High school football players long for the chance to play in college, and recruiting services are always ready to pounce.
Southern California is a hotbed for high school football. Nearly every city has a big-time program that seems to push out five-star recruits with every graduating class.
With this ridiculous level of competition, it is essentially a necessity that young men that aspire to reach the next level hire special coaches. Strength coaches, speed coaches, position coaches, they all seem to be a requirement for a high school football player to become a college football player.
What do you do when that doesn't work? What do you do when your son has spent months or years with all of these coaches and he still isn't catching the eye of any college program?
It really comes down to two options.
You can keep plugging away, working hard, and hoping that the right program takes notice.
Or, you can hire a recruiting service.
Recruiting services take high school athletes and market them to college programs and coaches. They take video highlights and other information about the athlete and spread it around, all in an attempt to get a college interested.
However, with high school and college athletics constantly growing, so too has recruiting services, including some less-than-legitimate ones.
The NCAA does watch some of these recruiting services, however it is nearly impossible for them to keep an eye on the hundreds and hundreds of them that operate within the country. Tighter regulations just began five years ago after Oregon and Chip Kelly were caught paying recruiting services, but even these restrictions only cover a portion of services.
Outside of the restrictions and regulations, the NCAA can't do much. They recommend that people report fraudulent recruiting services to local law enforcement. You can also report a fraudulent service to the NCAA by calling (844) 562-2601.
Ross Hawley is president of Playced, a Dallas-based service.
When asked about scam recruiting services, he said, "Is this rampant? Absolutely, I believe so. They understand how emotional this process is, and some of these services absolutely prey on the emotion of the well-meaning parents. They’ll get parents to jump through hoops, just to make a buck.”
Read the full story at The Orange County Register