To Him, Recruiting Is All Academic

Football signing day left John Canzano of the Oregonian wondering how college recruiting became such a hyped event:

“You can start the blame here. Nobody will pore over [Wednesday’s] signings like the nation’s media. No reporters will ask any of the top-100 high school biology students if they’re leaning toward attending Notre Dame or Miami.

“The kids who are born to be quarterbacks should have their day, but they also shouldn’t cast a long, cold shadow over the peers who were born to be teachers, business owners or physicians.

“Let’s hope we all recognize the absurdity when we see it.”

Trivia time: North Carolina prep quarterback Chris Leak, the nation’s top recruit, signed with Florida. What university did he orally commit to as an eighth-grader?

Double standard: Chicago Bull center Tyson Chandler, who went to the NBA straight from Compton Dominguez High, supports a judge’s decision clearing LeBron James to play for his Ohio high school after being ruled ineligible because he accepted two retro sports jerseys worth $845.

“People gave me free T-shirts and other clothes when I was in high school,” Chandler told Lacy Banks of the Chicago Sun-Times. “What’s wrong with that? If a student wins a spelling contest and they give him a computer for becoming the best speller, why can’t a basketball player get compensated with a jersey or two for becoming the best player?”

Wake-up call: Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press writes that the Detroit Lions have awakened from a decades-long slumber by hiring Steve Mariucci as coach:

“They are, for the first time, jumping feet first into the sandbox with the other top NFL teams, looking to a proven, young winner to guide them -- instead of some who-dat face they got on the cheap.”

Smooth move: Glenn Dickey of the San Francisco Chronicle lays the 49ers’ problems in finding a new coach squarely at the feet of team owner John York:

“Because of York’s stupid decision to fire Mariucci, General Manager Terry Donahue is struggling to put together a decent list of candidates. If you took that list and added Mariucci’s name, I doubt there’s a general manager in the league who wouldn’t prefer Mariucci.”

More Dickey: “No surprise that the Oakland Raiders didn’t make it to the city-sponsored rally. They didn’t show up for the Super Bowl either.”

Higher learning: Jay Leno, commenting on the woeful state of the UCLA basketball team: “It’s gotten so bad the players are skipping practice to go to class.”

Trivia answer: Wake Forest.

And finally: The late Eugene Klein, in his book “First and a Billion,” recalled an NFL owners meeting in which Philadelphia’s Leonard Tose lost his temper with Oakland’s Al Davis and snapped, “Al, if there was a guy I could pay $500 to, I’d have you killed right now.”

Said Klein, who owned the San Diego Chargers at the time: “That caused a debate among the owners, some of whom thought Leonard would never spend the money and others who joked he would be overpaying.”

-- Rob Fernas