YouTube For High-School Jocks

theodp writes "Used to be college scouts had to put in lots of miles to find a hick from French Lick. But thanks to the Internet, athletic recruiters no longer have to traipse out to actual games to find talent. The players are coming to them via links to video streamed from sports-info websites like Student-Athlete Showcase, iPlayers, and GetMyNameOut. The home-video-meets-NFL-Films highlight reels — which parents commission for a fee ranging from $300 to $5,000 — have become a standard component of college applications for jocks (as well as for aspiring actors, dancers, and musicians). One sales pitch: 'Are you willing to risk your child's potential scholarship with a homemade videotape? Remember, first impressions last forever!'"

Comments

Jock?

[Lurks]

I wonder if someone could clear it up for someone who isn't an American, what's a 'jock'?

Re:Jock?

[Anonymous Coward]

A jock is a subclass of high school athletes who generally bully nerds and geeks and tend to act fairly arrogant.

The characterization of athletes in this article shows the high school nerd mentality that everyone who is athletic must fall into the class of people who bully nerds. Most people outgrow this attitude as they get older and don't make such bigoted characterizations. Sadly, as this article shows, not everyone does.

That's short for "jockstrap"

[MichaelCrawford]

... an undergarment worn to keep one's testicles out of harm's way during sports play.

A jock is an athlete, and therefore the bane of every Slashdotter.

A jock is not an athlete

[HateBreeder]

A jock is not an athlete, see here for clarification.

Re:A jock is not an athlete

[phulegart]

Actually, by your link to the Urban Dictionary, a Jock is indeed an Athlete. However, it is just not a "Real Athlete" according to at least one of the definitions submitted by those who chose to put their two cents in. I find it strange that by submitting this link as proof of "A jock is not an athlete" you appear to believe that being physically involved with sports activities does not constitute athletic status. The Majority of the definitions I read at Urban Dictionary confirm that Jocks are indeed athletes, only athletes that are also bullies, bigots, or have anger management issues.

It is interesting to note that the majority of definitions there also appear to be written by people who would never consider themselves to be a "Jock". Now, I know that some of these would be the "Real Athletes" mentioned in that one definition, however I would not hesitate to guess that most of these people would be those people who grew up hating "Jocks" during their school years, for a number of reasons.

Re:A jock is not an athlete

[WedgeTalon]

Well then maybe you should use a REAL dictionary:

Jock:
2. [n] a person trained to compete in sports

Athlete:
[n] a person trained to compete in sports

Re:A jock is not an athlete

[loganrapp]

Jock:Athlete

Nerd:Slashdotter

good business models are few and far between

[root-a-begger]

Its good to see some original business models coming out. I have grown tired of so much reliance on ad models. Perhaps this Internet thing is here to stay.

nice idea

[rucs_hack]

I can see that this would be extremely handy in the US, given the sheer size of the country. Parents should take advantage of any method to get their kid noticed. I do wonder however whether some ripoff sites will start charging nieve parents large fees for poorly made or badly placed video's.

Re:nice idea

[vertinox]

Parents should take advantage of any method to get their kid noticed.

I find this rather dubious with using videos solely rather than watching on site performance because as everyone knows, you can pretty much doctor even the worst performance and make it look good with the right sound bites and clips. Then those athletes who may even be better at the sport and who can't afford to make a good production video won't get as much attention.

Of course, one would suspect something if a set of parents spent $50 grand on hiring Pixar to make their son's youtube video.

Re:nice idea

[owlnation]

Any Sports team that based an evaluation purely on a video deserves everything it gets.

However, as a starting point it's an excellent way of whittling down candidates and seeing what's out there. This is a good idea as long as it doesn't become exploitative (um, which for modelling and acting such things very much already are). Yes, you can alter perception to a degree with CG, with visual effects, or even just good camera direction -- however, this is highly skilled and very few people on Earth can do it, most of them already do indeed work in the film industry.

Incidentally if you think Pixar would do a YouTube video for 50 grand... try 50 grand per second, and you'd be closer.

Re:nice idea

[nacturation]

Of course, one would suspect something if a set of parents spent $50 grand on hiring Pixar to make their son's youtube video. Madam, we're very impressed by your son's video. Not only does he have a high polygon count, but the vertex shading is incredible.

A jock is not JUST an athlete.

[Anonymous Coward]

A jock is a stereotype of an athlete, which has considerable basis in reality and is a particular feature of American sports and high school culture. Essentially a jock is an arrogant, anti-intellectual athlete. A central portion of the stereotype is persecution of the less socially and athletically skilled but smarter types who hang around on tech websites like this one.

Apparently, in Europe being interested in both sports and intellectual pursuits is socially acceptable. This is not the case in most high schools in America. Since sports are good at making their practitioner desirable to women, and the athletic types get away with persecuting their social inferiors, there is quite a bit of bad blood between academic and athletic types here in the states.

Hope this helps!

Re:A jock is not JUST an athlete.

[SCHecklerX]

I think the main distinction is team sports. Football, Basketball, Baseball. When I was in high school, those are where I saw the jocks as described in these definitions. Not even the wrestlers acted like that (and our school was big into wrestling, with several of our guys wrestling at the state and national level). Nor did the track, or cross country athletes (of which I was one, as well as being a 'band fag').

Of course not all football/baseball/basketball players were like that, but I didn't see that behavior at all in any other sport.

Fast forward to today. Those adults playing team sports still strike me as dumb jocks vs. those who are runners, triathletes, cyclists, endurance athletes.

Just my observations in the central pennsylvania area. I realize it's likely different elsewhere.

Re:A jock is not JUST an athlete.

[niteice]

My HS must have been the exception. The majority of the football players (who were also frequently basketball and baseball players) were actually fairly nice guys, quite a few were in honors/AP classes. I dunno if the coach(es) told them to be nice, or if they genuinely were that way, but they were quite affable people.

Re:A jock is not JUST an athlete.

[Blakey Rat]

Oh shut up. You're making us all look bad, especially by being modded up.

Yeah, you had a bad experience in the AV club in high school, get over it. Go to your local park and find an ad-hoc football game, talk to the guys, then tell me they're all arrogant anti-intellectuals. Hell, some of the smartest people I know, in the most cutting-edge tech companies, have basketball and soccer teams organized.

Stereotypes are bad, mmmkay?

Re:A jock is not JUST an athlete.

[Chris Burke]

Oh come one, he said it was a stereotype, which if you're going to offer that fact up means you know that it doesn't apply to everyone. And he's absolutely right that it has a basis in reality, the reality of our high school culture. High schools are demented, dementing places where social strata are formed based on fashion, and higher strata are allowed (and to maintain status often required) to harass lower strata while the faculty look on and smile. This is, of course, a generalization, and doesn't apply to every school. But I should hope that if you can't see any truth to this description of high school and the social pressures it creates, then you are probably in the minority.

It shouldn't be surprising at all that outside of a High School most athletes tend to be much nicer, more humble, and more accepting of intellectualism if not intellectuals themselves. A park pick-up game isn't passed through the filter of high school athletics. Hell, some of the worst "jocks" I knew in high school became vastly better human beings the very second you interacted with them outside of that pressure-cooker of social dysfunction.

There is definitely such a thing as a "jock" and they are by and large a byproduct of high schools where while the nerds may use the term "jock" derisively, it is most often used as an aspiration.

The fact that being a "jock" is completely meaningless after high school is why things get so much better in that regard, just like every meaningless social issue in high school gets better after high school.

bullshit

[Jerry Beasters]

What kind of bullshit is this: "have become a standard component of college applications for jocks?" I work in a school in a major metropolitan area with many great sports players. I guarantee you that if this was a "standard component" of college applications in any way I would have heard of it before. Why must you stretch the truth? No where near a majority of "jocks" have even heard of this.

Lots of hostility...

[jdtch]

You know, I can't help but feel that there's a lot of anger in this post. I was picked on in high school too, but you know what? Having moved on, I no longer harbor anger or resentment towards people who may resemble, by their extracurricular activities, people who picked on me in high school. Above all, I don't resort to the kind of name-calling that reminds one of all too many calls of "NEEEEERRRRRRRRDDDDDDD".

Not quite accurate

[schnikies79]

I worked for a pro sports team and have seen more hours of game film than most slashdotters have sci-fi. Coaches and recruiters look at film and if it looks good, they go and watch them play in person or have them come in for a practice. Film has been used for years in recruiting but it has never been and is not currently the sole decider. Any recruiter worth his salt will not never try and recruit someone based solely on film. Do you really think that don't know that people will pick out the best film or even have it doctored?

A little side rant. Whats with this idea that you couldn't have been an academic in high school while playing sports? A significant number of the 10% of my class played sports, usually more than one. Very few on the other end of the academic scale did anything extracurricular. No they didn't get in the top 10% by taking bullshit classes either as our harder (advanced and AP) classes were weighted 5.0 on 4.0 scale.

My buddy Stefan Youngs played for the London Irish

[MichaelCrawford]

... Rugby Club, at the same time as he was a marketing exec at IBM. As part of his work he had to learn to program in COBOL, FORTRAN, JCL and IBM 360 assembly code. So yeah, you're right.

Other sites?

[fahrbot-bot]

...standard component of college applications for jocks (as well as for aspiring actors, dancers, and musicians...

Where's the site for aspiring p0rn stars?

Two words...

[GarfBond]

Aleksey Vayner...

'nuff said.