When 'sports recruiters' come knocking

Stuart Scandridge first learned of sports recruiters when one knocked on his door in Houston.

His son Chris, a skilled quarterback in his senior year in high school, caught the eye of a recruiter when he made some important plays at the homecoming football game.

But all attempts to talk down the price of marketing Chris to big football schools proved futile. The recruiter wouldn't budge: It would cost Mr. Scandridge $1,250 to send a sheet of information to 200 schools.

"That just took the air out of him," Scandridge says. "There's not a photograph, just the statistics and a name. These people came to us and called themselves recruiters, and I thought, he's not from a college, he's from a business. He's trying to turn a profit."

It was too much money for the father of six, so Scandridge typed up three pages of information about Chris and his activities and faxed them to 50 colleges himself. Within a week, 17 schools responded by mail and by phone. Chris was a hot commodity.

But after months of searching, Chris ultimately chose a school where he could pursue his lifelong dream of being a pilot - even though it meant forfeiting his football ambitions.

"It's important for kids to understand that the world is made up of more than one thing," his father says.