Recruitment gone crazy

Sometimes, schools go to great lengths to recruit student athletes or to convince student athletes to leave their programs and join theirs. But sometimes, their actions get crazier the moment the athletes sign up for their programs.

Take, for example, what some Manila schools demand of their Cebuano athletes; even if they’re already college students, if they’re still eligible to play for high school, they’d let their students go back to high school. There’s a junior college player who’s being asked to return to high school, there were high school stars before who were made to repeat a year or two, just because the age limit in Manila for high school is 19.

I mean, with that practice, these student athletes are being treated basically as pros while they’re in school.

And with the league doing away with residency rule this year for transfers within the Cesafi, perhaps the league should also empower athletic directors to protect their student athletes if they want to transfer to other leagues? To protect them from themselves, parents and even other athletic directors.

I mean, if you ask a third year college student to go back to high school simply to play sports, that’s pretty obvious that you don’t have the athlete’s welfare in mind. If you, as a parent, agree to that, then it shows, too, that you’re really not after your kid’s future, right?

How to prevent that from happening? I don’t know but perhaps this is where the athletic directors can step in, they should have the final say in the transfer of students to other leagues and they should know whatever the offer an athlete gets.

And if their student athlete is required to go back a year, or to go back to high school, then such transfer should automatically be denied.

I mean, that practice basically encourages student-athletes to bend rules. It reinforces that stupid notion that just because they have certain skills, certain academic rules or requirements do not apply to them.

Athletes, and their parents, sometimes say that athletic directors aren’t after their welfare or that they are too strict, but I think in cases like these, it’s the athletic directors who should be strict because some athletes and parents overlook the long term gains for short term gains.

A junior college student being made to go back to high school? Jeez!

I mean, if you ask a third year college student to go back to high school simply to play sports, that’s pretty obvious that you don’t have the athlete’s welfare in mind.