East coast prospects play west coast ball

Navid Khoi/Roundup nkhoi.roundupnews@gmail.com

In the past five years, the Pierce football program has fielded more players from outside the state of California than any other school in the American Pacific Conference, a Roundup investigation has found.

The Brahmas’ 2012 roster is made up of 95 players, with 54 of them being outside the state of California.

Half of those 54 out-of-state players are either from Pennsylvania or New Jersey, which is where Pierce seems to get many of its recruits in recent seasons.

According to the California Community College Athletic Association, Pierce must recruit from Ventura County– their contingency area to recruit from– if district recruiting efforts fall short.

“We don’t go out of California to do recruiting, because we don’t know who any of these players are,” Pierce head coach Efrain Martinez said. “They have to get in contact with us, for us to even start looking into them to recruit.”

According to Los Angeles Southwest College head coach Ted Washington–who is also a member of the executive board of junior college recruiting– the only way to recruit out-of-state players is if they contact you first, then “it’s fair game.”

“None of these kids are breaking any rules by coming here to Pierce,” Athletic Director Bob Lofrano said. “Once they call us, they’re more than welcome to come out here and play for us.”

Lofrano also expressed that football players from out of state are still like any other student coming in from another state.

“These athletes are still students, they are just like every other student that comes here from out of state,” Lofrano said. “There is nothing in this school that says you can’t come from out of state.” essentials.” to live, if they have food, and other

Many schools in the American Pacific Conference, including Santa Monica College and West Los Angeles College, try to have as few out-of-state players as possible on their team, according to head coaches from each of the two schools.

“Many schools don’t recruit out-of-state players because it can become a big headache,” Martinez said. “Coaches have to worry about if they have a place sports, not just football.

The reason for this according to Washington is that many schools like to stay in their districts area for many of their recruits for all