Recruiting Is Fun, Honest: UCLA Recruit Requests An Innocent Layover

Recruiting in college football should creep you out, since it combines elements of our society universally regarded as skeevy: the judging element of a beauty pageant, the uncomfortable ooze of a sales pitch, the paranoia and demands of stage mothers/fathers, and worst of all, outright fraud and corruption. Take paying players out of the equation -- as college does by rule -- then you have what is effectively a black market for gifted young athletes looking for somewhere to ply their craft and hone their talent.↵↵In response, you get the cloak-and-dagger world of recruiting, where even the parents get in on the skeeze of official visits and doubletalk. A hint to stage fathers on the make, though: if you are already committed to a school but “still looking,” don’t try to get one of the schools still courting you to pay for a quick recruiting visit by another school in the form of a “layover.” Ty Stockton is committed to Notre Dame, but was scheduled for an official visit to UCLA. Stockton and Stockton pere wanted to enjoy the brisk Chicago weather on the way out, however. You know, just for contrast to the SoCal sunshine:↵

↵↵⇥The Hun School of Princeton (N.J.) defensive lineman Tyler Stockton was supposed to be at UCLA on an official visit this weekend, but it didn’t happen after the player and his father asked the Bruins staff to schedule a layover in Chicago.↵↵Rick Neuheisel and the UCLA staff found this to be a bit odd, especially given Stockton’s existing ND commitment, and decided not to pay for another coach’s recruiting booty call on UCLA’s dime. Another note to shifty recruiting dads: don’t try to fool an OG Rivals.com pimp like Rick Neuheisel. He’s got so much game in that department that he fines the NCAA, not the other way around.↵