SHIELDS COLUMN: Local athletes can get college exposure in coming days

The past few years have seen some of the top high school football players in rural West Tennessee have outstanding careers.

But those careers either ended at the high school level or continued at a smaller college because the athletes were too small according to college scouts and coaches.

There are a couple of opportunities in the coming weeks for the current crop of local players to be seen by more colleges.

The first one is Tuesday in Nashville at LP Field with a recruiting fair presented by the Tennessee Titans and Tennessee Football Coaches Association.

Josh Corey is the coordinator of relations with youth football association and high school football teams for the Tennessee Titans. He’s a former prep football coach in Jacksonville, Fla., and he’s bringing an idea he helped institute in the Sunshine State to expose more colleges and high school athletes to each other.

“A group of us in Jacksonville got together in a high school gym and invited colleges in to get a look at what athletes the high schools had to offer that year,” Corey said. “We’re doing that at the West Club at LP Field on Tuesday.”

Here’s how it works: High school coaches are invited to be at LP Field Tuesday morning with information on their top athletes – transcripts, test scores, contact information for the athlete and game film on a laptop. College scouts from 36 colleges in 11 states will be on hand to see what each coach has available.

Nearly every FCS, NCAA Division II and III and NAIA team in Tennessee will be there including UT Martin and Bethel. Other OVC teams like Austin Peay, Tennessee Tech and Tennessee State will be there along with Chattanooga, Carson-Newman, Tusculum and Sewanee.

FBS schools typically have recruiting budgets large enough they don’t need to attend events such as this.

Coaches will get there about 8:30 Tuesday morning and will probably be back on the road headed home by 1 p.m.

“No student-athletes will be at this event, just the coaches with the athletes’ information,” Corey said. “We hope to grow this event into something where coaches meet in the morning then the athletes and their parents come up in the afternoon to meet with coaches.”

Coaches not signed up yet can do so as late as when they arrive in Nashville Tuesday morning, but Corey does ask for some prior notice so they can be adequately prepared for everybody. Attending coaches are also asked to consider joining the TFCA if they’re not already a member (fees are $15 per coach or $100 for an entire coaching staff).

“This is an opportunity for graduating seniors who haven’t hooked up with a school and members of the class of 2016 as well,” Corey said. “We plan to have this event earlier in the year next year, maybe in February right after signing day to give the schools and athletes more time to talk before decisions need to be made.”

The other event is next month when Bethel University’s Wildcat Stadium will host the inaugural West Tennessee Regional Prospect Showcase presented by Southern Elite Combine Series and 247Sports.

This is a showcase/combine event on May 16 for athletes who will be in grades 9-12 in the 2015-16 school year.

Prospects will undergo testing in the 40-yard dash, L-drill, 5-10-5 shuttle, vertical jump, broad jump and bench rep max. They will also undergo position-specific skill evaluation with coaching included.

There will also be the opportunity to be a part of high-intensity one-on-one drills, and awards will be given for top performers with an individual award given to the top performer regardless of position – the Combine King.

Those top performers will then have media opportunities and recruiting profiles created on 247Sports.com.

This event is limited to the first 200 entrants, and registration cost is $75.

To begin the registration process, an athlete’s name, position, graduation year, school and cell phone number need to be e-mailed to secombine@gmail.com.

These are opportunities past stellar athletes haven’t had, and it’s a chance for these athletes to be seen to scouts and show what they can do.

Hopefully a year from now we’ll begin to see tangible benefits when we have more athletes sign with more schools.

Brandon Shields is the high school sports columnist for The Jackson Sun. Contact him at 425-9751 or at bjshields@jacksonsun.com. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at jacksonsunsports.