Basketball's most stressful season gets going

The Class 3A and 4A boys state finals are here. Basketball season is winding down.

But alas, recruiting season is just starting to heat up.

Let the "real" games begin.

And the absurdities ensue.

And the eyebrows raise.

And the hard feelings mount.

Ah, recruiting just ain't what it used to be.

Twenty-two years ago, I got my first recruiting letter -- a nice handwritten note on beautiful stationery from the Notre Dame women's basketball office.

I was a freshman in high school at the time.

That was the first of many letters that would arrive daily for the next three-plus years and fill several boxes that would eventually line the back of my closet.

I loved opening up the mailbox back when I was in high school. Which coach had sent a handwritten letter that day? Which coach had sent a slick media guide, a video?

Which coach would then call that night?

What fun!

For me, with very few exceptions, the recruiting process was fun from the moment I opened that first letter from Notre Dame until the day I signed my national letter of intent with Northwestern in the fall of my senior year.

But is anyone having fun now?

I'm not sure. I think I was recruited during a much simpler time for my sport -- and for the world in general.

Everyone seems so stressed out now. College coaches, high school coaches, athletes, parents, everyone.

I've talked with college coaches who say there is more pressure than ever for them to discover the next best thing. Now, they're not only writing the letters on fancy stationery to high school freshmen, they're also accepting verbal commitments from kids who haven't even left middle school.

Meanwhile, high school coaches say they seem to be constantly jockeying for position in the recruiting process with AAU coaches. And they feel like they're losing.

In more ways than one.

"Because recruiting has gotten so intense, AAU has gotten very big and it seems like a lot of college coaches go straight to the AAU coaches when they want to find out about a kid," one high school coach told me. "You start to wonder if what you've got to say matters, and that starts to trickle down onto your own team.

"Kids see how fun AAU is. They travel all over the country. They play a lot of games and probably don't have to practice much. The AAU teams are feeding these kids candy and we're the one yelling at them to eat their vegetables."

Yuck. That's no fun.

Now we know why the high school coaches feel so stressed out about recruiting.

And how about the athletes and parents? Well, they often feel simply overwhelmed by it all.

I just did a story about our boys basketball player of the year in Lake County, Dylan Richter. His mother is writing a book about recruiting because she found that 90 percent of the people she knew who were involved with recruiting in some way had a negative experience.

They cited poor communication or broken promises.

But even the top-tier athletes who are promised the world are saying they're stressed and fed up with the pressure.

Maybe that's why Cully Payne, a standout at Schaumburg, committed to DePaul while he was in the eighth grade. That's right, eighth grade.

Maybe he didn't want to have to deal with recruiting's 21st Century rat race for four years.

Warren star Brandon Paul committed to Illinois last summer, prior to his junior year and prior to his first full season of varsity basketball. He told me that he was anxious to put to rest all the pressure, the phone calls and the stress.

Again, he had yet to play a full season of varsity ball and he was already starting to feel the heat.

"It was a huge relief to commit early," Paul said. "It was an easy decision because I love the program and I love the school and I was so glad to get everything out of the way. With recruiting, there's a lot of pressure on you to keep proving yourself and you're always worrying about who's in the stands watching you.

"This way, I could just focus on my team and my homework."

And on being a normal high school kid.

Does recruiting in today's fast-paced world not afford those luxuries?

What fun is that?

So here's the deal: I wanted to find out more about where everyone in this not-so-fun era of recruiting was coming from. So I interviewed some people in the know: AAU coach Michael Weinstein of Joy of the Game and Pat Baldwin, the assistant men's basketball coach and lead recruiter at Loyola University.

Recruiting is their business and they gave me the lowdown.

Is recruiting more intense than it used to be?

Pat Baldwin: "It certainly is. It's always been intense. But now it's even more intense. As a college coach, you have to be on your toes for sixth, seventh and eighth graders now. We're not looking at kids that young at AAU tournaments, but you hear about them from people in your community, or they come to your summer camp. That's how it gets started. But it's starting earlier and earlier.

Michael Weinstein: Even in the last five years I've seen a change. It is so cut throat out there with this need to win. You used to see colleges really study a guy, find out everything there was to find out about him. Now, coaches are throwing offers on the table before guys even get to high school because they're so afraid they might lose them to someone else.

How early is too early?

PB: "Sixth graders are still really young. They don't really know what's going on around them. They don't understand recruiting. They don't even know what shoes they're going to be wearing to school each day. But for college coaches, there's the feeling that you have to build a rapport with these kids early on, be the first to develop a relationship with them or they'll go with someone else. Kids often stick with the first school that recruits them."

MW: If your goal is to get offers at age 14 or 15, you better make sure you know that you want to go to that place. But do you really know that at 14 or 15? That's pretty young. Am I a fan of that? Not really. At that age, do you know what you're looking for in a school academically? Do you really know about what kind of basketball program you're interested in? You've really got to know what you're doing and a lot of kids that age don't.

What are the positives of an early commitment, which seems to be the trend now in the high-pressured world of recruiting?

PB: "The positive for us is that you can start knowing what your team is going to be years from now. The positive for the kid is that he's got that decision out of the way and doesn't have to worry about (the pressures of recruiting)."

MW: It's a simple way to simplify your life. You can say, 'I'm committed to a certain school, don't talk to me.'

What are the negatives of an early commitment?

PB: "The negative for us is that if you recruit a kid and he commits in ninth grade, or earlier, and he doesn't turn out the way you think he will, you're stuck. For the kid, what happens if something else comes along? That's why I would advise against really early commitments like that. You've got to be very sure that school is what you want and what you're going to want all those years down the road.

MW: "Well, did you just lose out on other opportunities that you may have liked better and now you don't even know that? You've got to turn over every stone if you're going to commit early."

Who is best to advise an overwhelmed athlete in today's recruiting rat race?

PB: Parents. Without a doubt. They've got to be the central person in this. But we really think that both high school coaches and AAU coaches can also play a big role. We deal with a lot of great AAU coaches who have the kids' best interests at heart. And AAU definitely plays a big role in not only recruiting, but in the development of players. But we always make sure to talk with the high school coaches as well. They are the ones that deal with the kids every day -- in and out of school, on the bus, in the classroom. They know the kids' families and what they're all about. They know the real goods on a kid."

MW: The parents need to be completely involved. And there's room for all kinds of coaches. There are a lot of coaches who care about the kids. Just like there are a lot of good high school coaches, there are a lot of good AAU coaches. I think AAU coaches and high school coaches can work together. I always say my door is always open and a high school coach can always come in and see what we're doing so that we can help his kid together."