Can we commit to not say "commit?"
By Terry Frei
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 12/24/2007 12:53:27 AM MST
Last week, Mullen offensive tackle Bryce Givens disclosed he was backing away from his original "oral commitment" to attend the University of Nebraska and planned to go to Colorado instead.
In the wake of Bill Callahan's firing in Lincoln, Givens and two other prospects said they planned to switch from Nebraska to Colorado.
Dirty pool?
No, and I'd still say that if the roles were reversed.
Here's the problem: The popularization of the term "oral commitment" for a non-binding announcement is teaching recruits that their word means nothing.
Why call it a "commitment" if it isn't a commitment at all?
In football, the theory is that it's a "commitment" to sign a national letter of intent with a program in the February following the prospect's senior high school season. But it really isn't. It's nothing more than an announcement of a player's tentative plans. In some cases, opposing coaches considered it a slammed door. But that has less to do with honor than it does with pragmatism and the need to avoid wasting time and resources. In other instances, often (but not always) after rival staffs are fired or programs have terrible seasons, opposing programs don't give up.
There was nothing wrong with Givens changing his mind, especially after Callahan's firing. There would be nothing wrong with him changing his mind again.
The NCAA officially doesn't consider an "oral commitment" part of the recruiting process. Rather, the term primarily is a media and recruiting tracker invention. Some prospects and coaches use the term themselves, but that's because they've been indoctrinated in the fashionable phraseology.
Websites, hobbyists and journalists have helped transform recruiting from a low- profile process into a frenzied mess in which prospects' every trip, move and utterance is news. When a prospect "orally commits," as Givens did to Nebraska in April, roughly 231,462 fans of the program receive e-mails announcing it from the
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recruiting-conscious websites, and newspapers dutifully report it.
Just semantics? Perhaps, but the prospects also find that opposing coaches see nothing dishonorable in asking them to go back on what at least is called a commitment.
And after they initially announce their intentions, they can de-commit, re-commit or un-commit.
Then they can de-commit their de-commitment.
In NCAA recruiting, nothing means anything until the real day of commitment, national letter of intent day.
If these prospects take the SAT, and they are asked if a handshake accompanied by a spoken promise is considered either a morally or legally binding commitment, they probably would answer:
c) No. No commitment is binding until it's in writing.
There has been considerable progress in college football recruiting. No longer do many recruiting pitches come with promises of plane tickets for parents and family, cars, soft summer jobs and boosters buying players' complimentary tickets for 3,500 percent of face value.
That's mostly gone because programs know they can't get away with it any longer. Rogue boosters can and do jump in with illegal offers, either during recruiting or after the players arrive on campus, but there's a lot less of that than there used to be. The major cheating in college football now is academic shadiness.
Unfortunately, we can't retreat to when the first we heard of recruiting was when schools released lists of recruits on the signing date, and when everyone withheld judgment, rather than taking the word of Internet sites and "gurus" who might or might not be capable of evaluating talent. Information gathering and parroting others' opinions is not astute evaluation, and the smart college programs and coaches rely on their own instincts and judgments.
But at the very least, can't we change the terminology?
Announcing intentions is not a "commitment" unless it is binding — and the coaches treat it as such. If football prospects want to take off the pressure, they should have the right to sign a letter of intent any time after their junior seasons. Basketball has an early signing period. Football could have one, too. But it should be made clear: It's truly a commitment — and to a school, not a coach. If you want to keep your options open, don't sign early.
Short of that, it would be progress if we simply reported when a player says he plans to sign a letter of intent with a program, while never using the word "commitment." Why call it a "commitment" if it isn't one?
Either come up with a system that makes an oral "commitment" binding, or get the word out of the recruiting process.
