July Recruting....In Football?

The July college basketball recruiting period opened last Tuesday, as coaches begin their month-long journey to gyms across the nation scouring for the nation’s best talent. It’s the best time of year for coaches to evaluate young talent, keep an eye on current recruits, and make sure they’re not missing the boat on any players. It’s a hectic 8am-11pm schedule, day after day, often times in a different city every couple of days (or in the same day). July tends to be the time of year when the common college basketball fan takes notice of recruiting. New names pop up on radars and young talent emerges. Locally, Indiana basketball fans are looking for any signs of positive stories they can find.

Basketball is king, but that isn’t the story that IU fans should be keeping their eyes on. Quietly, Bill Lynch is doing major recruiting work with the IU football program. As the IU faithful are following where Coach Crean is scouting or what outfit Bennie Seltzer is wearing, Bill Lynch landed a commitment from Bloomington North stud running back D’Angelo Roberts.

For those who don’t know, Roberts isn’t the Hoosiers first commit for 2011: He’s their 20th, and that’s on July 13th. It definitely helps that Roberts plays right in the Hoosiers backyard, but this is a bigtime recruit. I don’t care how many stars are listed next to his name (okay, it’s 3 if you really want to know) DeAngelo Roberts is the real deal. He rushed for 2600 yards last year for North in a pretty solid football conference (Conference Indiana). I’ve had the luxury of watching him in person twice, and he’s made the “wow” type of players that you don’t typically utter for high school running backs.

Roberts is the motivation for this blog entry, but Coach Lynch and staff have been doing work all winter and spring. Of Rivals top 15 players in the state of Indiana, Lynch has secured (use that word loosely) commits from 6 of them (Okay, so it’s players ranked 9-14 but still). With Purdue fleeing to Florida to recruit, Indiana has a real opportunity to stake its flag in the state. The top-tier players in this state are still heading elsewhere ( North Carolina, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Notre Dame this year) but IU has made huge in-roads over the past four seasons. For those that scoff at recruiting the state of Indiana for football, the depth of talent has increased at a high rate over the past 10 years or so. It will only continue to get better, and the IU staff is positioning themselves nicely across the state.

Lynch and staff really seem to know who they are, as only one 2011 commit comes from outside the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio. For a program that never seems to have a plan, IU seems to have figured it out; their plan that is. Go after the best players in the Midwest, offer scholarships early, fight the right battles, and go after character. With the early offers, IU has a shot to land great talent before the Ohio State’s and Michigan’s even get involved (If they commit, IU must hang on for dear life, however). For the first time since I can remember, the Hoosiers have two national top 250 players in their 2011 recruiting class. No matter how much stock you put into rankings, it’s hard to ignore the fact that IU’s season finish in Big 10 play routinely correlates with their recruiting rankings; typically in the bottom 3.

The two 4-star commits, Zach Shaw (Coshocton, OH) and Raymon Taylor (Detroit) will have a lot of peer pressure to de-commit from the Hoosiers. As soon as a powerhouse sees a need at one of their positions, they will be making the phone call looking to scoop them up. In the past, (all the way to last year) you could be assured that the top verbal commits to IU would never sign their letter of intent.

It’s a different Indiana now. Their weight room rivals any in the nation, the stadium renovations make it Big 10 quality, and the other amenities make it fit for a program that isn’t content being a basketball school in the bottom 3 in football. There is a real dedication to the football program, and you can see the dividends with the past couple of recruiting classes.

This still has to translate to Saturday’s in fall, but the foundation seems to be in place to contend for a bowl game every season. There is a whole lot of work left to do, but momentum is on the program’s side. You don’t have to look much further than Tracey Porter’s interception in the Super Bowl or last year’s NFL Draft to see some of the selling points Coach Lynch and staff have in their arsenal.

In a basketball state and in a basketball recruiting period, it’s the football version of the Hoosiers that are having a big Summer.

While Summer is great, it's still the Fall that I'm worried about.

LeBron James is just like....Well, LeBron

When questioned about how I feel about LeBron James bailing on Cleveland to go to Miami, I haven’t had a whole lot to say. That’s not entirely true, as I’ve had things to say, just nothing that other people haven’t said before me. I haven’t spewed any venom LeBron’s way like many have, nor did I burn a jersey, but I don’t know if I’ll ever hold LBJ in the same regard as I once did.

As humans, the first thing we do with athletes is compare them to someone. In fact, it’s not just athletes; we try to find comparisons with people in all walks of life. Think of your own life as you went through school. If you have any older siblings or family that went through the same school system, your expectations may be set as soon as you start kindergarten.

With athletes, comparisons come from an early age and never truly end. I follow college basketball recruiting where the first thing people want to know (on the outside) is who a particular player plays like. This past week, I saw Center Grove’s Andy Smeathers compared to Gordon Hayward. Look, I like Smeathers game, but outside of the fact that they’re both tall, skinny, can shoot it, and white it’s not a very good comparison. But we have to compare him to someone, so Hayward makes sense.

This past week, a common theme has been “Well Jordan wouldn’t have done what LeBron did. Jordan would have taken on whomever to prove he was the best.” The statement itself is pretty accurate. With what we know, Jordan DIDN’T leave and seemed to be wired to take on anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. That’s what made MJ the greatest basketball player of all-time. LeBron James has been compared to Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson since his teenage years. What’s been hard to grasp the past couple of years and then magnified during “The Decision” is that LeBron James is LeBron James.

It’s the same reason he has yet to develop a low-post game. We all think it would make him unstoppable. Kobe added one. Jordan added one. LeBron has yet to truly develop one. It’s one of those things that makes him different. We want LeBron to be the greatest basketball player of all time. It’s tough to swallow when people don’t live up to the expectations (or comparisons) we set for them.

I felt disappointment last Thursday in realizing that I’ll never be able to place LeBron on the same pedestal as Jordan. Those are expectations that I placed on LeBron. I thought he could win in Cleveland. I thought he was good enough to take on the world. Again, that’s what I wanted.

LeBron just wanted to go win a ring with his boys. It’s almost like he’s surrounded with Dru Joyce and Romeo Travis again. They get to hang in South Beach and win some ballgames. It’s not what I expect out of greatness, but let’s be serious, what do I know about greatness?

If the Heat win the title this year, we won’t hold LeBron in the same regard as if he won in Cleveland. If they win 6 in a row? That might be a different story.
In the end, how we regard LeBron James means nothing to LeBron James. He’s not the little brother trying to live up to big brother’s expectations. He’s trying to set his own in what is definitely becoming a new era of sports.

I’ll learn to live with it, and will definitely set my own household record for Miami Heat games watched in a single year.

I just won’t be rooting for them.