Fair or not, recruits held to higher standard

The Murtha family turned its phone back on Wednesday.

A week and a half had passed since Kimberly Murtha's 6-foot-8, 305-pound All-American son, Lydon, decommitted from home state school Minnesota and chose Nebraska.

Could an 18-year-old kid commit a bigger sin? When that kid is ranked by some "experts" as the best offensive tackle in American high school football, no.

In the following days, friends became enemies. Radio talk shows made Lydon out to be a traitor. Newspapers said he was high maintenance. He'd be back home by the time fall camp ended in August, they said. After his switch people called the Murtha home venting their frustration.

So Kimberly Murtha cut off their means of contact -- she unplugged the phone for a week.

Lydon's older brother didn't go through this in high school, but then again, his interests were in music, not football -- where big-time Division I recruiting has become a business inside a business.

It's not uncommon for recruits like Lydon to receive dozens of calls a night from coaches, reporters and recruiting analysts.

Recruiting services like Rivals.com and TheInsiders.com soak up kids' 40 times, vertical jumps and rushing totals and then sell that information to fans who can't stand not knowing who the starting quarterback will be in 2006.

Rankings from talent gurus, most of who have never even seen Lydon Murtha, can tell you at the click of a button the name of the nation's best eighth grader.

Meanwhile, zit-faced teenagers are committing to schools on ESPN's SportsCenter.

"People hang on every little shred of news or rumor," said James Evridge, the father of Papillion-LaVista quarterback and Kansas State recruit Allan Evridge.

Especially when it's a juicy rumor.

On Murtha's recruiting visit to Minneapolis in December, his hosts took him and a group of recruits to a strip club. The recruits were given wristbands at a bar so they could drink for free. Murtha didn't like it. He decommitted, visited Nebraska and fell in love with the place.

Kimberly Murtha said bars and strip clubs weren't the only reason for Lydon's change of heart. The Minnesota visit just didn't go well.

Should it really matter? The kid changed his mind, just as, at the age of 18, you did and I did about everything from our favorite ice cream flavor to whether or not we liked our girlfriend.

Lydon Murtha changed his mind and became a villain in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Gopher fans wanted to drown him. You can even pick the lake, Lydon.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the following chat-room post appeared on GopherHole.com, a Minnesota recruiting site.

"Two seasons ago, Murtha was out for a month 'supposedly' with a broken foot. Well, one of the four games during that month happened to be homecoming, which of course Lydon was not able to play due to his broken foot. He was wearing a wooden shoe. Well, after we gave Prior Lake a thumping, it was off to the homecoming dance to enjoy the festivities.

"Well, what do ya know . . . good old Lydon no longer had a broken foot! In fact, he wasn't even wearing the shoe anymore, and was dancing around like he had just played in the game that night."

They said Lydon was overrated. His mom said they called him a "pussy."

"It was hard on him," Kimberly Murtha said of her son, who is a youth leader at his church. "He'd never been exposed to this kind of publicity and people talking about his personal life and exposing it to everybody in the state.

"I don't think it's healthy, but what do you do? He's got strong character. He pulled through it."

It happens in Nebraska, too. When Nebraska recruit Allan Evridge got fed up with the instability of Husker football in early January, he decided to go to Kansas State.

Mysteriously, two of the tires on his car were slashed soon after.

When Evridge's mom would check the Internet chat boards, she read lies about Allan. When she really got mad, she'd post a message herself.

Mothers do those things for their sons.

By Wednesday evening, the circus was over. Public ridicule was behind Kimberly Murtha and James Evridge. Their sons had signed on the dotted line and could dream peacefully about tunnel walks, screaming K-State fans and fanfare.

James Evridge said his family has learned a lot the past few months.

"You can't explain it until you live through it."

---

EDITORIAL POLICY:
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Spring 2004 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author; a cartoon is solely the opinion of its artist. The Board of Regents acts as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the publication of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its employees.