I am turned off by beauty pageants in which parents dress 6-year-olds like they were 20 years older.
I am turned off by parents who snarl at youth league coaches, men and women who volunteer their time, because they want their children treated differently than others.
I am turned off by the myriad of ways that some parents find to live vicariously through their children.
And I am really turned off by the publicity stunt Lane Kiffin and private quarterback coach Steve Clarkson pulled on Friday. Really, really turned off.
David Sills, a 13-year-old seventh-grader who ought to be thinking about mustering the courage to hold hands with his girlfriend, committed to Southern California after getting an offer from Kiffin.
Thirteen years old.
In the seventh grade
Ridiculous.
Clarkson has a web site on which he calls himself “dreammaker.” He’s also a publicity stunt looking for a place to happen. His fingerprints were all over quarterback Jimmy Clausen’s commitment to Notre Dame. You remember. Clausen arrived in a limousine and committed at the College Football Hall of Fame.
Clausen was supposed to be the greatest ever. He wasn’t.
Young Sills is from Delaware. Clarkson is based in California. The price for his voodoo football is $3,000 to fly in and do an evaluation and $300-$400 an hour to provide instruction. Who would pay that much? Remember what I said about parents living vicariously through their children?
Maybe Sills will become the greatest quarterback ever. Maybe he won’t even be any good. That’s really not the point. The point is that he, with at least tacit cooperation of his parents, is being used. He’s being used in Kiffin’s never-ending quest to say “everybody look at me.” And he is being used by Clarkson to make more money.
Friday’s commitment, of course, means nothing at all in terms of the future. It doesn’t mean Sills will play at USC or will even have an offer from USC when he finishes high school. It doesn’t mean he’ll go to USC if he has an offer.
Nothing of this is really about Sills at all. It’s about adults using a teen-ager for their own agendas.
And that’s sad. Very sad.
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