June 2008 Archives

Many of the top players in the classes of 2009 and 2010 gathered at Proviso West in Hillside on Sunday. The seniors are slightly better than I originally thought but still average at best. But the juniors are shaping up as a special class, maybe the best since 1986 which produced 141 full-ride scholarships and sent 17 to the NFL.

The bigget news of all, however, was that Morgan Park defensive end Craig Drummond, the No. 1 player in the class of 2009, reported that he had passed his ACT exam with a score of 22. If he achieves a 2.0 grade-point average (on a 4.0 scale), the 6-5, 265-pounder will qualify for any of the leading Division I programs in the country.

Las Vegas is not only the fastest growing town in the United States, it is perhaps the fastest growing football town. It is a must stop for any college football coach who recruits nationally.

In the 1970s and 1980s, I didn't even go to Las Vegas to evaluate recruits. In those days, it was rare for more than one All-America prospect to come out of the entire state of Nevada.

No longer. There are 22 high schools in the Las Vegas area and there are several big-time recruits, including at least two top 100 players--6-5, 255-pound defensive end Justin Chaisson, who is committed to Oklahoma, and 6-4, 235-pound defensive end Keenan Graham, who has been offered by 33 schools, including Illinois, Michigan, Northwestern, UCLA, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

In my opinion, Kevin White was the best athletic director that Notre Dame has ever had. But I'm not surprised that he was pushed out of South Bend and has moved on to Duke.

Notre Dame has a history of infighting between the administration and rich, powerful alumni. White didn't cater to the alumni, who wanted to run things.

But White turned Notre Dame into a first-class athletic program off the field.

First, in the last three years, he oversaw the building of top-notch facilities that are as good as any school in the nation.