Lots of good stuff in Thayer Evans’ long-haul New York Times piece on the recruitment of Lufkin, TX lineman Jamarkus McFarland. There’s talk of nudity, interest-free loans, excessive alcohol consumption, too-flirty recruiting hostesses and Hummer limos – hardly shocking. And since the story is about a player who committed to, and was seemingly recruited with more care by, the University of Oklahoma, you might say that it has a slant. But what stands out most is how the University of Texas comes off as both arrogant and socially inept about a player who was seemingly the Horns’ to lose.
Before the visit, [McFarland’s mother, Kashemeyia] Adams called Texas and asked to speak with Brown. The associate head coach, Mac McWhorter, told her that she could talk only to him.
That bothered her because she had wanted to talk to Brown and commend him for the Longhorns™ dismissal of a player who had posted a racial slur on his Facebook page about President-elect Barack Obama.
During the trip, Adams said, she asked Brown about the Obama slur, and was told that the player had to be dismissed because the F.B.I. had become involved.
After Texas beat Baylor that weekend, McFarland and his mother ate dinner at Brown™s home. Flat-screen televisions were in every room, and there were two outside.
œWhose house do you like better, Bob Stoops™s, Les Miles™s or mine? Adams recalled Brown saying…
Now, I’m guessing Mack Brown meant to be more humorous than pompous in that instance. But why not tell her what she wanted to hear regarding Buck Burnette?
Bob Stoops, by contrast, later came to Lufkin and watched Beauty Shop with mom and Grandma.
Texas made another visit to McFarland™s school, but again, they did not see Adams.
After the visit, Adams received an e-mail message from Brown. œIt is obvious that the recruiting has put a strain on your relationship, the message said. œJaMac wants Texas, and Mom wants OU. We want you to still come to Texas, but we are going to slow our process down because you two need some time to get on the same page. We do not want players at Texas if everyone isn™t on the same page.
In the same message, Brown wrote that Texas would not visit again unless requested.
McFarland™s mother and grandmother were offended.
œThat™s tacky to me, Adams said. œYou™re basically telling my kid to just go against his parents.
Actually it sounds like UT may have actively decided that the parents were no longer worth the trouble (or four years of trouble), though they continued to recruit McFarland. And they could well do so up until the 4th of February, but I’d say the very existence of this article makes that rather unlikely.
Coincidentally, this is the second year in a row Evans’ chosen subject jilts UT.