1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Barry Thompson (Fairfax Football Academy): May 26th, 10am

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

How does reclassifying help or hinder a recruits statsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the Coppull Chevrolet GMC Studios, here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery, on 937 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. It is Thursday, which means a couple of things are in play. 402, 424-6-48-5. I'm a text on Honda of Lincoln Hotline. video streams up

Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter Live. Twitter Live. Lots to talk about here and what happens is conversations that take place off air, show up on air, so we will do the very same thing

here with our next guess. The autumn wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea with a rollicking song he sweeps along, swaggering boisterously. His face is weather-beaten. He wears a hooded sash, with a silver hat about his head, and a bristling black mustache. He growls as he storms the country, a villain big and bold, gold.

And the trees all shake and quiver and quake as he robs them of their gold. The autumn win is a raider pillaging just for fun. He'll knock you round and upside down and laugh when he's conquered and won. Brought to you by the folks from Ambition Electric. Let's bring in Barry Thompson for his hour of sports radio on a Thursday. B.T. What's happening, man? What's happening with you?

nothing much man you know how my Thursday's role I just got off the field and uh you know it always feels like Friday to me I get through Fridays every week I love it it is spectacular we were talking off break uh and it came up so for whatever for whatever way it worked out I was two days from being eligible to play the following years. So I was asked, so I was asked to reclassify. And I don't think you and I have ever talked to, talked about this, but our high school coach has said,

well, listen, you're two days away. You could really reclassify, because you'll be the youngest person in your graduating class. And it'll give you time to, you know, let your body mature a little bit more. And it'll give you another year of exposure. And I thought, well, I don't know. and he goes, well, just think of you playing tailback against the juniors.

And I went, oh. Oh. And he goes, yeah, just think of you, you know, hitting against this next group of pitchers. And I was like, okay, you have my attention. Let's consider that. And reclassification is now a much bigger part of high school athletics. It's a much bigger part. And it also, what happens, it also affects college recruiting.

It affects transfer portal now. It affects NIL agreements now. It affects everything. So you have some experience. First of all, I ask you, can you imagine having another year in high school? No. The answer is no. Yeah, you were done.

You were ready. The answers no. You were ready. I thought about it. I really did. I mean, well, because he said, well, just think you with another year what you would do within this program. And there was that part of me that, well, yeah, I'd like to be the focus guy. I'd love to play against guys who I was playing against guys my age.

I mean, because I was the youngest guy on the roster, my senior year. So, you know, from, from. from my class. So there's a part of it. But then now it is making decisions that your place in recruiting, whether it's being graded three stars, four stars, whatever that is, that it changes your location and elevation when it comes to

recruiting by reclassified. Yeah. It's funny as thinking about it. I've been a part of it. And I can just speak locally, right? So I'm sure it's not the same. It's not uniform. So in our area in Northern Virginia, there are some private schools that will permit you to reclass. And when you do, and you move to the private side, the public school side has the clock that tick.

It doesn't matter. So let's say an example. Let's say, and it happened to Monaster, example. So my son, he went to the public school for his freshman year. And then after his freshman year, we were looking to move him and just long story short, he wound up down at Woodbury with me. And because of all the guys that they had there, they said, you know, you might want to think about reclassing.

So I said, you know, are you okay with it? And he said, just he was. so then he reclassed if he enters Woodbury as a freshman so he was ahead in terms of college and education and then he finished his second year there and then at the end of the second year he wanted out so we were bringing them back home

and first looked at the public schools and then we found out that if he entered the public school which would have been his junior year in Woodbury terms, they would consider him athletically a senior. So it could have been a situation where he went there as junior year and that's actually a senior year playing football and then he would have to go one more year before he graduated.

So here, once you make a decision, you've got to kind of stay in that string. What most folks are commonly doing is they're holding a kid back in junior high and then that kind of clears things up for him, right? Because they don't have to worry about a school policy. They just hold them back a year, and then he gains that year maturity or whatever they want to do.

What I can tell you is at the end of the day, I don't know that it makes a lot of difference. And if it does make a difference, it's for a very finite population, right? What you're talking about. Is there some kid up there who is a three-star because of his weight and he needs an extra year or two

to put some weight on. And if he does that or it gets stronger, faster that he'll be considered a five-star and he gets a scholarship or an area where he wants to go. Yeah, but that's got to be a very small population. It's just not a cure-off for everybody. Go ahead.

Yeah, as it plays out, right? That if it happens somewhere, it happens everywhere. Yeah. Right? That, right? Yes. That's not exclusive to it.

And that parents start to do the math pretty quickly. Let me interrupt too quickly. Right. Parents do math too quickly. Way too quickly. Go into detail with that for me. You know, the nature of what I do is I'll get a parent who I can tell is they're good people. They really are.

I can tell that they're a little anxious about a 10 or 11-year-old, and they're already. I'm going to run a middle school camp, quarterback camp this Saturday. I'll have 30 QVs there, and I know I'm going to have a Q&A segment for the parents, and I know they're going to start talking about recruiting. And I've got to break it down to him. The first thing he needs to do is get on the football field. He's trying to be one, right?

You've got to understand that you can think about recruiting, but we've got to get them on the field. You've got to be a starter. And then the next goal is, can he be the best football player at his school? If he's the best football player at school, he works to that standard, do you have any question that he'll be recruited for college? The answer is no. But yeah, they're going to ask me, and it's legit questions.

But they're doing math too soon. It should be like, hey, what can I do to help him grow and develop? But it's going to be, hey, how do I get him recover? recruited. And I'm like, okay, you've got to get them on the field. And there's a way to do that. Right. Excuse me. So yeah, it's like first thing first. So they're not bad. I'm not saying they're bad. These are probably good parents I have, but they just start doing math a little too soon. And they don't understand that athletic development is long-term development.

And it doesn't happen right away. It happens over time. that process is that the person will take themselves through is the most valuable thing. It's not the reward. It's not the scholarship. It's not the, that's not it. Because once you get the scholarship and once you get the stars, you can land on campus. Nobody gives a flying whirl how many stars you have. Can you play?

Can you play? Well, it's that constant reshuffling of your, your importance and value to the program. And saying to folks out loud, focus, focus. Like, I think every coach should, especially during the improvement season, should just wear a shirt that says focus. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny you say focus.

You know, like I said, I'm fortunate to work with, and by the way, I told you last time these guys will hang out with me. other. They're right in front of me. They've been hanging out for 45 minutes. But among that group, one of the biggest things that we do is to focus on a specific thing, whatever it is. And when you see them getting better is you see how long they can sustain that focus. Now you've got consistency. That consistency breeds confidence. And now the next thing you know, you're going out and you're playing, right? There are these steps involved in the process. Focus is a big part of it.

Focus on what's in front of you. Focus where your feet are now. Yes, you can plan, but you still have to focus where you are. And then you have to, these steps have to be in some type of logical order, right? It just doesn't happen overnight. It just really doesn't. And you can't relationship your way into these things. that's one of the great things about sports in general

is that you you know there's a bottom line to this either you can do it or you can't either you win or you don't right and that's it you know and if you don't get the result that you want you haven't worked hard enough at it you haven't worked correctly hard enough at it

say that again right I'm just saying and you get me on my horse you sometimes like you know sometimes I have a quarterback to add to say I just want a fair competition I go what do you think of fair competition is. They go, well, we'll just put the two up and you'll ever son. I go, that's not competition. And here's competition. Your

son that's competing against the O.C. son. That's competition. That's what life is. Can you overcome that? Like, and they go, well, no, it's not fair. So we'll, look, slow down. If your kid is going to become a college football player, right? If I have them as a college football player, as a freshman, he comes back to the high school. school will he beat out the OC son? The answer is yeah. Well then then he should be able to beat out the OC son now. Right? Figure out how that gets done. It's not easy. It's not

fair. But figure out how it gets done because that is competition. It's never fair. Competition is rarely fair. And the place that they're trying to go is certainly not going to be fair. Oh my gosh. Just bring Guy Myers into it. He got He got picked up. He was there for a week. And yesterday he got news that some guy that got cut that they were trying to pick him up. And this is in the morning meetings and that if they got this guy, that he would be cut.

Nothing to do with a guy. Totally unfair. So we had a talk in the afternoon. He said, what can you do? We talked about being professional. I said, if you get any reps in practice, you better kill him. And he went and killed him. They didn't get the guy.

And we thought he was going to get the hat this morning so far, no news. So he gave him something to think about. Totally unfair situation to put him in. Ready to cut this guy and hadn't even seen what he's done, right? Yep. But it's the business side of it, right? But he fought. And I said, now you're learning what it's like to be a professional quarterback.

Everything past Little League is business. And folks need to do it. It is. All right. Hey, B, we need to get four segments in this hour. So we'll go toward the break. We'll come back and we'll go to the text line. And the question is, so you have time to think about it.

it is. If you have a junior or senior in high school, does a year in prep school do the same thing? We'll get your answer and your thoughts. When we come back to Barry Thompson, I are here brought to you by ambition election. Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch. You're listening to

one-on-one with DP on 937 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com.