Decommitting is Shameless and Hurts College Recruiting to the Core

The “D” Word Is a Mess On the Hands of Parents That Let It Happen

Every week we are hearing it happening in high school across the land.  It’s a shameless action taken by an immature prep athlete.  In life it would be called going back on one’s word.  In recruiting it’s called decommitting.  Heck, look it up!  It’s not even considered a real word…yet.

Whatever happened to honor?  When exactly did a person’s word become so unreliable that “decommiting” evolved into something acceptable?  The off-the-field games college recruits are playing with the lives of college coaches and the hopes of college sports fans, especially in football and basketball, have run amuck.  Where are these kids’ parents?  How is it that these children are allowed to make public announcements about their decisions then allowed to moon walk away from that commitment as if it were a stink hole?  It does not make good sense and it is a deplorable practice which says more about the state of parenting today than it does about teenagers’ inability to make up their muddled minds. 

Star high school athletes already have a tremendous advantage in life as it is.  They are too often coddled as saviors and too infrequently admonished for bad behavior.  Decommitting is bad behavior and the kids who do this should be held accountable at home for creating a ruckus with such ripple affects.  Parents who instead elect to let such goings-on persist are not in control of their kids and should take a second look at themselves and realize what kind of miscreant they are putting on the streets for the rest of us to cope with. 

A commitment is just that and it comes with a firm obligation to the person to whom it was made.  It should not be entered into lightly and it certainly should not be used as a ploy to pry praise from anyone within earshot.  It’s just bad form.