ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602260017
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
One of the most common measurements of recruiting interest is the amount of correspondence that a prospect receives. Mike Mitchem thinks he received close to 250 letters from Division I football programs, but he isn't sure.
``I didn't feel like counting them,'' said Mitchem, an offensive and defensive tackle for Cave Spring High School in Roanoke. ``So, I put everything in a box and weighed it. The box weighed 35 pounds.''
Letters, postcards, personalized notes on formal stationery, press clippings, media guides. There were enough to cover Mitchem's dining-room table on a recent afternoon. Nearby was a phone log with records of the calls he had taken from college recruiters.
The literature came from a virtual who's who of college programs. Mitchem received letters from Florida and Nebraska, the teams that played for the national championship in the Fiesta Bowl. He also heard from Southern California, Penn State, Tennessee, Florida State and Auburn.
``We were trying to be realistic,'' Mitchem's mother, Ann, said. ``But wouldn't you think, with all those letters, that he might have gotten one offer?''
When national signing day arrived Feb.7, however, there was no flurry of activity at the Mitchem house, no ceremony at the school. None was expected. The letdown had come in late November and early December, when Mitchem learned what a cold-hearted business recruiting can be.
Whether or not Mitchem ever received an offer is a point of debate. In at least one case, a coach left the impression that he wanted Mitchem to make an official visit, then never called back. The calls kept coming, sometimes three in a night, but at the end they were from Division III, non-scholarship programs.
``He's had all these ups and downs,'' Ann said. ``To know what he's put into this and then to see the look on your son's face when they tell him there's no scholarship for him, as a mother it breaks your heart.''
Hokies were fair
Mitchem's current plan is to enroll at Virginia Tech and try to earn a scholarship as a ``walk-on.'' His line coach at Cave Spring, Don Oakes, played for the Hokies in the early 1960s and Tech was Mitchem's top choice from the start.
``I didn't get my hopes up,'' Mitchem said. ``Rickey Bustle, the coach who was recruiting me for Tech, said they would let me know as soon as they made a decision. He called me back in November and said they were going to sign two offensive linemen and that I was No.5 on their list. They didn't string me along.''
Mitchem was aware that he might slip to the Division I-AA level and felt that James Madison might be an attractive option. Bob Crocker, an assistant coach for the Dukes, had expressed an interest in Mitchem and Cave Spring teammate, Jimmy Fusco.
``I can remember [Crocker] telling me, `We want you up here. That's the bottom line,''' Mitchem related. ``If I had gotten an offer, I would have gone there. But, when he called back the first week in December, he said they had nothing to offer me. He wanted to know if I wanted to walk on.''
Crocker said he was unable to comment on Mitchem, who, because he has not signed, is still considered a recruitable athlete by the NCAA. ``You're kind of asking the wrong guy,'' said Crocker, who referred all questions to the Dukes' recruiting coordinator of three years, Tim Pendergast.
Pendergast, who also coaches the JMU defensive backs, said the Dukes' recruiting effort starts in the spring of a prospect's junior year, when they mail out between 1,800-2,000 questionnaires to high schools in the Mid-Atlantic area. Six coaches are allowed off campus in May, when they ``research'' approximately 200 players each.
After that, JMU puts together a mailing list of 300 to 350 players. Pendergast said he had approximately 50 players he was actively recruiting going into the season. He had a ``hot'' list of 20 to 25 that he called once a week. Some he called twice a week, others once a month.
``Is it easy for a kid to be misled?'' Pendergast asked. ``I'll respond to that with another question, `Does a kid want to be misled?' Maybe there are coaches out there who mislead kids, but we don't condone that.''
But, when a player is told, ``The bottom line is, we want you,'' is it naive to think a scholarship offer might ensue?
``I guess you'd have to go to a court of law to figure that out,'' Pendergast said. ``My question would be, `Were you offered a scholarship?' I could see one of our coaches saying [what Crocker is alleged to have said]. There are a lot of ways to want a guy.''
Division I-AA programs are allowed to give the equivalent of 63 scholarships, compared to 85 for I-A schools, so the odds are much better for non-scholarship players at that level. In a normal year, Pendergast said, the Dukes will invite seven or eight players to walk on.
``At I-AA, you can't overlook anyone,'' Pendergast said. ``We have a great one, Quincy Waller, who showed up completely unannounced three years ago. This year, he made third-team All-American at defensive back.''
Gator bait
It is apparent that coaches take more liberties with phone calls because, unlike letters, they are unlikely to be recorded for posterity. In the fall, the correspondence is little more than a re-cap of the college team's performance and encouragement for a prospect to play well and keep on top of his studies.
One of Mitchem's most outrageous letters arrived from Florida assistant coach Bob Pruett, who said he would be talking with Cave Spring coach Steve Spangler ``as much as possible'' and that he hoped ``to attend as many of your games as time will allow.''
Mitchem said he later received a phone call in which Pruett told him, ``I'll be up at one of your games and, if I see what I like, I'll be sitting in the stands with my legs crossed, smiling because I know you're going to be a Gator.''
It was almost inconceivable that Pruett, the Gators' defensive coordinator, could have gotten to even one Cave Spring game. If he wasn't with his team, certainly there were high-school All-Americans in Florida to occupy his attention.
As for the letter, it's possible it was written by somebody else and merely signed by Pruett.
``That's possible,'' said Pruett, now the head coach at Marshall. ``My guess is, that letter was sent out early, we eliminated him as a prospect and he quit receiving mail.''
Actually, the letter was dated Oct.17, by which time Florida should have whittled its list to a workable number. But Pruett, who has recruited various levels of prospects for Marshall, Wake Forest, Mississippi, Tulane and Florida, sometimes has difficulty telling a prospect ``no.''
``The toughest thing to tell a kid is that you're not recruiting him because you're taking his dream away,'' said Pruett, who once coached at Gar-Field High School in Dale City. ``I try very, very hard to be sensitive with kids.''
There's never enough time to evaluate everybody, either because of the sheer size of the Division I-A program's mailing list, or because of NCAA rules that limit observation and contact. Coaches can go by high schools in May, but are not allowed to meet with a player.
``They don't get the personal touch,'' Pruett said. ``Everybody is looking for `sleepers,' but when do you find the time? You try to cover all bases, but you can't. The whole process is a vicious cycle.
``You can't go out and see 'em, so you take some kids who aren't good enough. It's a calculated gamble at best right now. With the really good ones, it comes down to the end and you're sweating bullets because the price of poker [at Florida] is so much higher.''
Check the marks
The issue is not whether Mitchem deserved a Division I scholarship, but whether he was led to believe he was a Division I prospect by schools before they actually had made that judgment. Even Virginia Tech, praised by the Mitchem family for its candor, wrote that it hoped Mitchem ``will join us soon in the Hokie Huddle.''
Certainly, schools didn't back off Mitchem because of his grades. He has a 3.2 grade-point average and scored 1,030 on the Scholastic Assessment Test as a junior (the minimum requirement for a Division I scholarship is 820). At no point has there been any question about his character.
One recruiter, who declined to be quoted, said his biggest question was whether Mitchem was as big as he is listed (6 feet 4, 265 pounds). Spangler, the Cave Spring coach, said he feels certain that Mitchem is at least 6-3 and probably is closer to 6-31/2.
``He's taller than that,'' Ann said. ``I've got marks on the wall from where I've been measuring him for years. The last time I measured him, he was right at 6-4, with his shoes on. Don't tell me he isn't tall enough. He's so long from the neck to the waist that I have to buy everything XXXL.''
Mitchem, whose 300-pound bench press makes him comparable to most Division I line recruits, was a first-team All-Timesland selection at offensive tackle. Fusco made first-team All-Timesland on the defensive line and actually visited James Madison but did not receive an offer.
``The coaches don't send us the letters and we don't listen to the phone calls,'' Spangler said. ``The recruiters talk to me, but they're never really committal. I was fortunate, when I took this job, to be thrown into the recruiting of [blue-chippers] Tiki and Ronde Barber. So, I know what an offer sounds like.
``With JMU, I thought there was a possibility there for Jimmy. As for Mike, they never led me to believe he had an offer. But if they're telling him, `We want you,' I can see where he might be led to believe he's getting a scholarship.''
`A meat market'
A similar situation occurred last year, when Northside linemen Roth Townsend and Jeff Painter consistently ranked high on preseason lists of the top prospects of the season. In the end, Townsend took an offer from Richmond and Painter went to Virginia, where he tried football briefly as a walk-on.
``I saw the amount of time football was going to take and decided it wasn't worth it without a scholarship,'' said Painter, who had a 3.7 grade-point average in his first semester. ``I was getting headaches from going against guys like [starters] Todd White and Jon Harris.
``I had just a pile of letters in high school [from] people telling me they were coming to my games or asking me to come to their games, which very much led me to believe I would get a scholarship. It left me very disenchanted.''
Painter said he never knew JMU wasn't going to offer him a scholarship until he visited the school on his own, stopped by the football office and asked Pendergast if he would get a scholarship.
Townsend considers himself fortunate to have gotten a grant from Richmond. At the time of the offer, Wake Forest was in contact with him, but the Deacons wouldn't tell him anything definite.
``The recruiting process, for me and every other high-school student, is basically hell,'' Townsend said. ``In July and August, I thought I would play for a Top 10 Division I-A program. But in November and December, I found out what it was really about. It's like a meat market.
``Everybody calls you up and tells me they love you and that they want you to come to their school. And then one day they call to say they don't need you. I was very grateful to Richmond. I thought I wasn't going to get a scholarship after believing for a year and a half that I could go anywhere.''
Townsend said the interest from peers, who had seen the recruiters parade through the schools, only made the situation tougher.
``It's embarrassing for these kids,'' Ann said. ``The kids at school are always asking, `Where you going? Who's giving you a full ride?' They think they deserve a scholarship. It's not any fun to say, `Hey, dude, I'm not getting a scholarship.'
``There was a time when we just couldn't get Mike to express himself. He was very irritable, very restless. There was a low point when I said, `Maybe we'll just forget about football.' That's when he snapped out of it and said, `But, I really like to play football.'''
All is not lost. The Mitchems aren't sure how they'll come up with the tuition, but Mike is going to the school of his choice. He got free tickets to college games, went through a process that few experience and, heck, he's got a box full of memories.
``My mom told me once, `Just throw that box away,''' Mitchem said, ``but, I never really thought about getting rid of it. I mean, how else would anybody know what it was like?'''
LENGTH: Long : 218 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. Mike Mitchem said of one recruitingby CNBexperience: ``I can remember [JMU assistant coach Bob Crocker]
telling me, `We want you up here. That's the bottom line.' If I had
gotten an offer, I would have gone there. But, when he called back
the first week in December, he said they had nothing to offer me. He
wanted to know if I wanted to walk on.'' color. Graphic: Chart: The
sales pitch. color.