Who's he taking to prom?

Having grown up in a time when the Commodore 64 was the ultimate in personal computing (figuring out the codes to change the screen color was a big day in my early geekdom), I have to say, for the most part, having Internet access the way we do now is pretty amazing. As a surfer, or having once been a surfer before my wife and I decided to triple our food bills, cut our sleep in half, and to square our stress level…I mean, before we decided to have children, it is great to be able to go on line and check live webcams of surf spots instead of spending copious amounts of gas and time looking for a spot that is breaking. Yesterday I realized that I had forgotten to renew a library book that was due, and instead of having to schlep downtown to the library, a few clicks and it was renewed. Problem solved courtesy of a few ones and zeroes.

For a sports fan, the Internet is part nirvana, part heroin. Want to watch highlights of Gale Sayers gliding past defenders? Just check youtube. Need to find out Fernando Valenzuela’s ERA in 1984? You can find it on baseball-reference.com (it was 3.03, by the way). For a stathead like me who devoured MLB box scores from the LA Times Sports section every morning, it’s awesome, beautiful, and dangerously addicting. And don’t get me started on the impact it has had on fantasy sports, because my wife has a divorce attorney on speed dial ready for the next time I mention how many fantasy points Chris Johnson scored for my team this season.

However, there are a few drawbacks to having near-instant access to tons of information, even for sports fans. It used to be early February was a time for sports fans to talk about who won the Super Bowl, check in on the conference races in college basketball, and ask when do pitchers and catchers report for spring training. It was a time for gearing down before the late-March/early-April crush of the NCAA tournament, the start of baseball season, and the Masters (leading into the NFL draft and the NBA playoffs and ensuring that most husbands in America would spend at least 10 nights sleeping on the couch). It was a time to re-introduce yourself to the family, maybe take care of a few hundred chores, and throttle back a bit. Now, sports nuts around the country are consumed by Signing Day.

For those of you who aren’t college football fans, Signing Day is the first day when graduating high school seniors can sign a letter of intent with the colleges of their choice, accepting scholarships to play football. For college football fans, Signing Day ranks perhaps just behind the BCS championship as the most important day on the calendar.

Actually, it is probably the biggest day on the calendar for fans of the college game. The BCS Championship only has two teams competing, and usually has a third team bitching about not being picked for the game. On Signing Day, every team gets to play, so to speak. Every fan has something to talk about, results to compare, stars to count, and predictions to make.

It used to be that to find out about UCLA's recruits (and USC's), I would read the little story in the LA Times the day after Signing Day and read some summaries of players I had never seen nor heard of before in my life.

Now, thanks to the Internet, fans like me spend months wondering if this SuperDuperCantMissRecruit (SDCMR) or that SDCMR will choose their favorite school. We'll have watched countless grainy youtube clips of high school games where the SDCMR's of our dreams have run roughshod over players who have more Clearasil than athletic tape on their bodies. We'll read so many updates that we'll include Tom Luginbill, Greg Biggins, Tom Lemming, and Brandon Huffman on our Christmas card lists. We'll hear 134,598 stories about top players that come from inside sources such as, "My son's teammate's sister's best friend who knows the cousin of the trainer at Player X's school said that he likes Florida State" and treat them all as gospel. We won't remember our children's birthdays, but we'll remember what Jackson Jeffcoat was wearing in his latest picture on Facebook.

Signing Day is like Prom and recruiting turns grown men into high school girls. After a SDCMR visits the school you root for, the message boards for that school look something like this: “What did he say? Does he like you? He said he likes you? OMG! So, does he like you like you, or as a friend like you? GTG call me later, k thx bye.”

And when the SDCMR visits another school (especially a rival) and has a good visit, the boards look something like this: "He needs to get over himself. He ain't all that. Seriously, you can do better than that. Whatever, I'm so over him. Like that shirt he wore on Tuesday was so awful - gag me. Can't believe he'd want to go with someone else. r u ok? Luv u, call me, bye."

National Signing Day breaks fans' hearts and gives fans delusions of grandeur. Miss out on a top prospect and you're hoping the guy tears both ACL's on his way to his refrigerator (that's from an actual post I saw on a message board today). Get a 5-star player, and you start looking to see where the next three BCS championships are going to be played.

As a UCLA fan, past Signing Days have been excruciating experiences. When Pom Pom Pete Carroll was at the University of Simpson's Cellmates, err...I mean USC, Signing Day was filled with the Trojans getting more SDCMR's than they knew what to do with. Meanwhile, Karl Dorrell would have long filled the Bruins' scholarship allotment with plenty of sleepers who didn't have much competition (or much chance of being a difference-maker). Bruin fans would literally be shocked when we signed one player of national significance, and we'd wonder why it seemed every top player in the city went to the school where players have been hit by stray bullets from drive-bys instead of the one located in the hills of Westwood.

However, with the arrival of Rick Neuheisel last season, UCLA finally had a coach willing to go toe-to-toe with the Evil Empire across town for the top recruits in the area, actually pulling in a few that 'SC wanted last season. And with Carroll's departure and Monte Kiffin's son taking his place, I actually arrived at a Signing Day with some optimism.

I had to work today, but thankfully it was a half day, so I could spend more of my valuable time agonizing over the whims of adolescent males. Some guys took today off from work so they could follow it more closely (if I ever do that, my wife has permission to seek a divorce immediately). My dad was sly enough to schedule his knee surgery early this morning so he could spend time "recuperating" with the television on (I guess ACL stands for Always Check Letters of Intent?).

Many of the top players have made their choices known for weeks, but there are plenty who have waited until today to make their decisions, with the biggest names having press conferences televised on ESPNU, Prime Ticket, or other media outlets. The fans either watch tv, check every web site possible (I think I had tabs open for Bruinsnation, rivals.com, scout.com, ESPN, and SI.com all day today), call people in the know, or some combination of all three.

If a player with a televised conference has your school under consideration, the tension is brutal as they lead up to his decision. To go back to the prom date idea, you are wondering if he'll pick the hot captain of the cheerleading squad with rich parents and a great personality (a school like Florida or Texas), the girl who looks great in a formal dress but would rather you take her to a ballgame (UCLA), or the slutty chick who looks good in all the right places but will end up giving you the clap (USC).

Honestly, most fans probably don't care about the way these kids conduct themselves, speak, or do in class so long as they contribute to plenty of wins on the field during their college careers. However, it's always good when you can get a player who will represent your favorite school well off the field as well as on it. That's why the day started off well for the Bruins when linebacker Jordan Zumwalt picked UCLA over Stanford. Stanford doesn't usually admit athletes who can't spell the name of their school mascot (unlike USC commit Markeith Ambles, who thinks he committed to the "Trogans"), so I feel good about the quality of this young man.

After missing out on a DT from Utah (that stung - you can never have too many linemen), the next target was an über-stud defensive end from Oregon, Owamagbe Odighizuwa. Seeing as how the Bruin defensive ends rush the passer with the same effectiveness that Flounder rushed Omega Theta Pi in Animal House, this guy would be a huge get (to use a favorite term of recruiting junkies) for the Bruins. Nebraska and Oregon State were vying for his services as well. However, once the young man stood up and began talking about academics, UCLA fans started getting excited, and when he put on a powder blue UCLA hat, there was practically a cyber-riot at Bruinsnation.com. Services were calling this the most important defensive recruit for UCLA in 4 years and by and large this was the best news of the day.

But there was more to come - three LA area players Josh Shirley, Anthony Jefferson, and Dietrich Riley decided to come on over to Westwood. Shirley and Riley were heavily recruited by the University of Spoiled Children as well, so to win those battles was icing on an already rich cake (no need to shed any tears for the ketchup-and-mustard crew, they managed to snag plenty of good recruits, earning top class once again). Thank God I'm not a college football coach, whose livelihood is subjected to the whims of these hormone-laden gridiron greats. Shirley committed to UCLA despite having never visited, and not having them in his final four schools the day before (according to various recruiting services).

All in all, it was an epic Signing Day for the Bruins who snagged five SDCMR's today and showed Los Angeles and the nation in general that they will not back down from the University of Serial Cheaters. Today was a day where Bruin fans could start to dream about seeing the Blue and Gold in BCS bowls in the near future. Neuheisel and his staff should be commended for an excellent job on the recruiting trail.

Now they need to spend the next six months getting the team ready to win games this fall, and I need to spend the next six months learning how to pronounce Odighizuwa.