FAYETTEVILLE -- Years ago a pizza chain declared it was a place that "a kid could be a kid."
Athletics used to be that kind of place, too. Yet among the precociously gifted, athletics seems increasingly less like that kind of place and for an increasingly shorter amount of time.
For high school seniors who are college football prospects, that time could be cut a couple of months and then some.
The NCAA recently allowing a December signing period lends a two months earlier option than the traditional first February Wednesday opening of the signing period. February and later signings remain intact.
But coaches extol the December signing period with some valid points.
For recruits with minds made up, it cuts by two months the ordeal of telling people no who don't take no for answer.
And for those with the high school credits to graduate in December, it probably eases the path to proceed to January spring semester college enrollment so they can start the winter offseason program and dive right into spring practice.
It can be a wonderful option for some, but certainly not for all.
Because as those with age review their lives, it's a good bet many look back on their high school senior spring semester as a treasured time.
It's that last spring into summer before college or the military or whatever career path. A sort of young adult yet still a kid time of growing through triumphs and mishaps alike.
Covering the Razorbacks since 1973, these eyes have seen a December high school grad like 2016 freshman defensive lineman McTelvin Agim thrive in his head-start winter offseason and spring practice to letter with significance in the fall and be the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville's most touted defensive player in 2017.
Yet for every Agim this memory abounds with a comparative multitude of spring freshman football arrivals departed early. They left homesick, disillusioned, some even gone before spring drills finished, some persisting for years but eventually transferring.
The December signing period is bound to increase the recruiting pressure on athletes to enroll and mature early.
Already it seems football freshmen, decades ago reporting in August, report too early, sometimes practically the day after their May high school graduation.
Since grade school, the little boy joy to play the game increasingly diminishes for many.
Little boy joy is essential, proclaimed the late Roy Campanella, the Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodgers catcher referring to baseball but obviously true for football, too.
"You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too." Campanella said.
This NCAA ruling, though with accompanying good points, joins the overall trend of decreasing the fun of those playing games.
Sports on 06/21/2017