Sports360AZ
The Unknown Parent is a series of musings for Sports360AZ.com from an anonymous parent of athletes. The parent is an Arizona high school sports fan from their time involved in education, coaching and athletics. Want to have your questions or comments featured in future articles? Email TheUnknownParentAZ@gmail.com.
I was mindlessly scrolling through TikTok the other day in my car while waiting for my kids to get out of practice, and came across an account reviewing the Hudl football highlight film of a young man who attends a high school in the East Valley. The man in the video said, “We just found the best zero-star player in America,” and proceeded to compliment the kid effusively, claiming that after good reviews, college scholarship offers follow, and that this kid’s “time was coming.”I scrolled through the man’s account to find that he reviews high school highlight film for a lot of prospects. In every video, the content creator says that if you Venmo his girlfriend a big enough donation, he’ll let you jump the waiting list to get your film review published on his social media. It felt like a scam. I’m around other football parents all the time, and a lot of them are desperate to get their kids seen by the right people to get them off to college.
I’ve seen parents pay trainers and recruiting services, pretend to be their own kids on social media and tag every coach in the country in posts, pay ridiculous club sports fees- whatever it takes to get their kids to the next level. But I’d never seen anything like this before- paying a guy with a large following to talk about your film? That can’t work, can it? Then the strangest thing happened… I went to find the kid featured in the video, and within a week of the video going up on TikTok, the kid received his first two scholarship offers. Could something that ridiculous have worked? I mean, I guess some younger people like analysts and grad assistants on football staffs might watch TikTok videos like this, and then kick the film up to position coaches… but it’s hard to swallow that college coaches had access to this kids’ film for months. It was a random TikToker that made the difference.
Ultimately, the kid got several more offers, committed to a very good football college, and is currently in the process of his senior season. I don’t know the kid or the parents well enough to reach out to find out if it was the TikTok video that made the difference, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how maybe I’ve been too narrow-minded and stuck up about how parents seek to get their kids noticed. I mean, they always say if you’re good enough, college coaches will find you, but think about other industries- people are constantly using different tactics to get their name in front of decision makers, and no one shames them for it. We’ve all heard old stories of record companies paying DJ’s to play their records for the first time. And I’m sure plenty of garage bands held firmly to the idea that if they were good enough, record executives would just find them. It’s in our nature to find ways to cut the line, and I suppose this man on TikTok is just smart enough to figure out how to be a modern high school football DJ, and your donations will get your record played.
If it works, who am I to judge? Am I wrong for having a change of heart on this?
I’d love to hear and respond to your opinions on what kids should and should not do when it comes to recruiting- whether you’re a parent, coach, or even media member- email me at TheUnknownParentAZ@gmail.com.
-The Unknown Parent
