All In On Past Performance

My intent is to try and not come across in this article as saying “I told you so” but to a great degree it’s going to be hard to do that.  Guess I’ll just have to suffer and live with the guilt!  College coaches, evaluators, media members, parents and teammates have preached the gospel time and again and absolutely any athlete out there claiming they haven’t heard it should be acknowledged as an All – American Liar and presented with the Trump Golden Polygraph Award.

Now, feel free to join in and say it with me, add music if you like, or do it in the round as a team (Keeping six feet apart, of course).  Rise now as we sing the old basketball hymns, “You never know who’s watching” and “Each game may be your last chance”.

It’s a fact that you never know who might be watching each game you play and how that moment might possibly impact your future.  A recruiter could be courtside to see your opponent in action and have absolutely no clue who you are.  But that doesn’t mean that they’re blind and can’t see someone who might fill a need of theirs or one within their network of friends and professional peers.  In case you didn’t know it, recruiters gossip like old women.

They could be watching the floor next to yours and checking out brief moments of play during free throws or time outs on their court.  It may not be much, but it could be just enough to catch their attention.  In the end, no legitimate, competitive player cares where, why or how they were seen…just as long as, in the end, they get seen.  Yet…still…as we play more and more games each spring and summer more players are getting comfortable and smug enough to take plays, and occasionally whole games, off.  What a slap in the face.

Those aren’t the real top tier players.  They’re not the one who will get you to that next level or in position for a championship run.  How could you ever trust them?  Impact athletes on that level don’t know how to down-shift into casual and half-hearted play.  They’re the ones who are noticed by anyone with a set of rosters, a pen in their hand and a camera within ten feet of the floor they’re playing on.  They’ll have recruiters looking at them who aren’t even needing that position in the that particular class.  They make people watch…and they only know one way to play.

Yet, right next to them, we still have players picking and choosing their spots.  They turn it up when needed as if their name is James, Durant or Curry.  Seriously, with recruiters in the gym, if you can actually “turn it up” your lazy ass should already be on the bench and not wasting another player’s opportunity.  The arrogance that comes with not laying it all on the line every possession is something that has evolved over the years as the number of tournaments and games played has grown each club season and the NCAA recruiting calendar has continued to shrink.

The original club season for 2020 featured only 18 days total of Division – I coaches in the gym for non-scholastic events.  I won’t bore you with my version of the “good ole’days” because, quite frankly,…well…they weren’t always that good.  Suffice it to say, however, that college coaches were on the road and in the gym to the point of touring way more than the biggest rock bands of the era.  There were tip offs at 7 a.m. through well past midnight and teams may well have played four (or more) games in a single day.  And that big ole break in the middle of July?  No such thing.  We could have sold T-Shirts with all the cities and towns listed on the back to help pay for the cost of the extended summer trek.  And you know what…even at one in the morning…there were players who got on the floor and played their hearts out on the last play of their last game of the day. People were watching.

Now with ridiculously limited days and constrained start and finish times daily, there are just so many chances that athletes not yet on the main marquee will get their own moment in the spotlight.  You still want to risk even one play when a coach from your dream school is courtside or within eyesight of your game?

You never know when the next Pandemic might put twist in your plans to “turn it up” the next spring or summer.

Before you call for my head, I’m not being cavalier about the Covid-19 virus or it’s societal impact.  It’s humbling as a human being.  In fact, just writing about or giving much thought to athletics next to the staggering amount of suffering from illness, death and loss makes me want to take another shower.  While very, very minor in the big picture of life, it has ravaged and scarred the recruiting landscape complicating the hopes and dreams of countless collegiate hopefuls.  The Nike EYBL canceled rounds one and two and stay at home orders across the country have necessitated the cancelation of a litany of tournaments.  College coaches had off campus recruiting (on campus as well) suspended from March 13^th through April 18^th and on April 3^rd that lockdown was extended all the way through May 31^st.

What will we be left with when all is said and done…and how it will be handled by the different coaching staffs across the country is still a mystery to all.  If you think players and families are worried you should hear a few coaches still in search of those late 2020 commitments or the ones who have struggled to nail down the last 2021’s to complete their recruiting class.

Decisions have been and are going to be made on what coaches have seen in the past.  Head coaches will be wishing they hadn’t babysat some of their previous top prospects quite so much rather than getting a better look at the next generation on the horizon.  Club operators will second guess decisions as to what tournaments they’ve played in the last couple of years and if they set up their upperclassmen with the appropriate evaluation opportunities…or did they sell out for the better deal?  Opportunities are fleeting moments in time and while our current environment is hopefully just an aberration, the fact is many athletes won’t be afforded the looks they were looking forward to and counting on.

Will they be able to look back and be comfortable with the effort they’ve put on the table in the past?  Will they have a statistical resume and video from their high school season to back up the growth they’re now claiming with no stage to show it off on?  This group of current prospects just might be the most discussed recruits ever debated among a staff.  While Head Coaches are the ones to pull the trigger on scholarship offers, there may well be a lot more conversation this time around between assistants and the boss if there’s been limited in person “eyes on” opportunities.  Did they all see the same thing or were they looking at inconsistent versions of the effort you’ve played with?

In Coronavirus Recruiting “Poker” coaches and players alike are hoping to draw an ace to improve the hand they’ve been dealt this far.  The athlete with the strong high mid-major offers who has been convinced this 2020 club season was going to be her ticket to a Power Five roster spot is in a jam and may have to play her hand conservatively.  There are plenty of lesser players ready to immediately jump on the offers she already holds if she hesitates or stalls too long waiting for her dream school.

On the other side of the poker table coaches are now being forced to play hands that are often made up of players they’ve been hanging on to without offering…you know…backups.  Ones they might have wanted to see again before bumping them up in the pecking order and going “all in”.  They also know that the one key player to their recruiting class they’ve already offered who has been to campus, knows them well, responds to all their recruiting efforts, gives all the indications of true love, but isn’t ready to verbal…has all the leverage…and absolutely no sense of urgency.  Just how long will it be before they go all in on Player B?  Never forget the wisdom of the old quote “A bird in the hand is worth two who can’t commit.”

Many futures are going to look different than they might have had we not experienced this tragic health crisis.  However, let’s never lose sight of how those futures pale tremendously in the immense shadow of lives and loved ones lost.  Players will still be receiving offers of scholarships worth in excess of 200,000 dollars in academic, athletic and personal opportunities.  At the same time small businesses and entrepreneurs will close their doors with mountains of debt that will chase them for many years to come.  We’ll be back in the gym soon and younger players will have more than enough time build their profile and create their own options.  Let’s make sure nobody is taking for granted that there will always be another chance to make or change an impression.

The complete uncertainty of the immediate future and getting in front of college recruiters with its potential impact has been the intent of this piece.  The “I told you so” element goes way back long before we ever heard of a novel coronavirus.  It comes from the constant reminders from club and high school coaches, trainers, parents and teammates and multitudes more of the necessity to play each game as if it were your last and play as if the person who holds your academic and athletic future in their hands was watching…because they just might be.  Let’s make sure nobody is taking for granted that there will always be another chance to make or change an impression.  You don’t know what possession of what game could change your whole future.

Stay safe, stay smart and stay healthy…Mark