The Texas High School Football Coaches Association has begun a campaign they call "straightline recruiting," encouraging parents, student-athletes, and college coaches to go back to the days where head coaches were the main point of contact from colleges to athletes. It's a measure they're using to combat the rising numbers of "handlers," "recruiting services," and "trainers" that have been influencing college recruits and steering them into the hands (and bags) of certain schools.
There's no evidence that the rise of handlers has increased the amount of pay to play cases nationally--college coaches used to pay parents straight up or through boosters, regardless of a middleman--but some of these handlers take advantage of families with little to no knowledge of how the recruitment process works, taking money for them for helping to get their kids exposure, and often taking a cut of what the school would pay for a top recruit.
There are some recruitment services who do a lot of good work, sometimes for free, for potential prospects but it seems like the instance of ill-intentioned "helpers" has risen in the last 10 years.
It's a great campaign by the THSCA but unfortunately there will always be college coaches willing to take shortcuts and pay, and there will always be "mentors" looking to make a buck off of talented kids.
There's no evidence that the rise of handlers has increased the amount of pay to play cases nationally--college coaches used to pay parents straight up or through boosters, regardless of a middleman--but some of these handlers take advantage of families with little to no knowledge of how the recruitment process works, taking money for them for helping to get their kids exposure, and often taking a cut of what the school would pay for a top recruit.
There are some recruitment services who do a lot of good work, sometimes for free, for potential prospects but it seems like the instance of ill-intentioned "helpers" has risen in the last 10 years.
It's a great campaign by the THSCA but unfortunately there will always be college coaches willing to take shortcuts and pay, and there will always be "mentors" looking to make a buck off of talented kids.
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