“Friday Night Lights” bring the world of small town Texas high school football alive. It’s worth watching no matter who you are, but if love sports, or if you have kids in or about to go to high school, you definitely shouldn’t miss it.

Gaius Charles – Friday Nights’ Smash Williams

One of the major plot lines is the story of the Dillon Panthers’ star running back, Brian ‘Smash’ Williams and his on- and off-the-field life and how that affects his chances to play for a major powerhouse. What’s interesting in the way they handle the story in the importance of both Coach Taylor and Smash’s Mom play in the process.

It’s important lesson for high school athletes. Your coach and family have an important role to play. In today’s supercharged world – with the internet and all-day and all-night sports radio and TV – the pressure on high school athletes can be enormous.

And in a way “Friday Night Lights” is showing a small-town world where personal interaction is the norm – and just maybe that isn’t the experience for many young people today.

It is very interesting to see the high-tech world of recruiting on-line. Here are a couple of websites devoted to recruitment. And let me say right off, that I’m not vouching for any of these places. If you sign on, that’s something you have to work out with the advice of your folks and coach.

This is what beRecruited.com has to say about itself:
“beRecruited.com is the premier football recruiting service for high school football players and NCAA football coaches.
Simply put: it works! beRecruited has been the choice for more than 150,000 users from all 50 states and 30 different countries. You can connect with over 25,000 NCAA coaches from divisions I, II, and III of which more than 9,000 are registered active users of our service.”

This is the myspace, facebook digital world young people live in. You post the details of your high school sports experience in L.A. or Flint, Michigan or Dillon, TX and college coaches thousands of miles away can check you out. This new plugged-in virtual recruitment works for club teams as well – including incorporated groups such as YMCA’s, Boys’ & Girls’ Clubs, Parks & Recreations, Churches, Businesses or Unincorporated Groups such as ‘Mom and Pop’ teams, squads, individual groups, multiple teams, multiple groups, etc.

Speaking of the new digital reality, this is a youtube world. And athletes have to have their own videos – letting schools know who you are as well as demonstrating what you can do on the field.

It got me thinking about the incredible opportunity for athletes to connect with kids they may never really interact with in class or the cafeteria. Chances are the best and most imaginative kids with a video camera or with the talent to create and edit a video that will get the coaches’ attention are precisely the kids sitting at the other end of the lunchroom from the jocks. And it you want to create a highlight film unlike any other, it might be worth it to make that connection.

Another internet site to check out for information about recruitment is scout.com. Let’s stick with football – this site declares:
“Scout.com has become the largest and most trusted source of football recruiting coverage on the Internet. It has been the official recruiting content provider to SportsIllustrated.com, CBS SportsLine and Yahoo Sports, and is now the official college team website partner and recruiting provider for FOX Sports team sites.”

Bryce McNeal

Here’s a typical item from the site:
We told you earlier in the week that Minneapolis Breck WR Bryce McNeal was about to have quite the weekend, between a Michigan visit and the New Level Athletics Passing Camp in Akron, he would have a full slate.

Well I don’t want to make this post too long. We’ll be blogging more about the ins and out of recruitment. In the meantime you can watch previous episodes of “Friday Night Lights” online at http://www.nbc.com/Friday_Night_Lights/.