The "Collegiate Football Signing Day At The University Of Maryland" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Sitting in my daughter's home in Urbana, Maryland dunking a piece of cake in my glass of milk when my eye caught an article in a newspaper that was published in the December 21, 2017 Washington Post.  It featured my son-in-law Dave sitting at a conference table in the "war room" with the Maryland University head football coach, DJ Durkin looking over his shoulder while Dave was working with a program called Teamworks.  

Dave has been a high school football coach for many years and joined Maryland's staff about a year ago.  The Teamworks  program has been a revelation in recruiting of high school football athletes.  No longer is a fax machine needed to sign prospective players to a national letter-of-intent.  The program can be used to email a document that the prospect can sign on their mobile device, share with their parents or guardians and forward back to the University of Maryland; all in a matter of minutes.  Signing day was Wednesday, December 20 this year and about two hours after signing was allowed, Maryland had used the program to sign 20 of the 22 players they would end up signing that day.  Close to 100 major college programs now use Teamworks to sign their recruits.  Dave is involved in the process since he is the Head of Player Personnel and I can't imagine how excited he must have been that day.  After he received the signed papers he had to forward them to the director of recruiting operations who had to make sure they were all filled out properly and signed.  The program has revolutionized the signing process on signing day.  During Coach Durkin's first two years at Maryland his assistants would have to send signing documents to recruits by a PDF email attachment or by way of a FedEx paper form.  They would then have to be signed and dated and returned to Maryland.  I know it may sound fairly easy, but it wasn't.  Their top recruit this year, a Maryland High School offensive lineman, received his offer at 7:01 am, had it signed and delivered back to Maryland in five minutes.  In years past that would have been impossible, but this year by 7:18 it was official.  By 8:11 am Maryland had signed 20 players and by 8:25 am all 22 had signed and it was time to depart the "war room".  A list of the players which signed with the University of Maryland was published in the Washington Post and as I looked over it I was impressed with the physical size of the players that were recruited.  A defensive tackle is 6'3" and weighs 315 pounds, a tight end is 6'5" and weighs 245, a center is 6'2" and weighs 290, another defensive tackle is 6'5" and weighs 335, and the list goes on and on.  And, these are high school players that are being signed.  Maryland was ranked among the top 20 national classes in the recruit signings with five of the top 300 rated players in the nation.  Football is big money for our nation's collegiate programs and you need a winning program in order to attract the top players.  Maryland's class this year should help gain prominence in the rankings and having their signing day go so easy because of the new Teamworks program has taken the stress out of signing day.  Now those new signees need to step up and make the Maryland Terrapins one of the top teams in the country.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.