The news came hard. It always does, especially for a kid who has yet to experience the inherent cruelties of the world outside of high school and parents and coaches who have pounded the message that hard work pays off in the end.
Justin Taylor believed that message. The 5-foot-11, 208-pound running back for North Atlanta High School played by the rules and did everything asked of him. He was in the weight room early and on the field late; he worked hard to keep his grades up and avoided the trouble that lures far too many Atlanta schoolkids into drugs and petty crime. Football was his future.
It looked as though that future would be in Tuscaloosa, playing for the team with two national championships in the past three years. Taylor visited Alabama for the first time last February during his junior year. He committed almost on the spot.
"Alabama was my No. 1 school, so I felt like, why wait?" Taylor said at the time. "When I found out they were as interested in me as I was in them, I didn't hesitate. I knew that's where I wanted to go. . . . When I was there, Coach Saban was talking to me and telling me everything that I needed to know. I decided then that I was going to go ahead and commit."
But Taylor's next conversation with Saban was as close to devastating as the young man had ever known.
After missing his senior season because of a knee injury, Taylor rehabbed and got back to full speed, assuming everything was fine. Then his high school coach, former Miami Dolphins fullback Stanley Pritchett, got a call from Alabama defensive line coach Chris Rumph, a teammate of Pritchett at South Carolina. Taylor would not be going to Alabama next fall.
"Coach Saban said he wished he would've been able to tell me this in August instead of now," Taylor said when he finally spoke with Saban right after the BCS Championship Game. "He said the only reason he can't sign me is because he can't sign 26 people. They can only sign 25 people. He said he was going to sign me with the next class."
Because Taylor had committed but not signed, he wasn't technically "over-signed," a practice of committing more players than the school has scholarships to fill. But the net result is the same.
Over-signing is based on the same logic airlines use when they overbook: Some people aren't going to make it. Just as some passengers will miss their connections or oversleep, some high school athletes will change their minds, or fail to keep their grades up, or get into trouble during their senior years. You sign 28 or 29 kids assuming three or four are going to drop out to bring you down to 25.
But as infuriating as being bumped from a flight might be, the airline usually gets you on the next plane out. High school kids like Taylor are left in the lurch for a year during one of the most vulnerable periods of their lives, a time when bad influences abound and life-alternating decisions are one night out away.
The Southeastern Conference banned the practice of over-signing, in part because of programs such as Alabama, which had a notorious history. At last summer's conference meeting, Saban was adamant that over-signing wasn't a problem, and the media was blowing it out of proportion.
"You're going to mess up the kids getting opportunities by doing what you're doing," Saban said to reporters. "You think you're helping them, but you're hurting them. You take one case where somebody didn't get the right opportunity, but you need to take the other 100 cases where somebody got an opportunity because of it."
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier was even more emphatic: "We're in favor of over-signing. We've never had a problem with too many qualifying and not having room. Generally, we sign five to eight guys who don't qualify and it gives us a little room."
Not anymore. The conference banned the practice. But instead of over-signing, coaches are over-verbalizing, giving and receiving over-the-phone commitments that are not worth the paper they are written on.
No exact numbers are available on over-commitments, although those who track such things put Alabama near the top of the list. Some kids will go elsewhere. Others, like Taylor, will wait it out.
"They are going to find me a job," Taylor said. "I'm going to work. I'm going to physical therapy and get strong. I'll come in with the class of 2013.
"I'm going to go ahead and stick with Alabama. I mean, I'm committed to them. They committed to me. They want me. I know they want me because that's what they're telling me."
Another verbal commitment with all the value of air.
