San Diego Letter of Intent Day Preview : These Schools Want Their Players to Move On

SAN DIEGO — The success of a university’s football program depends on how effectively the coaches sell that program to prospective players. At the community colleges, the program’s success largely depends on how well coaches sell their players to four-year programs.

Sound confusing? It’s not, really.

Community colleges don’t have scholarships, jobs, cars, money or any other fringe benefits (legal or otherwise) to offer prospective players. Coaches must show a high school athlete that playing at a community college is a viable, effective route to a four-year university.

“One of our big selling points to high schools kids is our success ratio for getting our players into four-year schools,” said Jim Symington, Grossmont College head coach. “It definitely helps your program when you can demonstrate to a (high school) kid that he has an excellent chance of playing four more years of football if he attends a community college.”

Southwestern Coach Bob Mears said, “Having a winning program helps, but showing the players they can move on to four-year schools certainly makes your recruiting easier. “Our obligation to our players doesn’t end after the last game. We believe it’s our responsibility to do all we can to get them placed at a four-year school, for athletic as well as academic reasons.”

Southwestern, which was 9-1-1 last season, is enjoying a banner year getting their athletes to four-year schools. The Apaches already have placed 13 of their 23 sophomores with full scholarships at Division 1 schools. And Mears said two more players may get picked up after earning their two-year degrees.

“This has been our best year ever,” Mears said, “even better than ‘83, when we went 10-1. We only placed eight guys with Division 1 schools after that season.”

Grossmont, Mesa and Palomar colleges also are enjoying good years.

Grossmont, which was 9-1-1 and won the Foothill Conference, has sent six players to Division 1 universities. A seventh is expected to accept a full ride this week and two others will likely receive offers after earning degrees. And the Griffins only had 11 players eligible to transfer.

“It’s been a good year,” Symington said. “We should end up with 9 or 10 players going on. Any time you get 50% or more of your eligible players into Division 1 schools, you’re doing a good job.”

Seven players from Mesa’s 4-6 team already are at Division 1 universities and two others figure to be there soon, according to Coach Len Smorin.

“It’s been an average year for us,” Smorin said. “We had 11 guys receive full rides last year. We usually place 9 or 10 players a season at Division 1 schools.”

Palomar, 6-4 in ‘85, also has sent seven players to the Division 1 ranks with an eighth on the brink of a scholarship offer, Coach Tom Craft reported.

The local colleges also figure to place anywhere from five to 10 players each with Division 2 and 3 teams after spring drills. Those schools aren’t currently recruiting because they cannot afford to bring in players now for spring practice, or don’t hold spring drills.

There also may be some additions to the Division 1 list after spring practices. Many universities return to community colleges at that point for a couple of reasons. One, a vacancy might occur because a player was injured in those drills. Or a player previously brought in, or a redshirt, didn’t measure up to expectations in the spring.

And the better the community colleges fare at the numbers game, the more likely that coaches will relate their successes to the high school players they are, in turn, recruiting.

“Every high school kid thinks he’s going to a four-year school right off the bat,” Symington said. “But it doesn’t work out that way. And of those who stick (at a four-year school), a lot of them wind up sitting for two or three years before they get their chance.

“Our pitch is that if you go to a community college, you’re going to play four years of college football. The community college players that four-year schools recruit are ones that can step in and play immediately. They can’t afford to take a JC guy who’s going to sit because he’ll only be there for two years, three at the most.

“We’ve had guys from Grossmont step in (at a four-year school) and beat out fifth-year seniors, because those fifth-year seniors have been redshirting or running on the scout team. There’s no substitute for game experience, and your good players are going to get a lot of that at a two-year school.”

Craft uses a similar approach at Palomar.

“We figure there are 10 or 11 high school players from our area who receive full rides to four-year schools each year,” he said. “And that covers 14 schools. We like to point out to the kids that Palomar alone will equal that figure. Sometimes we do even better.

“Placing kids is a big thing with us. Before each season, we’ll do a personal profile on each of our sophomores. We’ll send it to all the schools that recruit our kids regularly and to any other schools that the kids might have a preference to attend.”

Of course, the more talented a player is, the easier it is to sell a prospective recruiter on him.

“You can’t try to sell a kid (to play) beyond his level,” Mears said. “If you give a four-year school a few players that don’t help them, they’ll stop coming around.”

And if the recruiters stop coming around, the selling gets harder. And when the selling gets harder, it’s harder to win. And when you don’t win . . .

Here’s Who’s Going to the Four-Year Colleges Grossmont College

Player Ht. Wt. Pos. College Rand Chatman 5-8 185 RB Pacific Barry Griffiths 6-3 195 QB Washburn (Kan.) Joe Hargrove 6-1 190 DB Weber State Sean Jackson 6-0 183 DB Wichita State Todd Wade 6-6 255 DL West Texas State Richard Zayas 6-1 175 WR Brigham Young

Mesa College

Player Ht. Wt. Pos. College Tim Gardner 6-1 215 LB CS Northridge Don Hamann 6-6 220 C Cal State Fullerton Gil Hawkins 5-11 170 WR Oregon State Darryl James 6-1 180 DB Fresno State Dwain Rush 6-3 215 TE New Mexico State Joe Smylie 6-1 228 LB-FB San Diego State David Thistle 6-2 195 DB Pacific

Palomar College

Player Ht. Wt. Pos. College Dave Bass 5-10 230 P Fresno State Ryan Beadle 6-1 170 QB East Tennessee St. Chris Collins 6-5 245 OL Syracuse Harold Collins 6-3 195 WR Texas El Paso Matt Franz 6-3 225 LB Fresno State Ray Nicholas 6-3 185 DB California Phil Southwood 6-2 240 OL Southern Utah

Southwestern College

Player Ht. Wt. Pos. College Troy Ellison 6-2 170 DB Fresno State Jeff Ferrell 6-1 230 DL Colorado West. St. Paskle Jackson 5-11 177 DB CS Northridge Guy Liggins 6-3 190 TE San Jose State Willie McCloud 6-1 180 WR San Jose State Mike Meehan 6-4 232 DL Cincinnati Mike Najera 6-3 225 DL CS Northridge Chris Rinehart 6-0 235 LB Fresno State Larry Sandson 6-0 240 DL San Jose State Keith Tomlinson 6-3 260 OL Montana Tim Wells 6-2 200 DL San Jose State Tony Wells 6-0 230 LB Eastern New Mexico Mike Williams 6-4 270 OL Simon-Fraser (B.C.)

Note: No players from San Diego City College signed.