60 Minutes did a story some weeks ago on the football factory known as American Samoa, a tiny island that has produced more NFL players than any other American territory. The Pacific Islands indeed are a football hot bed, and are becoming the crown jewel of college football recruiting, sure to increase with the new found exposure on 60 Minutes.
So on the recommendation of loyal HBCU Sports Blog supporter JG Rattler, I tried to find out just how deep the talent pool goes in Hawaii and American Samoa for the crown jewel of mid-major athletics, historically black colleges and universities. Surely, if the Pacific Islands are good enough for the west coast Division I universities to find talent, surely it can be good enough for HBCUs to mine for players.
Now I won’t be naive and assume every black college coach can make it out to Hawaii to recruit; these days, its shocking if coaches have budgets to facilitate overnight trips across their own state. Still, it’s worth a shot, right?
And that led me to Doris Sullivan, Director of the Pacific Islands Athletic Alliance. The Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting student athletes in Hawaii and American Samoa to achieve their academic and athletic goals beyond high school. I asked her about her experiences with coaches from historically black colleges. Her response after the jump.
Unfortunately the coaches are not really pushing hard in Hawaii. Wish they would, the kids here just want to go to college. The coaches dont have to come out here to recruit, though Im sure they would love to.
According to Sullivan, some HBCUs have an notable history of recruiting students from the Pacific Islands, in sports other than football. Mississippi Valley, Alcorn State and Savannah State each feature football players from the region. Schools like Jackson State and Johnson C. Smith have recruited athletes in tennis, golf and baseball.
Sullivan specifically pointed out JCSU head football coach Steven Aycock as the only black college coach actively recruiting in Hawaii. But interestingly enough, there are no players on the posted Golden Bull roster from the Pacific Islands.
Even more interesting, the PIAA recruiting page features plenty of Pacific Island football players committing to BCS and FCS schools, but no offers or posted expressed interest from one HBCU.
It seems to me that if northern HBCUs can create recruiting pipelines in Florida, and black colleges in Texas can build solid relationships in Maryland, than one or two HBCUs should have the swag to get kids from the Big Island or beyond. Collegiate sports are globally attractive, and globally competitive in the effort to find and cultivate talent. And when you consider that black colleges are already missing out on the best talent in their home states, it makes little sense that they would miss the opportunity to get the best talent from a reservoir of undiscovered athletes.
Technorati Tags: Pacific Island Athletic Alliance
Original Story:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HbcuSp...
25
2
