The level of disturbing is real here. According to its own website, the recruiting analysis juggernaut Rivals.com plans on monitoring sixth graders and other middle school football players moving forward.
Here’s a bit of information from the website itself.
More than 150 athletes battled yet another huge snowstorm in the Northeast to compete at NextGen Boston, a camp for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. Boston was the first stop on the nationwide search for the top middle school prospects in the nation and plenty of talent turned out.
Tyson Thornton and Daron Bryden will be the first 6th grade prospects the website will actively monitor. Thornton is a 5-foot-11, 167-pound running back with great explosiveness and surprisingly good body control for a kid his size and age.
Bryden, a small quarterback with a big arm is incredibly composed and very polished — and he can make every throw. And with a father standing nearly 6-foot-7, he may soon have the body to match his arm. Both of these young players were so impressive they were moved up to compete against the eighth grade prospects.
Courtesy of Yahoo!
These kids can’t even get into R-rated movies, yet adults are going to monitor their every move on the football field and rank them according to their athletic ability.
The simple fact that Rivals.com utilized the term “prospects” in describing sixth-grade kids is stunning in and of itself. Now take into account that children who should be more worried about their first date are being placed under the microscope, and it’s clear we have gone too far here.
The sad part of this is that college football programs have made this a near necessity for recruiting sites to take this next step. As Rivals.com pointed out earlier this month, universities are now courting potential recruits much earlier in the process.
Several years ago, USC accepted a commitment from seventh grade QB David Sills. More recently, North Carolina extended an offer to WR prospect Blake Hinson. Currently there are double-digit middle school prospects with Division 1 scholarship offers, a huge increase from previous years.
Can’t we just let kids be kids and leave the life-altering decisions to those with the mentality and maturity to be able to actually make life-altering decisions?