TESTING ...THE RULES

Here is a story about a young man being recruited to play college football. He was scheduled to take a test in his regularly scheduled class when a college recruiter showed up at his school. He wanted the student to ask his proctor if he could take the test later. The proctor said no. The Varsity football coach then came down to the room and started negotiating with the proctor on behalf of the college recruiter and of course the student athlete. The proctor agreed to let the young man leave for twenty minutes, but he had to come back to the class and take the test. There was some grumbling when the young man left by others in the class. However when he came back to take the test, and had to stay after class to finish in the same amount of time allotted the other students, the grumbling stopped.

What went on there? First, the college coach was sending the wrong message to the boy and his ego. He told him he was above the rules. Did he not realize that boy would expect the same treatment when he got to college.

The varsity coach, influenced by the college coach sent a message to his players that he believed in entitlement. It was acceptable, and actually kind of cool to wield this special power. However in my twenty one years at the U of R I never went to a high school and got a student athlete out of class to talk to him about our college. As A High School coach I never allowed this.If you wanted to talk to my players you could do so after practice, after a game, or after school. Please understand this goes on all over the country. It is an accepted practice. Not to me though. I stopped the Tsunami.

This was all explained to the young man.It was wrong for the college coach to show up unannounced. It was wrong for the player to ask the proctor to let him take the test later in the day. It was wrong for the proctor to let the student leave class for twenty minutes to go talk to a coach. It was wrong for the coach to come to the classroom and negotiate. The student was being  sent a message through modeling that he did not have to follow the rules.

 He did not attend college at that school, or any four year college, that fall.