The First Great Recruiting Class

[Fatty McGee]

A look back at the very earliest days of recruiting.  No, not Arkansas specific but a great read nonetheless:

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/notre-dame-frank-leahy-1946-football-recruiting-class-signing-day-impact/

"Some seven decades later, as yet another national signing day arrives, there's a reason beyond the sheer weight of its talent that Leahy's class still matters. That class coincided with a historical nexus, one of those watershed eras, similar to the present moment, in which college football came face to face with its own scarred soul: Those Notre Dame recruits went through school amid an essential tug-of-war between amateurism and the free market. And without that postwar debate, without the hand-wringing of the purported reformers and the defiance of the SEC, none of what we know as "modern recruiting" — the overzealous message-board posters, the ESPNU hat dances, the relentless sales pitches of middle-aged men to teenage prospects — might exist in its present form. But after it was over, there was no turning back."

. . .

" At some places, the payroll for athletes was upward of $100,000; an All-American halfback named Shorty McWilliams transferred from West Point after the 1945 season because Mississippi State boosters reportedly offered him $15,000 in cash, a $300-a-month job, use of a car, and a job after graduation. At Maryland, a young coach fresh out of the service named Paul "Bear" Bryant loaded a group from his Navy pre-flight squad onto a bus, enrolled them with a "double scholarship" from the GI Bill and athletic grants, and won his first game a week later by a score of 60-6."

[DeltaBoy]

LOL pay to play was common all over the place back then.

[Inhogswetrust]

LOL pay to play was common all over the place back then.

Always has been and probably always will be............................. This "full cost of attendance" will not change it for the better either. Could even make it worse.