High School Football Players, Colleges Meeting on the Net

Desiree Marshall thought she could help her son get a football scholarship by letting recruiters know more about the 6-foot, 255-pound lineman.

So she took her campaign to the Internet.

“I figured that if you can pay bills and do everything else on the Internet, this may be the way to get a scholarship,” she said. “I really thought I’d struck on something.”

She paid a friend $20 to customize a Web site about her son’s accomplishments and spent $90 for a listing on another site devoted to college football hopefuls. Then she waited for the offers to come in.

If only it were that easy.

The reality is that Marshall’s son, Snugger Daniels, isn’t big enough to be a lineman in Division I and too slow to play linebacker. He wasn’t among the high school seniors who signed scholarship acceptance letters last Wednesday.

Yet the East Texas teen-ager still has a good chance of playing college football. And that’s where the Internet comes in.

In recent years, coaches from programs in Divisions II, III and beyond have found that roaming the Net is cheaper and easier than roaming the nation in search of prospective players.

So while being plugged into the good-ol’-boy network remains the best way for standout players to get free rides to major colleges, cyber-recruiting is a rapidly growing way of matching plenty of other seniors and schools.

“There was a time when I didn’t want to mess with it; I thought it was going to bite me,” said Hardin-Simmons (Texas) coach Jimmie Keeling, whose Division III Cowboys are coming off a second straight 12-1 season, the last one ending in the national semifinals.

“Now it’s getting to a point where you don’t have a choice. As time goes on, it’s going to be an even more prominent thing. You’ve got to pay attention to it.”

Although Division III schools do not offer scholarships, players can find ways to get a financial break if they can secure a roster spot. That’s why Keeling and his staff constantly find their e-mail inboxes jammed with letters from recruits, parents and coaches.

Hardin-Simmons has gone a step further by putting a questionnaire for prospects at the top of the athletic page on its Web site.

“We print out all the e-mails,” Keeling said. “Sometimes we respond by e-mail, some we just respond with a phone call. Ultimately, sometime, we’ve got to have personal contact.”

There lies the bottom line about online recruiting: It’s only a beginning, a virtual meeting place to start the conversation between coach and player.

“Once the communication process begins, we’ve done our job,” said Nick Cohen, president of CollegeRecruiting.com, one of the many sites that try playing online matchmaker. “Our goal is just to get the student noticed and give recruiters opportunities to find the right students.”

From zero to $90, players can post their athletic resume, some pertinent academic details and personal facts. Most sites charge extra for upgrades such as video clips.

Each site tries to be unique. Cohen’s company gives players their own e-mail address and makes it easy to e-mail as many schools as they choose. The site also enables recruiters to scan for variables such as position, size and grades.

Anyone who signs up for FootballProspects.com gets their information added to a printed directory sent to hundreds of programs across the country. It costs more to be included in future editions.

“There’s not a college coach in the world who is going to see a kid on our site and offer him a scholarship,” said Bryan Shumock, who has been working with high school seniors for nearly a decade and has been online for almost as long. “But it’s a way to find prospects they might have overlooked.”

A player who embellishes his stats -- from rushing totals to physical dimensions -- is only hurting his chances. College coaches always verify credentials with high school coaches and liars are sure to be scratched off their list.

Recruiters also will watch plenty of game film and usually will want to meet a player in person, at their home or on campus, before making a commitment.

Some schools, such as Division III Sul Ross State in Alpine, Texas, can’t afford to bring prospects in for a visit and are so remote that students can’t make it there on their own. That leads to another way the Internet can help.

By going to the school’s home page, potential players can view an overhead shot of the campus, which is located in an area featuring mountains and desert. It’s not the same as being there, but it’s a lot easier than making the 3 1/2-hour drive from El Paso or driving five hours from San Antonio.

Sul Ross assistant coach Drew Thorn said he combs the Internet looking for prospects, even going to sites run by high schools. He also corresponds with recruits via e-mail.

Thorn expects his pointing and clicking to intensify in the coming days now that Division I schools have made most of their picks.

“There’s always those kids who are looking for that D-I scholarship and when it passes by they get frantic looking for stuff,” he said.

Case in point: Daniels.

His credentials include making all-district on offense, academically qualifying for Division I and attending four years of LSU football camp. He also was voted homecoming king at Little Cypress-Mauriceville, a Class 4A school in the Orange school district, about 20 miles from Beaumont.

Yet in the nearly four months since he’s been listed on the Internet, Daniels has hardly been noticed.

There have been a few letters. Some calls. But no invitations for campus visits.

“I thought doing this was going to be so much more than I or his coach could do on our own,” his mother said.

Marshall spent $110 advertising him on the Internet, which is a lot for a single parent who hangs wallpaper for a living.

But she’s holding out hope, figuring that the expense would be a bargain if it leads to a roster spot.

Her efforts may not be in vain, according to the Hardin-Simmons and Sul Ross coaches.

Thorn said Daniels’ size and credentials make him the kind of guy Sul Ross would consider.

Keeling was intrigued, too, and suggested that Daniels start e-mailing the schools he’d be interested in attending.

“They will pay attention,” the coach said.