Over the years, the St. Peter’s Prep football program has produced hundreds of top-flight players that have gone on to play college football. Some have been fortunate to move on to the best NCAA Division I colleges in the country.
For example, right now, there are players like Shariff Harris at Pittsburgh, Nyshier Oliver at Tennessee, Khalil Wilkes. at Stanford, Will Hill at Florida, Kee-Ayre Griffin at Temple and Will Thompson at Boston College, all former Marauders who went on to currently star at major college football programs.
But never before has the Marauder football factory produced such high-profiled college recruits in the same graduating class. This year, the Marauders have three seniors, running back Savon Huggins, offensive tackle Keith Lumpkin and defensive back Sheldon Royster, who are ranked among the very best college football prospects in the country.
All three Prep products are considered to be among the top 200 players in the nation, with Huggins, ranked as high as the No. 3 prospect in the land, leading the way.
It has caused an all-out recruiting assault on Grand and Warren, with practically any and every major college in the country calling upon these three talented teenagers.
The trio of Prep standouts is fielding offers from at least 30 different schools, with the college recruiters waving nearly $1 million in college scholarships at these players.
It could be enough to drive anyone – coach or player – insane with the demands for time, with phone calls, e-mails, media requests, you name it. And it’s all coming at a time when the Marauders are gearing up for their 2010 seasonal opener against St. Joseph’s Prep at Rutgers Stadium on Sept. 11.
“I think they’ve been pretty good with it all,” said St. Peter’s Prep head coach Rich Hansen, who has learned to deal with the college recruiting game over his 24 years as the leader of the Marauders. “It’s a difficult process for sure, one that takes up a lot of time. You’re dealing with coaches, with traveling, with setting up official visits, dealing with advisors. It’s really hard and you have to remember that they’re still kids. But these three guys have a good head on their shoulders. They’re being careful with the process. They’re not going to make any reckless commitments.”
Hansen should know about so-called “reckless commitments.” Just two years ago, Oliver first told the University of Tennessee he was going there, then changed his mind and gave a commitment to Notre Dame, then changed his mind a third time and headed back to Tennessee.
Hansen doesn’t want to have any repeat performance like that, because it paints a bad picture of his program to other college recruiters.
The college recruiting game has changed dramatically since the late 1980s, when Hansen first began sending his players to major colleges.
“The process all starts so much sooner,” Hansen said. “These three kids have been receiving letters and phone calls all four years. But I think they were prepared for what this was going to be like, by seeing some of their former teammates go through it. Savon is mature beyond his years. He can handle anything. Sheldon has gotten used to it. They know what questions to ask. They know what they want.”
Not only are there the phone calls and e-mails from prospective coaches, but there are hundreds of recruiting websites on the Internet that want to be the one who break the news about a possible verbal agreement to a certain school. There is daily speculation and rumor on the web. It’s really asking a lot of a teenager to handle all the pressure and the national attention.
Hansen said that he wished they made their decisions official before the start of the season.
“In a perfect world, that would have been best, but they’re not ready to step up and make a decision yet,” Hansen said. “Maybe they are going to make a decision soon. I really don’t know. But I told them now that their focus has to be on what we’re doing. There are going to be no accommodations made to take time off. I think they understand.”
In fact, all three have made the decision to take a step away from the recruiting process and get ready for the season. They have unilaterally agreed to focus on Prep football, not their future – for now.
“Ever since we started training camp, I’ve pretty much put it all to the backburner,” said Huggins, who has narrowed down his choices to a field of 10 that include Notre Dame, Rutgers Florida, Penn State, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Stanford, North Carolina and Georgia.
Huggins said that he receives a lot of e-mails. It’s a dead period in NCAA recruiting, so coaches cannot make direct contact to prospective football players.
“I try not to get annoyed by it all, because I know a lot of other guys who love to be in my position,” said the 6-0, 200-pound Huggins, who was the 2009 Hudson Reporter Most Valuable Player, rushing for more than 1,400 yards and scoring 20 touchdowns last year and set a new single-game rushing record at the Prep with his 312-yard performance against St. Joseph of Montvale.
“We’ve all put it to the backburner for now,” Huggins said of his two talented teammates. “We talk about it a lot and talk about different things.”
In fact, Lumpkin admitted that there has been some talk of all three going to the same school, much like the Miami Heat with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
“We talk about that all the time,” said the 6-foot-8, 290-pound Lumpkin, who has also earned All-Hudson Reporter honors in basketball during his tenure at Grand and Warren. “There is a possibility we could all end up together.”
Lumpkin was a late bloomer in the recruiting game and was someone who always considered basketball his premier sport. Not anymore.
“I never thought I’d be a better football player than a basketball player,” Lumpkin said. “But now I know where my future is. I never thought I’d be one of the top prospects, so this is like a dream come true.”
Lumpkin is considering Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan State, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, South Carolina, South Florida and Wisconsin among his college choices.
“I think the time has come to focus on this year and not the college stuff,” said Lumpkin, who worked on his football physique for the first time over the summer instead of playing AAU basketball. “I realized that football is the road I was going to take.”
The 6-0, 195-pound Royster is fielding offers from Illinois, Louisville, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, South Carolina, Syracuse and West Virginia. Royster, whose father, Shelly Archie, was an All-County running back at Lincoln in the 1980s, is also trying to trying to handle all the attention.
“It’s a little bittersweet,” Royster said. “I like the attention. Anyone would. But when they keep calling and calling, it can be a little bit too much. But I’ve been blessed. I’m getting a chance that a lot of other kids wish they had.”
If you were keeping score and figured out which schools had the chance to pull off the Marauder sweepstakes and secure all three Prep standouts, the list stands at three: Rutgers, Pittsburgh and North Carolina.
“Who knows what can happen?” Royster said. “We talk a lot together and that really helps.”
“It really helps to know that I have two teammates going through the same thing,” Huggins said. “They can tell me to keep my head on straight.”
“We can all relate to it,” Lumpkin said. “It makes things easier.”
That is, until the time comes to make the final decision. In reality, they have until Feb. 2, 2011 to make their decisions. That’s National Signing Day, when they all will sign their national letters of intent. That day should be a memorable one for the Prep football program.
“It’s great for the school and the program,” Hansen said. “I won’t say it’s a distraction to what we have to do. But they’re still fielding about six calls a day during the period and a host of e-mails. It is what it is. I’m sure they’ll all make a good, solid decision.”
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.