Trusting the Process

Athletes dedicate years of their lives in hopes of getting scholarship offers, and as the offers pour in, hard decisions accompany them. Some athletes jump at their first offer, but for senior offensive lineman Christian Jones, his options for playing football at the collegiate level made him rethink his original commitment.

Jones was tell us when he originally commited verbally committed to Southern Methodist University, but as SMU’s head coach, Chad Morris, left the school for a position in Arkansas, Jones reconsidered his commitment to SMU.

“The head coach left with about 95 percent of the staff. It was a program on the rise, but it turned into a program that was quickly declining,” Jones said. “It wasn’t just me. It was almost the entire recruitment class, we were just looking for a better football opportunity as well as [an educational one].”

Following his decision to decommit to SMU, University of Texas and several other Division 1 colleges were offering Jones athletic scholarships.

“Other teams picked up on [athletes considering decommitting]. A lot of my friends who were committed to SMU were receiving offers from other schools. For me, I was getting offers from U.L.M., Syracuse, U.C.L.A., Cal and U.T,” Jones said.

The University of Texas’ head coach Tom Herman recruited almost an entire recruiting class just days before National Signing Day, as he said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.

“We had to make sure that these players stopped leaving the state,” Herman said. “That going out of state wasn’t more attractive to them. I don’t know that the University of Texas has changed. Obviously, the facilities were a big point of emphasisfeature march 2018 for us when we first got here, and that helps kids deserve to train and be trained in the best facilities in the country.”

Athletes need to think about coaching staff, education, and their position on the team when being offered other scholarships, having coaches, mentors and parents to help make the tough decision is imperative for the athlete.

“U.T. was my dream school,” Jones said. “Ever since I was 11 years old I wanted to go to the University of Texas. U.T. was the best of both worlds, they’re the face of college football, [and] McCombs business school is top notch.”

Jones started high school as a soccer player, and in sophomore year, he made his football debut. In just a matter of two years, Jones was offered scholarships from schools that student athletes dream of achieving their whole life.

“I started playing football two years ago, during sophomore year spring football,” Jones said. “It’s pretty crazy thinking about how much I have progressed, but I can’t really say that I’m surprised. There were days when I worked out three to four times a day. I’m just happy that the work has paid off, and I know I have so much more to offer and so much more knowledge to learn.”

Wide receiver coach, James Whitmore, guided Jones throughout the recruitment process.

“[Jones] and I talked quite frequently about what he should do and where he should go. I told him to weigh all his options before he put all his eggs in one basket,” Whitmore said. “He was set on Cal at first, but after taking his visit to U.T., he found himself a home.”

Whitmore understands the intensity of the recruitment process, as he was recruited to S.M.U. during his high school football years.

“College football is a multi-milliondollar business. I, having been recruited many years ago, understand the nature of that business. A commitment is only good once the student athlete’s name is signed on the dotted line,” Whitmore said. “In the meantime, schools will continue to seek the best student athletes available. It’s like the show, “The Bachelor,” the schools try a “woo” a player until he signs with them.”

The risk of an athlete decommitting from a school is that they don’t have a solid back-up plan. Without one, athletes might lose their opportunity to compete at the collegiate level.

“If an athlete is going to decommit, I would say make sure you have somewhere else to go [that is] guaranteed,” Whitmore said. “Most of all, I tell them to follow their hearts, because it’s four to five years of their lives [that] they are committing to a certain place.”

For the S.M.U. coaches, seeing an athlete decommit changes not only the path for the college team, but also for the athlete and their collegiate career.

“Being an S.M.U. alum, I would have loved to see [Jones] excel at my Alma Mater, but the main thing I told him is to find a place where he feels at home and that makes him happy. His happiness is the most important thing,” Whitmore said. “U.T. will hopefully be a good place for him to develop himself athletically and academically.”

For Jones, the opportunity to play for the University of Texas was a dream come true.

“Texas is my dream school,” Jones said. “McCombs is a great place and getting a degree from there would be amazing. Football wise, right now is such a great opportunity to write our names in history. The Class of 2018 has shaped up amazingly, and I can’t wait to see what we do in the next few years.”