Life ain't fair. It’s a lesson everyone has to learn eventually. So, the sooner kids realize that the stuff they’ve been told about honor, commitment, sacrifice and hard work is sometimes just hot air and bedtime stories, the better prepared they’ll be for the realities of the world.
No one needs to explain those truths now to Justin Taylor and Darius Philon, two high school seniors who believed all that nonsense about devotion and a man’s word being his bond.
Taylor, a star running back from North Atlanta High School, had been committed to play football at Alabama since the winter of his junior year. The Crimson Tide wanted him, and he wanted them. Everything appeared to be fine, even after the young man injured his knee and missed most of his senior season. But then the Tide upgraded, enticing five-star running back T.J. Yeldon to flip his commitment from Auburn to Alabama. Suddenly, Taylor wasn’t welcome in Tuscaloosa in the fall. He would have to wait until January, missing a semester of school, a season of football, and a chance to prove himself.
The process is called "grayshirting," and it’s very simple: Southeastern Conference coaches can sign only 25 new scholarship athletes at the beginning of each year, but there are more than 25 prospects out there who coaches want. So, rather than whittle down their choices, coaches will give and receive verbal commitments from players to lock them up. Then, with only weeks (and in some cases days) remaining before National Signing Day, the coach will come back and say, “Oh, gee, sorry, we’ve filled our allotment. We still want you, but you’re going to have to stay home this fall and come to campus sometime after Christmas break.”
Some take the news harder than others. Philon, a defensive lineman from Prichard, Ala., had been committed to Alabama since September and didn’t visit any other schools. But after Philon suffered a torn meniscus in December (and after the Tide signed two other defensive linemen, Dalvin Tomlinson and Korren Kirven), coach Nick Saban informed Philon that he would have to defer his scholarship until the spring semester.
Philon reacted the way you might expect from an emotional kid. He donned an Alabama hat at National Signing Day and then wept inconsolably.
Neither Taylor nor Philon signed with Alabama.
Taylor, who continued to voice his desire to join the Tide as late as January, finally saw the handwriting on the wall and signed with Kentucky.
"As far as pulling the scholarship, I think they did me wrong," Taylor said. "I was No. 7 to commit. That's all I've got to say. I was committed to them for a year. They could've handled it better."
Philon signed with Arkansas hours after breaking down in front of the cameras. He had never been to Fayetteville, Ark.
Kerry Stevenson, Philon’s coach, said the kid "had the world snatched out from under him."
Saban certainly sees nothing unsettling about the process. Even though these high-profile examples involve Alabama, the Tide is far from alone in the grayshirting battles, and the head coach resents you finding anything untoward about it.
"I think basically what we did was, because of the cynical attitude people have towards whether coaches are really doing what's in the best interest of the young people that we coach . . . which I sort of resent, to be honest with you," Saban said. "That's one of the things that we pride ourselves in, we actually took some opportunities away from guys that really wanted to come to Alabama that we couldn't sign, and they couldn't come here because we couldn't offer that option to them."
Stanley Pritchett, Taylor's head coach at North Atlanta High and a former Miami Dolphins fullback, said he counseled him not to wait on Alabama.
"I wanted Justin to go ahead and get started in college, and I've always told him that," Pritchett said. "When you're the first person in your family to graduate from high school, you don’t need to be sitting out."
It's a numbers game, or so say the defenders of grayshirting who have come out in force since the stories of Taylor and Philon broke. Saban had no choice, they contend. He was bound by the rules. He had to manage his roster to get the best talent in place. So what if a kid who had been committed a year, who was the first in his family to get a high school diploma and attend college, got lost in the shuffle.
"It kind of makes you mad," Pritchett said. "But you also feel good that he didn't go there. We trusted the coaches at Kentucky. They promised to take care of Justin. I think everything turned out well, ultimately."
Probably not, especially if Taylor and Philon flit off to Kentucky and Arkansas thinking those speeches about commitment and sacrifice mean anything. Fool you once, kid; shame on me. Fool you twice . . . well, you know the rest.
