Many years ago, when the old Spaulding Athletics was the place where coaches went to chew the fat, several were sitting around visiting early one afternoon.

There were three or four assistant coaches from the old AIC in the group.

A high school coach from eastern Arkansas came in and walked over to the group and immediately started talking.

“I got a can’t-miss player for someone,” he said. “I mean this kid, he’ll hit you. He’ll make you see stars.

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“ He’s tougher than a boot, fast and he’ll hit you.

“ He can hit the light switch and be in bed before the lights go off, and I mean I haven’t ever had one who’ll hit you like him.

“ Someone’s gonna get’em a winner.”

The college assistants were paying very close attention, but it was another high school coach who asked: “How big is he ?”

“Oh, he goes about 180, and he uses it like a battering ram,” the coach said.

“Yeah, but how tall is he ?”

“About 5-6, but he’ll hit you.”

That was a lot of the recruiting process back then.

Word of mouth, a little eyeballing and talking to a high school coach.

Actually, 20 years ago this past Monday, I looked up at a rookie reporter fresh out of the University of Missouri, Kane Webb, and said: “By the way, national signing day is Wednesday and you have the assignment.”

Webb, who has gone on to be one of the most talented editorial writers in America but will be leaving this month for the fastgrowing University of Central Arkansas, did a great job of getting all the information in the paper.

It was one story and no one complained.

Not anymore.

Recruiting has become a sport of its own, one that Otis Kirk helped define.

These days people want news year-round on recruiting.

It has changed for the colleges, too.

Coaches have unbelievable expense accounts, they get DVDs from high school coaches and there are recruiting services.

Yet, it still is not a perfect science.

For example a high school coach sent a DVD to a college almost a year ago that featured his best player.

Two weeks went by and the high school coach heard nothing, so he sent the DVD out to other schools and almost immediately started getting calls.

The original school heard about the other schools and called the coach requesting a “tape” of the player.

The high school coach said he sent a DVD two weeks ago and the college coach asked if he could transfer it to VHS because their DVD player was broken.

That player signed with a school that had a functioning DVD player.

What has really changed in the sport of recruiting is you now have multimillion dollar companies whose primary focus is keeping up with recruiting and it is all on the Internet.

“I subscribed to Rivals as soon as coaches started asking about my son,” one parent said.

Rivals. com and Scout. com are the two major players, and what they do is hire people in every state to cover recruiting for them.

In addition to what he does for this paper, Kirk is one of Rivals. com’s guys in Arkansas.

Literally thousands of people log on every day to see which kid is considering going where.

For parents, if the information is credible, it lets them know who and how many people are being recruited for the position their son plays.

The key word there, of course, is credible.

Everyone knows coaches stretch the truth.

Many 6-5 guys Wednesday will be 6-3 by the time they get on campus.

Some guys who run a 4. 4 will be 4. 5 or 4. 6 for the 40-yard dash.

It is just part of the recruiting game.

Coaches have always tried to help their players and they always will, and that part should never change.