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Recruiting Finally Comes to This: Teleconferences

Sep 2, 2009, 8:00 PM UTC

Ohio linebacker Jordan Hicks is kind of a big deal in the quasi-legit,â†µquasi-creepy realm of recruiting, one of the top outside linebackers inâ†µthe country and a guy who has his choice of schools from Ohio State toâ†µTexas. He’s also been inundated with press requests to the point whereâ†µthis happened:â†µâ†µâ‡¥On Monday morning Under Armour All-American linebacker Jordan Hicksâ†µâ‡¥(West Chester, Ohio/Lakota West) participated in a teleconference,â†µâ‡¥answering questions from recruiting analysts and media from acrossâ†µâ‡¥the country.â†µâ†µâ†µSo many rich and varied sportswriter responses to choose from. We can goâ†µwith outrage, sad what-have-we-come-to musings or sarcastic zingersâ†µthat don’t zing. How about this one: what took so long?â†µ

â†µâ†µHicks has to deal with interview requests from not just Rivals, Scout,â†µand ESPN but the zillion team-specific sites the former two have plusâ†µthe occasional nose-holding newspaper,â†µESPN affiliate, uppity blog, or beast-modeâ†µmessage board that dips into recruitingâ†µfrom time to time. There must be at least 20 different organizationsâ†µtrying to get Hicks on the record with his latest thoughts about hisâ†µtop six (Texas, USC, Ohio State, Florida, Alabama and Georgia, ifâ†µyou’re wondering). â†µ

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â†µA man can only answer so many repeat questions andâ†µget in his Rich Rodriguez-demanded 80 hours a week. If I was a big-timeâ†µfootball recruit with a phone that never stopped ringing, I would set upâ†µa similar system immediately.â†µ

â†µâ†µPremium sites have to be bothered by that prospect, by the way. If allâ†µit takes to get the all the quotes Jordan Hicks wants to give is dialingâ†µa phone number, well, newspapers can totally pull that off. They’ve beenâ†µdoing that for years. Hicks articles are instantly commodities thatâ†µwill show up in near-identical formats across the internet, paywalled orâ†µnot, and some of the value behind those paywall evaporates. If a bunchâ†µof kids start doing this, it’ll be more feasible to have an obsessiveâ†µrecruiting hobby without shelling out 10 bucks a month.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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