Press Box
Frank talk about
loyalty in recruitingNaymon Frank should be crying his eyes out right now, shouldn't he? The Roosevelt High School defensive end and Oregon State recruit is supposed to feel used and abused, like he has been cheated out of something very important.
Dastardly Dennis Erickson betrayed the trust of Frank and a score of other teenagers to whom Erickson supposedly made a promise he decided not to keep. To some, he's right up there with Saddam Hussein and bin Laden after leaving Corvallis to become the San Francisco 49ers head coach.
Erickson bolted the Beavers for the Bay Area before the ink had dried on the letters of intent from Frank and his OSU classmates. On Thursday, Mike Riley returned for a second round as Oregon State head coach.
Such an outrage. Quick, somebody call Child Protective Services. How can Frank be expected to go on without his daddy away from home for the next four or five years?
Funny, but Frank -- the theoretical victim in all this -- doesn't see it that way at all.
Whenever a college coach moves on to a new job, you can count on an outcry of how the system is so unfair to "the kids." You know, those helpless 6-foot-5, 240-pound "kids" on the verge of graduation from high school, like Frank. Supposedly, they can't successfully navigate life as a college athlete without the guidance of the coach who recruited them -- a coach they might have little personal interaction with once they get on campus.
Frank said he was disappointed by Erickson's departure, but far from devastated.
"Don't get me wrong, I was counting on him being there. But I also knew there was nothing I could do about it, so why worry about it? I can't really blame the guy. Hey, it's the 49ers," Frank said.
Traditionally, of all the promises made in the living rooms of recruits, the most basic is that the coach will be around to live up to the other pledges.
But Frank said he and Erickson never talked about the coach's future in Corvallis. It wasn't necessary, Frank said, because he went into the whole process with his eyes wide open.
"I've seen what happens, I know how shaky things are in this business," he said. "We had a lot of one-on-one. But we talked about how the program is doing, and how he wanted to make the defense even faster than it already is, and how I could be a part of that."
Although he wasn't highly recruited and is considered a project, Frank isn't worried about being cast aside. He's sure he will get a chance to show what he can do.
Maybe coaches should be required to sign letters of intent, too, and not be allowed to take another job without sitting out a year -- like players must if they transfer. But the recruiting process will always be buyer beware.
"Everything was too good to be true. Something had to happen that wasn't a complete positive," Frank said. "But I'm still stoked."
Why shouldn't he be excited? He's going to college on a football scholarship. His coach isn't Dennis Erickson, but Mike Riley is also a guy with NFL head coaching experience who knows Oregon State thoroughly.
And maybe Naymon Frank is mature enough not to need a surrogate dad away from home -- or the illusion of one who has 100 other surrogate sons.
Dave Reardon, who covered sports in Hawaii from 1977 to 1998,
moved to the the Gainesville Sun, then returned to
the Star-Bulletin in Jan. 2000.
E-mail Dave: dreardon@starbulletin.com