Deon Burton loves what he does now. Who wouldn't? As a singer, rapper and president of his own company, Fresh Life Entertainment, Burton gets onstage and performs in front of thousands of adoring, screaming fans.
What Burton regrets, though, is not having performed in front of thousands of a different kind of fan - college football fans.
Despite an impressive high school football career in Durham, Burton's playing after leaving Riverside High School consisted of one year at Fork Union Military Academy. After competing against hundreds of the top players in the nation just to make that team, he said both his desire and confidence waned.
Why, I asked, wasn't he deluged with scholarship offers in high school?
"I was. I just didn't get 'em," Burton said Wednesday.
It was only in 1997, after he'd graduated, Burton said, that he learned that some universities had written letters to his high school inquiring about him. He said the letters went to his high school coach, and he never saw them.
Monte Evans wants to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen to other kids. On Saturday, Evans is hosting a seminar for middle and high school football players and their parents to help them deal with the maze of college recruitment regulations, requirements and the recruitment letters that don't arrive. Evans' 2010 Elite Football Recruiting Seminar will be at UNC from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and includes sessions with coaches, recruiters and experts on nutrition and training from UNC, Wake Forest, N.C. A&T and Hargrave Military Academy, among others.
Evans, 38, has never met Burton or his parents, Alfred and Gloria Burton, but it was people like them that led him to create the seminar, which he hopes will be an annual event. A former high school athlete himself, Evans said, "I had been working in sports announcing for 19 years and I was frustrated seeing the parents' frustration."
"A lot of parents and kids just want a scholarship and to play football," Evans said. "I want to help them create relationships with coaches to figure out which school fits their child academically and athletically."
Admit it, guys. It's hard to find one of us over the age of 25 - up until that age, we still think we can catch Coach K's eye at the Y with our jumper - who doesn't look back with regret at a sports career that didn't turn out as planned. A buddy of mine even started a "Washed Up Jocks of America," a national organization for people of our ilk.
While Evans hopes to delay those regrets in others, he said he isn't promising kids or their parents that they'll be playing on Saturdays in front of millions on national television. But he said he hopes to put football players in touch with, perhaps, "mid-major schools that may not have the budget to come and see him play in high school" and thus don't know about him.
If you're interested in the seminar, which includes lunch, you can reach Evans at 919-371-2840 or visit his website at elitemgmt.com.
