ESPN OTL on David Sills the 13 year old who committed to USC football

Russ Smith

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Pretty interesting piece. They didn't focus so much on condemning USC and Kiffin for taking a verbal commit from a 13 year old 7th grader, they really focused on the dad. Comes off as the next Marinovich or Clausen in that regard.

Sills is now 13 and in 8th grade, his dad estimates he has spent 100K on private tutoring sessions with QB coach Steve Clarkson for his son, lessons that started when the son was 10. He refused to say how much money he's spent on the private school where his son plays in Delaware.

The state association is currently investigating the school, seems other highschools in the area have accused the coaches at that school of recruiting. The father started a non profit organization to raise funds to pay for scholarships for underpriveleged students who wanted to attend the private school but couldn't afford it. The guy who was initially put in charge of that program was a reverend who resigned when Sill's father declined to acknowledge the complaints that the non profit was simply a fund to provide scholarships for football players so that his sons team would be better. At the time the reverend resigned the scholarship fund had spent over 200K on 68 students, 58 of whom happened to be football players. Most of the players happened to be between 6th and 9th grade, Sills' son is in 8th grade so most of the kids getting scholarships are of the age that would allow them to play with Sills' son at some point in his HS career. His current starting OL averages 280 pounds.

3 parents of players at other schools told the state HS association that the school in question(Red Lion) had recruited their sons, in fact all 3 said Sills' father himself recruited them offering to arrange athletic scholarships. Sills the father also personally funded most of the stadium, his company built the stadium and built the workout facility on campus. He also started a company that provides specialized strength and conditioning for athletes, something other coaches say is just a front to recruit the best football talent in the area. The trainers also happen to be volunteer members of the Red Lion football staff, so these kids sign up for the training and then magically end up on scholarship to Red Lion playing with David Sills.

I can understand a father wanting the best for his son and he said he was advised to move to an area where his son could play bigtime HS football but he didn't want to leave Delaware. So this is his solution. But to an outsider it sure looks like he is recruiting and buying players to give his son a great HS team to play on. They are scheduling games on a national level. 2 opponents already this season have forfeited when they found out about the recruiting allegations and decided they didn't want to play a school that was operating in that manner.

Sills senior said USC offered to let his son attend USC practices every year through highschool when his son is not in school. That way he'll be familiar with the system and the offense when he gets to USC. The dad also arranged for USC coaches to meet with Red Lion coaches so that Red Lion could incorporate the same offense and same terminology, so that his son would be ahead of the game in learning USC's system.

Frankly I'm surprised that's not an NCAA violation, the NCAA doesn't consider verbal commits to be binding, and 7th and 8th graders are out of the NCAA jurisdiction, but once a kid starts HS there are strict rules on what type of contact a HS prospect can have with a school. I'm really surprised that USC letting the kid attend their practices every year wouldn't be a violation? I assume it's not or the father wouldn't have discussed it on air(he's a lifelong USC fan).

They did have an author on at the end who wrote a book about parents of athletes and he said the father is clearly missing the point, he's not making decisions in the best interests of his son. He said there's an inherent danger in "skipping steps" in the process to get ahead. That it may not be apparent now but it comes out later. He also pointed out that giving a kid professional coaching at 13 gives him an inherent advantage when he's young, but as he gets older other kids out there, who are better athletes, will get access to better coaching and they will suddenly catch up or surpass the kid. And then he'll find himself just another player and unable to cope with it after having been special since he was 10 years old.

Pretty interesting piece, I wouldn't be surprised if Pat Haden doesn't encourage Lane Kiffin to back off the kid and hold back on the visiting practices stuff. I get the impression Haden is serious about changing the mentality at USC, he wasn't AD when Kiffin took the commit and I suspect if he was, he wouldn't have allowed it.

Will be pretty interesting to see what sort of kid he is in 2015 when in theory he is a freshman at USC.
 

azsportsfan01

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Kinda creepy. I mean it is nice to see a dad try to help his kid but this is going way to far. I wouldn't be shocked to see this kid flame out soon and never be heard from again.
 

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