The scary e-mail from Pittsburgh Sports Report came last night. Herb Pope, who will be a high school junior this year, wanted to “set the record straight” regarding reports that he was transferring (yet again) to another high school. This one down in Florida.
“I am down here now,” says Pope, “because one of my AAU coaches asked me to check it out.’
Pope says he doesn’t want to make any decision on a possible transfer public until Monday since he is in the middle of a several-day visit there, but then added this caveat, “Print that we have unfinished business at Aliquippa. We want to go for the gold. We lost in triple overtime last year.”
So he makes the trip down to Jacksonville, Florida in August out of courtesy to an AAU coach? If I’m the coach in Aliquippa, I’m not feeling totally confident. Especially when you consider his history of transfers.
Pope announced he was committing to Pitt back in early March. During the various camps over the summer, Pitt would have at least one coach on hand wherever Pope was to “babysit” him. Pope ended up having a great camp.
Still, in July he was saying he was not leaving ‘Quip and still had eyes only for Pitt.
Well…
“I opened up my recruitment, I guess you can say. A college coach told me that the Pitt staff won’t be there by the time I’m there,” he said. “But Pitt is still No. 1. There is a 98.9% chance that I will sign with them. If the staff is there when it’s time for me to sign, I will definitely sign with them.”
Pope’s cousin is Tommie Campbell, who just completed a standout football and track career at Aliquippa. Campbell is currently a freshman football player at Pitt and Pope — who calls his cousin “a freak of nature” — said he plans to watch Campbell play this fall.
“I am going to the Pitt football game against Notre Dame,” said Pope. “I can’t wait. I’m going to all of the bowl games, too. …Man, it would be great to have one family dominate at the same place in two different sports.”
I don’t particularly find this reason to panic or worry. I had a hard time accepting a verbal commit 20 months before he could actually sign as too serious. I mean, it was good to read, but come on. He’s a kid. It was a month after his cousin signed his NLI with Pitt.
I’m also not surprised a coach at another school pulled some negative recruiting. Whoever said it, has to be sweating bullets that Pope doesn’t start naming names. Not that it doesn’t happen, but it is a lot like looking at porn on the web: everyone is doing it, no one acknowledges it, and no one wants to get caught.
Incidents like that, I think are the real reason that coaches hate recruiting sites so much. These kids are talking to people who report it. There’s such a large chance that a teenager 16, 17, 18 years-old could just blurt something out. Something that just gets everyone in trouble.
A couple years ago, it was the Miami area football recruit, Willie Williams, who kept a blog for the Miami Herald of his recruiting trips. This led to new restrictions “voluntarily” implemented at some schools. No one wants this stuff exposed.
So they disparage the recruiting sites as rumor mills and fake journalism and ethically challenged. All the while, they seem to really just want to keep the seedy stuff they do hidden from public light.
