Dreams Go From Reel to Real

At Md. Film Festival, Small-College Coaches Seek Football Recruits

Eric Knight had already memorized every play of the game unfolding in front of him, but he still felt nervous.

It had been two days since Knight, the Potomac (Md.) High School football coach, stood on the sideline at M&T Bank Stadium and directed his players to victory in the Maryland 2A championship game. Now, surrounded by college coaches in a small meeting room at the University of Maryland, Knight showed tape of that same game in an effort to direct his players to something he considered equally important: college football futures.

For the second time in three days, Potomac's 38-3 win over South Carroll left its audience transfixed. Six college coaches watched and whistled. They scribbled notes furiously. They shook their heads in disbelief.

"So many guys stand out," said Frank Fusco, an assistant coach at Division I-AA Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y. "It's hard to remember who I like best."

That proved a common dilemma Monday at the Maryland Film Festival, an annual recruiting extravaganza coaches credit with launching hundreds of college football careers.

Unusual a decade ago, festivals such as these now dominate the small-college recruiting process. College coaches said they attend as many as eight similar conventions during a three-week stretch in December. Prince George's County and Northern Virginia also host events, though the Maryland Film Festival stands out as the area's largest.

About 50 area high schools showed off videotape at the football offices at Byrd Stadium, and 45 Division I-AA, II and III college coaches representing 39 colleges milled about and found players they liked. They sometimes struggled, though, to keep everybody straight.

In an era when Division I-A football recruiters rely on meticulously calculated sprint times and weightlifting totals, small colleges still lean heavily on chance. At the Maryland Film Festival, coaches sorted through film on hundreds of senior players they knew little about. Most coaches hoped to find -- and remember -- about 10 players worth pursuing.

"You just want to show them something they're going to like," said Knight, the Potomac coach. "They see so many players that you've got to catch their attention. You've got to give them a perfect fit."

Said Gary Lanham, the recruiting coordinator at Fairmont State: "It's like getting that one needle in a haystack."

It's a hunt so daunting Lanham brought three other Fairmont State assistants with him to College Park. The small West Virginia school had discovered eight recruits at the Maryland Film Festival in the past four years, and Lanham hoped to find two or three again this time. With four coaches, he said, Fairmont State had at least a chance to spot the best talent displayed.

The Maryland football offices had been divided into a dizzying maze of televisions and projection screens. Each room in the complex provided a temporary, eight-hour home to high schools from certain counties -- Howard, Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince George's, to name a few. About five high school coaches worked out of each room, some eager to show off as many as 15 seniors.