With the amount of talent there is today in high school sports, the competition in recruiting is heating up. Schools are now having to do things to make themselves get more face time and help set their schools apart. The University of Michigan is participating in satellite camps, some schools are having more of a presence on social media, and other schools are offering scholarships to kids who haven’t even started high school yet.
Offering scholarships to younger athletes isn’t a new thing, its been happening for years, but over the past couple of years the amount of younger athletes receiving offers has been heating up. How young is too young to offer someone a scholarship. Is 14 too young, how about 10, or even 5 years old. There have been reports that LeBron James son, LeBron James Jr. has already received a couple of offers from schools. He is only 11 years old. He is still a kid and yes he has dreams to play in the NBA, just like his dad, but he has so much life ahead of him before he even starts to think about these offers, he just needs to be a kid and enjoy playing the game he loves. There should be an age limit or a year in school before schools can even talk to these youngsters.
Intensity of Recruiting
College Recruiting has become very intense. These schools are starting to recruit kids younger and younger because of how competitive recruiting is nowadays. With how competitive recruiting is, is why you can’t just sit down with the athlete and their parents and tell them why your program is best for their athlete, you have to wine and dine them for years on why your program is best. Now yes giving these kids offers when they are younger may give them hope and even fire to play harder, but what happens if the kid commits young and flip flops for years if they are going to stay committed or if a serious injury happens? What if as the younger athletes get older they don’t pan out and they go to these big schools and they ride the bench. What if the school would have waited and saw that maybe this athlete wasn’t right for them and the athlete ended up choosing a school that is smaller than the other, and they ended up getting more playing time there. Recruiting these athletes younger and younger is taking away the innocence and excitement about playing the game you love and are making these kids make decisions that they shouldn’t be making yet in fear that what if they offer it to someone else.
Furthermore here at Recruit Reels we believe that student-athletes should reach for their dreams of playing college sports, but we believe there is a right and wrong way about going about this. The NCAA needs to address this rising situation and set some sort of age limit or year in school before coaches and schools can even talk to the athlete. They will really need to enforce this rule and set strict guidelines to what happens if they catch a school breaking it. Younger athletes need to focus on building their love, skill, and passion for the game and continue to build themselves as good human beings. They should be able to look forward to the days as an upperclassman, when they come home and see letters from schools and be able to realize that all their hard work and determination is starting to pay off.