choice for reading during my recent vacation was a book by Chris Krause, the founder and president of Chicago-based National Collegiate Scouting Association. A graduate of North Chicago High School and Vanderbilt University, he is a former football player who has been in the recruiting business since 1989.

His book, "Athletes Wanted," is a must read for every parent and athlete who ever gets involved in the recruiting process. I've read dozens of how-to books on recruiting over the years and most of them are helpful and well researched. But Krause's book is best of all, a complete guidebook for maximizing athletic scholarship and life potential.

"I wanted to do it because there never has been a resource that looked at the end result in mind, the end goal, not just a scholarship but a meaningful degree that enables you to provide for your family," Krause said.