Tate Martell and college football’s cycle of recruiting absurdity

Do you know who Tate Martell is?

I didn’t, either. At least not until it was pointed out that he was the eighth grader that former Washington coach Steve Sarkisian promised a football scholarship to. That was a few years ago. So long ago, in fact, that the kid is actually almost ready to go to college.

Martell is in the news because of his college choice again. Actually, it’s more like how he un-chose a college, first agreeing to accept a scholarship to Texas A&M and this week announcing that he was re-opening his recruitment. The fact that his announcement was made through his Twitter account, which includes a telling article as @TheTateMartell, almost completes the whole cycle of absurdity.

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But then it was Aaron Moorehead – a former NFL player and alleged adult – who is a member of the Texas A&M coaching staff and began bemoaning the lack of loyalty in today’s game (wink, wink) without ever mentioning Martell. Oh yeah, Moorehead did that on his Twitter account, too, which features a picture of him displaying a Super Bowl ring.

Safe to say that humility is scarce in any corner of this story, which in my mind perfectly embodies both the problems and the absurdity of college recruiting. You have grown men recruiting the services of players at an increasingly young age – in this case in junior high – and inflating a kid’s sense of self-importance to the point that he finds it appropriate to bill himself as “The Tate Martell.”

And then when that athlete plays hard to get or waffles on his decision or indulges in self importance, there are other grown men who start criticizing him for a lack of character.

Is the kid really to blame? Or is it a system that inflates that kid’s sense of self-importance at such a young age when you have a football coach trying to cajole his commitment more than four years down the line?

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