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Pulling a Scholarship Offer

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I can understand some waffling on the part of the player because he is the buyer, he gets to pick which sales pitch he likes best. The coaching staff at a Div 1A program should hopefully be more mature than your average 17 year old HS kid and not offer a kid a scholarship if they are not committed to signing him. If a staff likes to throw offers around to get a kid's attention they should honor them when the kid says yes IMO. To pull an offer out from under a committed player who has done nothing wrong just because you want to offer another kid is wrong and reflects poorly on the character and integrity of the coaching staff. If you aren't sure you want a kid to play for you don't offer him a schollie IMO.
 
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O'Rourke;1331109; said:
I can understand some waffling on the part of the player because he is the buyer, he gets to pick which sales pitch he likes best. The coaching staff at a Div 1A program should hopefully be more mature than your average 17 year old HS kid and not offer a kid a scholarship if they are not committed to signing him. If a staff likes to throw offers around to get a kid's attention they should honor them when the kid says yes IMO. To pull an offer out from under a committed player who has done nothing wrong just because you want to offer another kid is wrong and reflects poorly on the character and integrity of the coaching staff. If you aren't sure you want a kid to play for you don't offer him a schollie IMO.
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I agree heavily with this. The coaching staff gets 25 tries to get a few right. The kids get one.

To go a step further, when said coach leaves for new school, kid wants to follow... coach keeps on coaching, kid has to sit out.
 
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The whole idea of a school expecting a "verbal commit" to stick with his oral "commitment" to the school, or a student-athlete expecting a school to stick with its (explicitly) rescindable scholarship offer, is very analogous to the whole sex-before-marriage thing, 1950s style.

Caveat emptor.
 
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Oh8ch;1331008; said:
Long time since I studied contract law, but that is really the key - the specifics of the "agreement".

If the school didn't include language that addressed contingencies they would be subject to taking kids who committed felonies, lost limbs, gained 200 pounds or failed the SAT.

Without knowing the details of how this works I have to believe it is along the lines of preliminary negotiations the same as in any business leading up to a signed contract.

I can invite a building contractor out to my home for estimates and make statements to him leading him to believe I will sign a contract - but the very existence of a future contract waiting to be signed is evidence that we have not yet come to a binding agreement.

If the so called verbal was binding the LOI would be redundant.

And for all our talk about how unfair this is to the kids there are about 100 stories of kids changing their minds for every story about a school pulling a ship. And these changes of mind can have significant impact on schools recruiting plans with accompanying damages. Offers and verbals are not binding contracts and that they have not been treated as such by either party in any instance I am aware of is further evidence that something more formal is anticipated by both parties.
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To quote grad (I believe it was) "Sometimes schools play games as much as recruits do." I totally agree with you...I feel bad for this recruit but as you said, this happens the other way most of the time. It's a shame both way but human nature has never been honest nor fair 100% of the time. The only reason schools usually don't officially pull an offer is to save face. A kid from my school had a couple offers rescinded due to an injury. I posted this and the schools contacted him with hostility (recruiters frequent this site and players, just another reminder)...I didn't know any better at the time but schools don't like that kind of publicity. OSU put out more DB offers than their tush could cash this year and Vlad got the brunt of it. I won't pretend to know the full extent of the situation but I have a feeling he unofficially had his offer pulled. Luckily, he had plenty of offers to fall back on and he will have another school to pick. The only reason this story will get publicity is because he has no other offers to fall back on. In any case, bad publicity is all EMU will get here.
 
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While were on the subject of an early signing period, I think it would be fair to give a student athlete an extra year of eligibility, in the event of a coaching change. By way of example; a red shirt junior at a certain unnamed university up North ends up with a new coach, who is a foul mouthed, morally bankrupt, idiot, insistent on running a spread offense without the personnel to do so. IMHO, the student athlete should be able to transfer, sit a year and still have a year to play.

Please note, this is purely a hypothetical example:biggrin:
 
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MiamiHerald.com

Northwestern coach: "There is no rift with UM"
January 27, 2010
Manny Navarro

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"A kid may commit early, but a school can change their mind the way a kid changes their mind," Rolle said. "It was just one of those things, a kid commits early and trusted the situation. But it's a business. s years go by, the recruiting process changes. Unfortunately, the recruiting process probably changed for Miami. Like coach told me, they had a lot of injuries this year, young guys and old guys coming back. It was a numbers thing. At first, Todd was kind of distraught, he really didn't understand it. But after we talked to him and things like that, he understood by taking trips to other schools -- he understood what went down with him.

"I was just shocked because he wanted so badly to go there because of the guys who were there previously. He had a nice little bond with the guys who were here before and because he was one of the younger guys who started and played here a lot when they were here. He had decided before anything that's where he wanted to go play. At the time, it was something big going on with us, winning the national title. So, everybody was excited, thought it was only natural Todd would go to Miami too. He made a commitment to himself to commit to Miami because he was sold on it.

"But usually, when a school offers a kid, the coach gets a letter. That's the thing. I never got a letter for Todd. I looked for it, didn't find it. That's how [UM] covered their butts."

cont...
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No rift, huh? Some other people on the Northwestern staff might not agree...

Todd Chandler finds way through recruiting process - ESPN

"I didn't understand it, and I still don't," said Miami Northwestern assistant coach Terrance Craig. "Todd did everything Miami asked him to do, and they just hung him out to dry."
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"I'm still hot about it," added Craig. "It's like the coaches took the eight kids from the 2007 team and never looked back. The people in the community here at Northwestern won't forget this."
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If a school offers a kid, it's because they believe that he's the 'best' and they want him to join their class. If a kid accepts an offer, it's because (a) he wants a place for sure; (b) he wants to go there. Nothing is certain until the signed LOI comes back. However........nothing is as it seems.

If a college wants to renege/force out/go another way with a kid, they will suffer eternal damnation from the recruits (at least for that year) and schools if they 'pull' a kid's schollie. However, they have subtle ways to make the kids agree. 'we've got verbals from 5 kids we consider better at your position, waddya think?' or somesuch. That gets the school off the hook with the other HS coaches. (no one wants their kids hung out to dry). But make no mistake, recruiting is a crapshoot all the way. What started out a lean year at say, DB, can turn out to be a great year, and that kid would take up a schollie and ride the pine. Better to get another RB or somesuch. But it's all a matter of style on how they pull 'em. OSU pulls if there is 'civil disobedience' with the kid after the offer. People understand the 'good citizen' approach. Even if the kid busts up a knee, the school has to honor it's commitment, lest the other recruits see the schollie being pulled and shun the school for not backing up the player.

On the other hand, if a kid grabs the first/second offer, and continues to look around, then IMO the school has a valid right to question. Whatcha doing? looking around if you 'love' us? Well, I'm just not certain about ___, so I'm taking an official or two. The kid might be afraid that there won't be a scholarship available for them when the nut-cutting time approaches (first week of Feb) unless they tie one up now.

No less than Coop said that he'd rather pass on a kid if he turned out to be great, face him once a year rather than sign him and face him every day if he was marginal. Makes sense to me.

Glad I don't have to make those decisions, as it's a chess game that doesn't have a cut-and-dried ending, but shades of gray. I live and die by who the Buckeyes recruit and sign, and the coaching staff seems to coach the 3*s into first round NFL draftees, and some of the 5*s don't seem to pan out. So I guess it's deciding what traits you want, and try to make the best choice possible, given the skills of the coaching staff you have.

Mods, if this is similar to other responses, feel free to deep six it....

:gobucks3::gobucks4::banger:
 
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