The Prep Beat

Obviously, reporting on recruiting is a major part of covering high school sports. And in my seven-plus years here at the Kitsap Sun, I’ve done quite a bit of it. And through that whole time, I’m forever amazed on how football players from our little corner of the world are overlooked.

I’m reminded about this again as I watch the plight of Olympic’s Larry Dixon. Here’s a kid who was as good a running back as has ever emerged from a Kitsap high school. Despite setting the West Sound career rushing record (5,222 career yards) and doing just as well in the classroom, his options for playing in college are extremely limited.
His options have boiled down to Army, Central Washington and Eastern Oregon.
There’s nothing wrong with Army, but that’s a big choice for a guy to make. And to have your best football offer — in terms of Division I — come with the price tag of a stint in the military, well, that’s a tough call.
There’s nothing wrong with Central Washington, as the Wildcats are a Division II national power. But his scholarship opportunities with Central are limited.
So what happened to all the big schools that were showing interest the last few years? Darn good question.
Is he the wrong size? Nope. He’s 5-foot-10 and 215 pound. Look up how many running backs in the NFL are that size. You’ll find plenty. Go to Scout.com and look at the top 10 running back prospects in the nation and they are in that range.
Is it his speed? Yes and no. Dixon ran a 4.6-second 40-yard dash this summer. Of the top 20 prospects in the nation, only two are listed at 4.6. The rest are lower.
So let’s say that 4.6 seconds is too slow — although LSU and Ohio State will receive a signed letter of intent from a prospect who clocked that same time — for some of the major programs such as Washington and Washington State. Fair enough. What about Eastern Washington? What about Idaho? What about Portland State? There’s no reason they couldn’t have offered. They are not too good for Dixon.

Dixon is the latest athlete whose lack of recruiting options have left me shaking my head.

Look, I’m not naive to this process. I’ve seen it up close and I’ve been around it for awhile. I know the elite athletes are few and far between. I know they are rare, especially around here. I know that success on a high school field is not the prerequisite for a college scholarship.

But there are some from Kitsap County that meet those criteria that just don’t get the offers.

In 2005, it was Jared Prince. Prince is the best high school quarterback I’ve seen. He had two seasons passing for 2,000 yards. It wasn’t his size has he was a sturdy-built 6-foot-3. It wasn’t his speed as he was faster than most of your high school quarterbacks. He had a rocket for an arm and had more accuracy in his little finger than most college quarterbacks ever achieve.

He wanted to play close to home. Washington and Washington State were only interested in for baseball. Hawaii gave him an offer as did Portland State, but that’s not what Prince wanted. Of course it worked out well. He played baseball, had a great career, got drafted by the Texas Rangers and will head to spring training soon.

But if he was from Bellevue or Everett or Puyallup, I’m convinced, he would have more offers than he knew what to do with.

Same as Dixon.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 1:04 am by nathan joyce and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.