Rivals to begin monitoring 6th grade college prospects

GoSooners · Feb 17, 2015

Borderline ridiculous. What's next, out of the womb monitoring? I would like to know what the success rate is for these kids. When I was a kid I knew many athletes who dominated in 6th grade and earlier, and were very average athletes by the time they got to highschool.

The recruiting website Rivals.com has begun actively monitoring its first two sixth grade college football prospects ever, it announced on Friday.

http://www.si.com/co...ders-recruiting

CoachCB · Feb 17, 2015

It is ridiculous! On the other hand it would be interesting to follow some of their 6th & 7th graders through 12th grade to see if they ended up being top players/recruits.

Rivals is about money. I'm sure they could hire 4 or 5 interns (or entry level employees) who could cover different parts of the country and they could put out a few pages/reports on 25-50 kids (or more) just to make it interesting.

cloverleaf · Feb 17, 2015

Back in the day...it seemed like the kids who were real good in pee-wee or 7th grade ball never turned out to be the better players in high school.

I agree with Coach...getting ridiculous.

rivercitybirdie · Feb 18, 2015

i think they already do it in basketball....... someone rates grade 3's for gosh sakes....

great great book about this phenomenon in basketball... "playing their hearts out" or something like that.... follows demetrius walker (eventually arizona wildcat) as he goes from best 6th or 7th grader in america to maybe borderline top 150 or so as a high school senior. demetrius was an ok guy but he was so fixated on doing things and acting to protect his young phenom status that he never got better nor developed fundamental skills (focus on was on devastating alley-oops etc.).... in grade 6 he's just so much bigger and faster than all of his opponents. not true for almost anyone when they get to 17 years old. AAU coach was perhaps the worst character i've ever encountered in a sports book. just despicable.

rivercitybirdie · Feb 18, 2015

cloverleaf said:
Back in the day...it seemed like the kids who were real good in pee-wee or 7th grade ball never turned out to be the better players in high school.

I agree with Coach...getting ridiculous.

i agree... at very young ages it often has to do with who matured the earliest.. and early birthrates in a year make a huge difference at that young age..

gladwell did much more complex analysis of this. he said in youth hockey (generally private teams and very very expensive for parents) that late birthday players never catch up because they aren't playing for elite teams (i would think basketball, football, soccer and even baseball might be different. much cheaper, simpler sports)

8ate · Feb 18, 2015

Hey; kindergarten student candidates are interviewed to get into the "right" private program; which of course will ultimately lead to admission to Harvard or Yale....Never too young to start...

CoachCB · Feb 18, 2015

rivercitybirdie said:
i agree... at very young ages it often has to do with who matured the earliest.. and early birthrates in a year make a huge difference at that young age..

gladwell did much more complex analysis of this. he said in youth hockey (generally private teams and very very expensive for parents) that late birthday players never catch up because they aren't playing for elite teams (i would think basketball, football, soccer and even baseball might be different. much cheaper, simpler sports)

Very good book. The part about the hockey teams was very interesting. Makes sense too.

EverFresh · Feb 19, 2015

CoachCB said:
Very good book. The part about the hockey teams was very interesting. Makes sense too.

Great insight as always "Coach"

CoachCB · Feb 19, 2015

^^^ I have this assclown on my "ignore list" so I can't see what he posts. However, be warned. He hangs out in the main forum posting nonsense, even posts "stories" that he calls his own that others have found from other message boards. For a more enjoyable RX experience, I would recommend you place him on your ignore list as well. Basically he's a worthless coward.