Cal receives commitment from a non-recruited player (1 Viewer)

Complex Kid

Most things I worry about Never happen anyway
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"Think of the strangest recruiting story you can remember. Got it? It's about to get topped.
Kevin Hart, a 6-foot-5, 290-pound offensive lineman from Fernley (Nev.), held a press conference Friday at Fernley High to announce where he intended to play college football. The local newspaper covered it. So did local television stations. It came down to a tough choice between Oregon and Cal, Hart told reporters, but in the end, he had decided he would sign with the Bears on Wednesday. It was a big moment; no athlete at the school had gone to a Division I school directly from high school, according to the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal.


"[Cal] coach [Jeff] Tedford and I talked a lot, and the fact that the head coach did most of the recruiting of me kind of gave me that real personal experience," Hart told reporters at the press conference.

Several hours later, BearTerritory.net, a Rivals.com site that covers Cal sports, reported that no scholarship had been offered and that no one on the Cal coaching staff had been in contact with Hart or Fernley coach Mark Hodges."

Rest of the story here

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/andy_staples/02/04/pryor.watch/index.html?eref=mostpop

and more info here

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=769462

If there was someone impersonating the coach Tedford I feel really bad for this kid.
 
Well I read that earlier today but usually I would have to assume there is some correspondence or some type of paperwork the school would be sending you periodically.
 
If this kid honestly got snowed over, he's probably not going to be academically eligible anyway. :mwink:

When I saw the thread title, I was thinking some kid did this as a joke ("committing" to a school that didn't offer him a ride) but after reading the links, I don't know what to think.

Stupid or delusional (or a pathological liar)? :shrug: Someone else needs to make the call on that one!
 
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Well I read that earlier today but usually I would have to assume there is some correspondence or some type of paperwork the school would be sending you periodically.

Yeah, well it's highly, highly unusual for a recruit to commit without having taken any official visit (which is paid for by the college), that alone requires a certain amount of paper work before it can happen.

Then of course all schools recruiting you request a transcript of your grades to review, by a week before signing day every prospect a school plans or hopes to sign has already received scholarship papers and his LOI, a coach has without doubt shown up personally to go over everything, usually the athlete has to find access to a fax machine so he can send it in on signing day (the school invariably agrees to provide it), I mean it's not something that just "happens" on signing day. I can see how a kid completely unfamiliar with the process might be confused, I mean not all "student"-athletes are the brightest bulbs in the broom closet, but at some point you'd think one of these adults would figure out something was off.
 
I wonder if Oregon actually recruited him.
 
You would think that a 6'5" 290 kid would draw interest from some school somewhere. At the very least, we have confirmation that he was really on the football team.

Maybe this story will put him on the radar for a smaller school in the area, at least.

/trying to look at the glass half-full
 
Somewhere, in a lonley dark corner, a picked on little trumpet player is smiling.....

"The scouting report we heard from those in the know said that Hart could always try to walk-on somewhere, but he'd have a long way to go despite his size because he lacks upper body strength and footwork."
 
An Update:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/news/story?id=3233483

"

FERNLEY, Nev. -- A third party was allegedly involved in the recruiting gone bad of Fernley High School offensive lineman Kevin Hart, the Lyon County sheriff's office said.


Hart, in a report taken Saturday by deputies, claims someone calling himself Kevin Riley represented himself as a recruiter -- a middle man to big-time college football programs -- and led the 6-foot-5, 290-pounder and his family to believe there were scholarship offers available when there were none"
 
Well, well, well...

RENO, Nev. -- A Fernley High School football player who had claimed he was duped into believing he was recruited to play at a Pac-10 school admitted Wednesday he made up the story.

Kevin Hart, a 6-foot-5, 290-pound offensive lineman, offered a broad apology in a statement he issued Wednesday afternoon through the Lyon County School District. He said he had wanted to play football at a Division I school "more than anything."

"When I realized that wasn't going to happen, I made up what I wanted to be reality. I am sorry for disappointing and embarrassing my family, coaches, Fernley High School, the involved universities and reporters covering the story," Hart said.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/news/story?id=3234302
 
He's not going to be a college football player apparently but, if he can fool all of those people with the success that he had, he's got one hell of a career ahead of him as a college football coach! :9:

On the plus side for him, he's still six and a half feet tall and 290 pounds so 99% of the student body at his school won't give him too hard of a time about all of this. :mwink:
 
I'm sure some school will give him a scholarship, maybe a d3 or USM.:shrug:
 

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