Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/916653
Phil Grosz, publisher of Blue White Il- lustrated, is one of a small group of re- cruiting pioneers in the media, going back nearly four decades. "Nastasi was the first person I ever saw who publicly made a statement in the spring of his junior year that he wanted to commit," Grosz said. "All the other guys who follow recruiting agree with me. They all talk about Nastasi being the guy who started the whole thing." There has been an exponential increase in early commitments nationwide in the past 25 years, and Nastasi is not pleased with how everything has changed since his historical pledge. "I think the early commitments are getting a little out of control," he said. "It's starting to steal the youths from some of the kids." Making history How Nastasi's early commitment hap- pened is a story in itself. Paterno and his staff did not intentionally set out to break the unwritten rule that restricted com- mitments to seniors. They sort of stum- bled into it, thanks to an offensive line coach who found an opportunity in the labyrinthine NCAA rule book. "Back then, you weren't allowed to re- cruit a kid until after [summer] camp," said Fran Ganter, then the Penn State of- fensive coordinator and place-kicking coach. "You weren't allowed to sit down and talk about Penn State. You had to wait until the campers were excused. So, once the dorms were closed and the campers were excused, we would have some of the prospects down at the football building. Joe [Paterno] didn't participate in the camp but he would be waiting down there, and we would introduce the prospects and their family or their coach to Coach Paterno and get them started in the recruiting routine." Penn State certainly had the inside track on Nastasi. His father, Joe Nastasi Sr., the highly respected head coach at Northern Bedford, was one of the scholastic coaches hired to assist at the camps. Nas- F ran Ganter hasn't been involved in the recruiting process for nearly 15 years, but he is big proponent of the new three-day early signing period im- plemented this December. "I think a majority of the kids will commit on the early signing date," Ganter said. "One hun- dred percent? I don't see that happening. It will be interesting to see what happens for all college coaches, not just Penn State, when you have a kid committed but he de- cides not to sign early. I'm not exactly sure what that indicates. Does that mean they're really not that commit- ted to you? "There are too many commits and decommits and recommits and all that kind of stuff. So, when a prospect commits to you in December, you know he wants Penn State and wants to be part of your program. But if he holds off, I'm anxious to see what kind of reaction that has. You might sit down in a staff meeting and say, 'We really don't have him,' and you would go off in a different direction. I really don't know." Ganter also said he believes recruiting is more honest today than it was during his heyday from the 1970s into the early 2000s. Joe Paterno made it a point not to talk about recruiting until after the formal signing day in Febru- ary, and even then it was low-key with little publicity emanating from the school. It was not much different else- where in college football. Some media outlets, like Blue White Illustrated, would cover the minute details of re- cruiting, but their sources were prima- rily high school coaches. That's all changed in this era of the internet, social media and dozens of professional and amateur recruiting services, where recruiting chatter is coast to coast 24 hours a day. "Prospect identification is much eas- ier now," Ganter said. "It's all done for you. All you have to do is go online and you can get the top 15 prospects from any state in the country. To go recruit in Tennessee or Georgia in my day, where do you start? We might have gotten a write-up or a call from an alum. The alum would say, 'There's a kid down here who's a great student and really sharp and I think you ought to look at him.' Now you go online, get the top 15 and contact their coaches and see if you would be in the hunt for the kid. "What I think makes things difficult for some coaches is you have to be 100 percent up front with who you're re- cruiting, where the prospect lines up in your plans. If you say to him, 'You're the only quarterback we're going to offer,' he can go online when he gets off the phone and find out you're chasing three other quarterbacks from across the country. I know that used to go on. It had to. But now you have to be hon- est [because] it's easy for a prospect to Ganter: Internet helping keep coaches honest GANTER |