Today In Frothing At The Mouth About Harbaugh
Today it's Alabama's turn on "Jim Harbaugh makes people so mad they go cross-eyed and spit in their own face":
For opponents of the satellite camp, and I am firmly among them, Johnson's commitment to Michigan also reinforces what a sham we're presently operating under. Attaching one's self to a high school 1300 miles away like a dad-jeaned toadstool is by no stretch a "teaching opportunity," as the camps were so designed. We've said all along these are nothing but recruiting junkets. That even Michigan's own film study and recruiting efforts previously overlooked the lightly-regarded Johnson only underscores this fact.
Rather than bolstering the satellite camp, in fact, a measured view of the camps in light of Johnson's commitment, only shows that the loophole is a chance to lazily poach talent in contravention of a rule designed to avoid turning recruiting into a 12-month long circus.
This is of course Alabama, the fanbase that annually responds to Nick Saban cutting 6-10 guys with "tough shit, it's a business." It is specifically the blog—albeit not the person—who responded to a post here about a kid getting cut by titling a post "Brian Cook is, Amongst Other Things, a Coward and a Liar." They live in the conference of bag men and are no doubt amongst the most committed participants*. Nick Saban himself caused a kerfuffle several years ago when he skirted the boundaries of the NCAA's quiet period by maybe possibly having conversations with recruits he was permitted only to "bump" into. The number of Alabama fans who cared about this is zero. Alabama fans do not care about NCAA rules, whether it's letter or intent, one iota.
While that is an increasingly defensible position, the word soup above is not. If it even has a position. Its author, Erik Evans, is clutching every pearl in a five-county radius that Michigan might be using these camps to find football players. Several dozen Crimson Tide matrons collapsed to the floor after Dytarious Johnson's recent commitment. The state has never endured such calumny.
The post's argument was difficult to parse out in the first place; it is more confusing now that Evans edited it after the fact. He discovered that Johnson had talked to the Michigan coaching staff before the camp and asked him to attend it to earn his offer; this invalidates large sections of the post but provides an opportunity to sick the specter of a Level 4 violation on Michigan if in fact the compliance officer they're bringing to every damn camp doesn't have his Ps and Qs straight.
It takes a special kind of person to argue that Michigan's satellite camps are an opportunity to "lazily poach talent" and create a "12-month long circus" without even allowing so much as a period to separate those two diametrically opposed thoughts. Attempting to rebut any particular point is futile since most have already been rebutted in the same damn sentence they were made, so we'll have to take another tack. Let's evaluate the stakeholders here to see who is harmed.
JIM HARBAUGH. Evaluates lots of players from across the country in person. Develops relationships with otherwise remote players. Finds some recruits. Improves his football team down the road. Gets to write letters that end with "sincerely yours in football."
Verdict: WIN.
CAMP ATTENDEES. Get exposure in front of not only the Michigan coaches but various local staffs. May get scholarship offer they would not as a result. May get to play Peruball against shirtless Harbaugh. Don't have to go at all if they don't want to. Attendance veritably implies approval, and many attend.
Verdict: WIN.
CAMP ORGANIZERS. Hype from Harbaugh visit can almost double attendance.
Verdict: WIN.
SMALL CHILDREN WITH TERRIBLE DISEASES. Increased attendance helps raise money for brain cancer research.
Verdict: WIN.
ALABAMA. May have to work slightly harder in the future to convince certain players they should play at Alabama.
Verdict: LOSS.
I don't mind the Alabama fanbase's purely mercenary mindset so much anymore, but at least own it. You would put your grandma through a wood chipper for a tiny increase in the chance at a national championship. There is literally no moral or ethical issue that would even vaguely factor into your decision making. And that's fine. We need lizard people too. Just don't pretend your objection to satellite camps is anything other than pure self-interest.
On the bright side, Evans has a bright future as a Toys R Us CEO down the road.
*[I gave up on condemning such practices because nobody's ever come up with an actual harm caused by people offering football players petty cash that doesn't involve fan anger stuff.]
Do we really?
A world without this guy seems like a better world.
I was mad reading that article yesterday, then got more mad reading the edits to it today, but I dont know if I've ever been more angry at a bunch of Roll Tide dumb assholes than when I got stuck reading the idiots commenting on that article. Not one commenter has any sense of what the camps are, but focus on Dytarious Johnson commiting to any school up north. Because how could he not stay in the South and play for Troy??
Erik Evans' entire argument rests on NCAA rules violations that have not occured, although he is convinced that they have, and his own anger for Michigan stealing a prized 2* LB prospect that he couldnt name 2 days ago. Convinced that UM violated the dead period with their Prattville camp that he thinks was set up entirely to evaluate one guy. Honestly mindless babble, with Harbaugh insults and yankee-calling abundant.
Damn do I need to get back to work, mini-rant over
Just remember: the only thing scarier to Alabama fans than the idea that Harbaugh set up this entire camp just to evaluate one prospect, is the idea that he didn't set up this entire camp just to evaluate one prospect. The first means Harbaugh is keeping up with the Sabans. The second means the writing is on the wall.
I wonder what RollDamnTide thinks about all of this...where'd he go?
concern that i can think of. But it is overhelmed in my view by the argument that this is a completely victim-less "crime," I could never understand when I heard that colleges were getting in trouble for giving kids summer jobs where they had no real work to do and sat around watching TV. So? Good for them I thought. And still do.
The difference between this and the many alleged violations SEC coaches have been accused of is that this practice benefits the kids in addition to Michigan, whereas most of the others only benefit the school. For that reason alone I think his point is bunk.
I don't think Michigan is skirting any rule here at all. The SEC and ACC got clever with some intra-league camp limitations. Their rules only govern their member-schools.
That's part of what makes this so fun to watch. It's like the SEC and ACC have a strict curfew, but other conferences can stay out till all hours, teachin', and evaluatin', and fund-raisin' for charities.
The rule he is accusing Michigan of violating is that of the Quiet period (applicable from June 1 - June 29). From the NCAA website:
"A quiet period is a period of time when it is permissible to make in-person recruiting contacts only on the institution's campus. No in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts or evaluations may be made during the quiet period. [D] (Revised: 10/30/14)"
Evans was saying that if our coaches told Johnson that they wanted to evaluate him at the camp, then they are in violation of this rule, because in person off-campus evaluations are not allowed. My counter argument is that they never said they wanted to evaluate him at the camp, simply that they wanted to evaluate him further and that he should attend the camp (but that the two need not be related)
Not sure why you're getting negged for this, but you gave a reasonable response to my question. So thanks - seriously.
That stated, recall that Michigan has a compliance officer in tow to ensure that no NCAA recruiting violations occur on this trip. I suspect, especially after the stretching-time bushwa, that Michigan is hewing to the letter of the law here.
So, what is a compliance officer? Does s/he work for UM or the NCAA? What sort of training or certs does s/he hold?
They're employed by the institution, and Michigan has a good reputation in the field. As for exact qualifications, here's a job listing from Northwestern for a lower level position.
Yeah, Evans is correct if Michigan did reach out to players and said "be there, we'll evaluate you". But this seems largely based on assumptions by a jilted blogger, so unless something more comes out (and I have to imagine Michigan has the compliance officer on hand for this very reason), it sounds like sour grapes.
This is awesome.
How do you spell fairness:
S-T-O-P O-V-E-R-S-I-G-N-I-N-G-!
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http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/is-alabama-bowl-prep-also-recruiting-malp…
Like you, I affixed the same percentages to the chance that Alabama would never, ever use bowl preparations as cover to provide thousands of dollars in upgrades to a prized recruit’s school facilities along with facilitating an undue opportunity for coincidental contact with a prized recruit and his prospect friend who are said to be on the fence about their school commitments.
All during what is a recruiting dead period.
Darn the luck.
Evans' greatest mistake was to suggest Harbaugh did anything lazily. smh
I organized a wedding once, my own. It was a one-day event. It stressed me the hell out, and it involved zero high schoolers. Event planning is hard.
If 10 camps in 9 days is lazy, what do we call Erik Evans?
Paragraphs, man...
This is a brilliantly written piece, Mr. Cook. Damn fine work.
Fuck you, Alabama. That's where I stand.
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But not many.....
Huntsville (home of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal) has the highest number of Ph.D.'s per capita in the U.S. (LINK)
So, that city may be the exception that proves the rule about Alabama...
Approximately zero of those folks started there. Having worked a bit with the Redstone Arsenal folks and some other government things in Huntsville, it is a city full of Northern or otherwise non-Alabaman workers.
I get that the original comment was "not a smart person in the whole state" and that's definitively not true, but don't mistake why Huntsville is so educated. Those guys didn't go to Albama for their PhDs.
I mean, they're making the claim without linking themselves to anything unbiased to back it up. I did two minutes of Googling and couldn't find a single site that said Huntsville was No.1, in fact in the site that looked like it had the cleanest, unbiased data (ironically, it's a site promoting online PhDs, hah!), Huntsville didn't make top 50 (I don't know why, I didn't check the population cutoff):
http://www.online-phd-programs.org/50-u-s-cities-with-the-most-doctoral…
Top 10, no real surprises if you know these areas:
1. Brookline MA
2. Davis, CA
3. Palo Alto, CA
4. Cambridge, MA
5. Bethesda, MA
6. Ann Arbor, MI
7. Newton, MA
8. Ames, IA
9. Bloomington, IN
10. Berkeley, CA
But point taken, probably lots of smart people in Alabama, at least in Huntsville. I'll be there are lots of smart folks on faculty in Tuscaloosa, too. But that's probably about where it kinda... you know... stops.
Also seemed to citing the same statistic without an independent reference (such as U.S. Census data). However, about 40% (as of 2013) of all Huntsville residents aged 25 and over had at least an undergraduate degree (compared to 22.6% for the whole state).
I suspect that it might have been true at one time (perhaps during the height of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs) and it's become a repeated urban legend ever since.
The College State.
home of the NIH and lots and lots of gov't researchers.
Lots of engineers that work for the military and NASA. Thing is, most of them are transplants. Also, what grinds my gears is that Alabama's pride in Huntsville seems to be limited to 1) puffing out their chests that not everyone in Alabama is an idiot, and 2) the economic benefits they have little interest in applying elsewhere in the state. Unless you can measure the contribution in a dollar value, they don't give a shit. As such it's a lot more concept-to-product work there than frontier research; the latter is far more prevalent in states with a much stronger academic footprint.
But, if you want to find smart people in Alabama, Huntsville is the place to be, not Tuscaloosa.
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I had the gravest difficulty trying to figure out what Evans was trying to say as well. As for logical, I suppose that you could always summarize Evans' statements as something like:
"So long as X, then giraffes with mauve spots"
"Giraffes with mauve spots, so insulated extension ladders"
"Therefore replace the water pump of a 1992 Corsica with its OEM equivalent"
Even that might make more sense.
Unless it's a Sunbird it might be time to Ol' Yeller the Corsica
I don't mind the Alabama fanbase's purely mercenary mindset so much anymore, but at least own it. You would put your grandma through a wood chipper for a tiny increase in the chance at a national championship. There is literally no moral or ethical issue that would even vaguely factor into your decision making. And that's fine. We need lizard people too. Just don't pretend your objection to satellite camps is anything other than pure self-interest.
On the bright side, Evans has a bright future as a Toys R Us CEO down the road.
ROLL TIDE
Enjoyed this so much I had to create an account. Great stuff Brian. Always impressed by your posts.
. . . avoid turning recruiting into a 12-month long circus.
As much as I agree in this case, I can't really get behind all of the Alabama bashing regarding their obvious poor educations, clear lack of dental work, what family members they choose to marry, etc. I hate when other cities mock Detroit for being a shithole during playoffs and whatnot, so I don't want to be a hypocrite.
That being said, fuck Alabama!!
But that's not the reason for his reserved style in this post, I suspect.
When one is of obviously superior intellect, taking on an adversary like Erikzo the Clown is just not worthy of the effort. It's like using a sledgehammer to pound in a finish nail.
the Alabama blogger is correct in one way: these ARE "recruiting junkets."
And to use Brian's own words: "that's fine."
I fully support the satelitte camps --- but I don't pretend my principle reason for support of such is anything other than pure self-interest (the betterment of my favorite school's football team).
We can bring in tangential moral and ethical issues if we want ("more access for the players!"), but ultimately, the prime reason I (and others) support the camps is because we think it can help us win more games.
And once again, that's perfectly fine and fair.
Is anyone here not owning it? I don't think anyone here is disputing that the ultimate goal of the camps is to make connections and spread Michigan's recruting influence. But as long as Michigan is doing it in a way that is positive for the high schoolers and their coaches and not against NCAA rules, what's the problem? There isn't one unless you're and SEC coach trying to prevent outside coaches from making you work harder to land recruits.
I really enjoyed the article, but I'm still dumbfounded that this is even a discussion.
The discussion really should be how bad of a person is Nick Saban. He's a multimillionaire using his influence to reinstitute a monopoly position over much less advantaged kids. Adam Smith figured this out 239 years ago. Factor on top of that the medical redshirts / cuts and bagmen* and you clinch the case.
Alabama fans defending this are bad people too.
The good news is that they all have time to repent. Admit your sins. Change your ways.
Yes, I understand that the ole-timey Puritain rhetoric and black/whiteness of my comments make serious, modern people blush, but sometimes one has to be more blunt.
* I get that giving people money is probably not hurting them, so goes in a different category. Still, I think that one should only conduct his/her affairs to the extent that he/she is willing to admit to it publicly.
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