These Guys Screen Pros Of Tomorrow

The Wall Street Journal:

The National Football League draft was watched obsessively by college players, family members, rabid fans — and two former political operatives in New Jersey who have made a big business out of spotting tomorrow’s NFL stars while they’re still in high school.

Douglas Berman and Richard McGuinness run an all-star football game for high-school seniors that has turned into a top showcase for precollege talent.

The company that Berman and McGuinness own, SportsLink, is one of several trying to solve one of the great puzzles in U.S. sports — how to make money off high-school contests.

The All-American Bowl is the last station in an assembly line that aims to turn young football players into college standouts and, ideally, pros. SportsLink oversees a scouting operation that funnels players as young as 12 into invitation-only football camps. It runs a three-day scouting event to select high-school juniors for the next year’s bowl. The company says it collects more than $4 million a year in revenue from the game, sponsors and camp fees.

SportsLink’s combine in San Antonio, a three-day event where juniors do 40-yard dashes and vertical jumps for the college scouts and other evaluators who pick the next all-star team.

Ron Stokes, says he will spend $1,000 to send Je’Ron and his brother, Malik, a 15-year-old quarterback, to a SportsLink camp in June.

“It takes a lot to get these kids noticed,” says their father, who has paid for personal trainers for his kids and sent them to football camps at colleges in Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee. “I’m giving them the things they need to have an edge.”

Photo by sourire.

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