I know that Nike, ESPN, and other evil media types have put the high school athlete in the crosshairs but National LOI day has become has become an “NFL draft” type of guy holiday. I can’t even imagine what kind of sales pitches these kids and their parents are getting from coaches around the country.
That leads me back to the NWC and Division III. We all know there are no athletic scholarships at our level and also no letters of intent to be signed. Pretty much you know when a kid is going to come to your school is when they send in their deposit. That is about as close to an LOI as you’re going to get and it’s rare for a DIII school to work up a press release about that info.
Personally, I would love to know in advance what recruits have committed to Linfield but I’m not going to lose much sleep over it. We are going to get exceptional students and exceptional football players at Linfield…just without the fan fair.
So for the time we just have to sit back and read about the small state school programs and their LOI days and how coaches “heard that XXX could be national contenders” or freshly committed players say “"I think this next season they'll be a strong contender for the national championship."
Should I tell them that XXX is already eliminated from the 2007 playoffs before the season starts due to their schedule? Guess the recruiter forgot to mention that?
