For Jones coach Kenard Lang, early offers are an issue

 

Approaching National Signing Day in 1993, Evans High defensive end Kenard Lang’s top five schools were Miami, Florida, Notre Dame, FAMU and Clemson.

He visited Notre Dame on Heisman Trophy weekend. Raghib “The Rocket” Ismail was there. So was Tim Brown. It also was very cold, and Lang came prepared, wearing a big coat with lots of fur.

“I must have looked like a bear,” Lang said.

The cold weather wasn’t for him, though.

When he visited Florida, the sprawling campus proved too overwhelming.

“I realized that wasn’t for me because the campus was humongous,” Lang said. “Then I went to the University of Miami. The feeling at Miami was more intimate. At Florida, you felt like a Social Security item.”

He was so impressed with the Hurricanes that he decided not to visit Clemson. He had FAMU on his list because that’s where his parents, Calvin and Johnnie, went.

Lang said he made his decision roughly 10 days before National Signing Day that year. That didn’t keep schools from trying to change  his mind, though, in that short time frame.

Lang said one school came up to him and said, ‘”You don’t look like a Miami guy.’ ” It was a reference to the Hurricanes’ outlaw image at the time.

Another coach, who was at Michigan at the time, said, “What’s a Michigan education when compared to a Florida A&M eduction?” Lang said he walked out on that coach.

Lang said if there is one thing he could change about National Signing Day today, it would be to limit early offers to recruits. Between committing and decommitting, the recruits sometimes can be unfairly labeled through the process.

“They are still kids,” Lang said. “A lot of them don’t have the mind-set of adults. We still have adults who are 40 years old who make mistakes.”
NSD has changed plenty in the almost two decades since Lang was recruited. He said he is fine with the increased exposure recruits receive.

“I love it,” he said. “I catch myself watching to see who the University of Miami is getting. Twenty years down the road, it’ll probably be bigger than this.”

Click here to order Kenard Lang’s proCane Rookie Card.



(orlandosentinel.com)