“Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.”
John Wooden

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Twelve glaring problems with volleyball’s early recruiting culture

August 19, 2017

John Cook’s Husker volleyball teams built on D, just like Penn State

John Cook, Head Volleyball Coach, Nebraska (BRENDAN SULLIVAN/THE WORLD-HERALD)
Supply and demand. That’s the rule of economics. That’s the law of recruiting.
In a perfect world, college coaches wouldn’t make scholarship offers to eighth- and ninth-graders because there would be enough talent to go around three or four years later.
“The reality of volleyball is you need kids who are physically superior in order to elevate your program to the next level,” said John Tawa, founder of PrepVolleyball.com. “You can wait and find players who are very good who will help any program, but they’re not program-changers.
“So you are fighting for a small pool of elite athletes.”
That’s the coaches’ incentive. Now look at the players’ perspective. Again, demand exceeds supply.
Take the setter position, Tawa said. A top program that runs a 5-1 offense will grant a setter scholarship only every other year. So if there are 30 elite programs, you’re talking about 15 scholarships for setters. If you’re waffling over an offer, your coach won’t wait.
“They’ll go to Plan B pretty quickly,” Tawa said.
Borne out of the scarcity of resources, volleyball insiders see (at least) 12 big issues with volleyball’s rush to commit.
1. Planning headaches for coaches
John Cook feels like an NBA general manager, he said. Every week his staff meets to discuss scholarship allocation. Not just for 2017 or ’18, but four or five years down the road. Decisions for the class of 2021 must be made now.
“Let’s say a ninth-grader comes to camp or a visit,” Cook said. “If you don’t offer them, you may never get another chance. That’s the pressure we’re all feeling. If I want to wait and see how she develops, there might be 20 other schools that offer. So she’s going to think, ‘Oh, Nebraska isn’t interested.’
“Two years later, you say, ‘We love what you’re doing, we want to offer you.’
“ ‘Sorry, it’s too late,’ they say. ‘You don’t offer me when I was there.’ ”
You try to make predictions, Cook said. You weigh the risks of offering some girls early — and waiting on others. You hope you don’t invest four years in a prospect who doesn’t develop, gets hurt or transfers. In that case, you have to start over chasing ninth-graders.
“If something doesn’t work out,” Iowa State coach Christy Johnson said, “all of the good players have already committed.”
Click on the link below to read the rest of the article:

http://www.omaha.com/neprepzone/volleyball/twelve-glaring-problems-with-volleyball-s-early-recruiting-culture/article_c33e3720-8551-11e7-9928-a78a5df2c691.html

Friday, August 11, 2017

Sam Darnold Is The Realest


By Jeff Pearlman
http://bleacherreport.com/
August 2, 2017


Sam Darnold
Southern California quarterback Sam Darnold passes during the first half of a game against UCLA, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016, in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Sam Darnold is boring.
We might as well get that out of the way.
He’s boring. Dull. Sorta lame.
His mother and father (who, interestingly, are anything butboring) refer to their boy as “Flatline,” and while this isn’t meant as an insult, it’s not exactly a compliment. Southern Cal’s redshirt sophomore quarterback doesn’t tweet. He doesn’t talk shit. He won’t bash UCLA’s Josh Rosen or promise a national championship. There are zero traces of tattoos or piercings or shirtless arm-crossed tough guy poses.
When Sam recently met with a B/R Mag writer on the USC campus, he sported gray shorts, worn sneakers and a wrinkled white T-shirt with yellow sweat stains beneath the armpits. It is within the realm of possibilities he combed his hair beforehand. Maybe.
Whether discussing last season’s thrilling Rose Bowl win over Penn State or if he’ll declare for the 2018 NFL draft (he’s noncommittal), his vocal tone remained at the same level. Sorta…like…this. “That’s Sam,” says Chris Darnold, his mother. “He’s a wonderful boy. But his goal isn’t to thrill you.”
In the modern world of Sports Mythology: 101, Sam Darnolds are increasingly rare specimens. There’s a playbook, written long ago and perfected lately by LaVar Ball, that demands our offspring live and die with a gilded mojo and chosen sport. That they become one with a chosen sport.
It is the way. It is the future. It is inevitable.
“I hate it,” says the quarterback’s father. “I really hate it.”
His name is Mike Darnold. He is a stocky 53-year-old medical gas plumber with short hair and a soft-spoken manner. As he opines from a chair inside the living room of his Capistrano Beach, California, home, he dips one corn chip after another into a small bowl of green guacamole, taking meticulous nibbles off the corners. Chris, a middle school physical education teacher and his wife of 23 years, is across the way on a blue couch, nodding.
Click on the link below to read the rest of the article:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2725101-sam-darnold-usc-quarterback-childhood