Everyone already knew that highly-prized recruits were lavished with praise and attention, but no one quite understood the lengths (and dollars) that big time programs would go to, to land a blue-chipper like Williams. Private jets, steak and lobster dinners, personalized jerseys, nights on the town, cookies baked by the coach's wife—none of those things are allowed anymore ... thanks to the diaries that became an internet sensation.

But they also brought unwanted attention to Williams. Days after he finally committed to Miami, it was revealed that he was was arrested 11 times as a juvenile and was still on probation when he enrolled for school. His life since then has seen five colleges in three different divisions, more arrests, and the birth of a daughter, now three.

After struggling at Miami for two years, and getting kicked off the team at Louisville, he's now starting for Union College (Kentucky) of the NAIA and plans to graduate next year. He still has hopes of a shot at the NFL, which he may get. It's not his fault college coaches spent on more on gifts for him than they probably did on their own children, but his story is still a fascinating one. For example: how can one man eat all that lobster?

The original diaries are archived behind a paywall, but are helpfully preserved by a Florida Marlins message board. (Of course.) Some of the highlights from his trips:

Florida State: I ordered a steak and a lobster tail. The lobster tail was like $49.99. I couldn't believe something so little could cost so much. The steak didn't even have a price. The menu said something about market value. I was kind of embarrassed so I didn't order a lot. 'But then I saw what the other guys were ordering, I was like, `Forget this.' I called the waiter back and told him to bring me four lobster tails, two steaks and a Shrimp Scampi. It was good. I took two boxes back with me to the hotel.''

They had jerseys with our names on it. They even had my No. 17. I told them `Isn't that number retired for [Heisman winner] Charlie Ward? Coach [Bobby] Bowden was like, `For you Willie, we'll bring it back.''

Miami: Coach Larry Coker picked him up at his Carol City home in a white Cadillac Escalade, then put Williams up at the Mayfair House Hotel in Coconut Grove. Williams' room featured a jacuzzi on his balcony.

Following the campus visit, the recruits boarded a bus with the coaching staff and headed for the Orange Bowl ... ''We'd get to a red light and I would hold on because the bus driver would just take it,'' he said. 'I was thinking the bus driver was crazy. Coach Coker was like, `Willie, we've got police escorts.'"

Auburn: ''The girls at the party were much better than the farmer girls we'd see all day around campus,'' Williams said. ``I was kind of worried all Auburn had to offer was those farmer girls that talked funny. But the girls at the party weren't farmer girls at all. I thought they must have bused them in from Miami.''

Florida: ''I ate so many meatballs, the people there started looking like meatballs ... 'The first night I was OK with eating at the stadium. But when they told me we're going to eat there again, I was a little disappointed. I was like, `Take us to Red Lobster or something.' That's when I pretty much made up my mind. I can't live in a place that don't have any restaurants. What am I going to do — fly home to eat shrimp?''

• Willie Williams Recruting Diaries: FSU and Auburn + Miami [Marlins Baseball]
• Williams Career Following Unexpected Path [Rivals.com]
• He's Toasted, Then He's Toast [NYTimes, 2004]
• "The Worst of Recruiting" [Yale Herald, 2004]
• Diary Highlights [SEC Fanatics]
• Former Miami Hurricane Willie Williams' odyssey continues [Miami Herald]

Yet no one mentions how rapidly the cost of competing for top talent is rising. Until, that is, the Chronicle of Higher Education issued this report dated August 1. The key finding is that almost half of colleges doubled or tripled the amount of money they spent on recruiting in the last decade. In a world where athletes demand attention, top flight facilities, huge stadiums or arenas, and constant coddling from adults, it sometimes gets overlooked how few schools can compete for top players on a purely economic basis.

On the whole, the 65 biggest spenders shelled out a total of more than $61-million in 2007, an 86-percent increase from 10 years before. That amount does not include salaries for recruiting coordinators or construction and operating costs of the gleaming multimillion-dollar facilities that help lure prospects.

Tennessee, Notre Dame, Florida, Auburn and Kansas State rounded out the top five biggest spenders. The graphs that follow these articles are pretty interesting; breaking down recruiting costs for those schools with football teams, without football teams, and in Divisions II and III. Ultimately it leaves you wondering where the ceiling is on the amount that colleges can spend on recruiting. Legal recruiting, anyway.

Right now, the only thing rising faster than college tuition is the cost of getting kids to come play for your college's sports teams.

Have money, will travel: the quest for top athletes [Chronicle of Higher Education]

Two sport wunderkid Terrelle Pryor occupies a favored spot in the masturbatoria of college football and basketball recruiters the nation round. Add to that list amateur toy makes, as Mondesi's House points to a story about some guy who fashioned an few action figures of the high school athlete out of a McFarlane Vince Young figure. Not what it elicits more: groans or "they all look like" jokes.

A North Hills man came up with the idea to carve out a Pryor figurine. Kevin Main, who recently moved here from Cincinnati and heard about Pryor through some co-workers at Mellon Bank, makes the figures as a hobby.

He never had made a figure for a high school player, mainly concentrating on minor-league baseball players.

"I started hearing about this Terrelle Pryor kid, so I Googled him and read about all the hype surrounding his football career," said Main, 31, a sports enthusiast and autograph collector. "I thought it would be cool to make him. I looked at a few photos and decided I would make a couple figures."

Main simply took a McFarlane figure of Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young, scraped and sanded off certain spots and repainted it in Jayhawks red, white and blue - with Pryor's unique features.

McFarlane said they won't sue the guy so long as he isn't selling them. And why would he? Those minor league figures have to be moving units. Not to mention the new line of GM dolls he has planned.

You gotta feel pretty bad for the kid; it looks like a nasty recruiter was doing the whole thing as a scam.

Hart claims, in a police report, that a Kevin Riley falsely represented himself as a recruiter — a middle man to big-time college football programs — and led the 6-foot-5, 290-pounder and his family to believe there were scholarship offers available when there were none.

Obtaining money with a false pretense is the charge on the report at this time, said Deputy Dan Lynch, who took the report. Finding Riley could be difficult, though.

The cops say they have "no info to identify a suspect." So the guy, really, is gone. This picture, we think, is the saddest part: He actually had a hat for California and a hat for Oregon, and made a big dramatic production of choosing which one he was going to put on. That really breaks our heart a little bit.

Recruiter Allegedly Involved In Hart Case [RGJ.com]
This Recruit Is Unreal [Washington Post]

Seriously, either Hart's a huge liar — doubtful — or someone is playing the worst joke on him of all time.

it appears that Hart, pictured above with Fernley coach Mark Hodges at Friday's ceremony, was the victim of a prank. Somebody, it appears, has been impersonating [Cal coach]Tedford. There never was a scholarship offer — let alone any official contact — from the Golden Bears. Hodges, who has been a coach for more than 20 years, now says the matter is a "law enforcement investigation."

Oregon was another so-called finalist for Hart, and somebody appears to have been impersonating an Oregon representative as well.

OK, now you can bet we'll be following this for the next few days. Whoever did this is the cruelest human on earth. Also: Clever. But to be clear: Evil.

Did Somebody Impersonate Tedford?

Well ... perhaps not. They've found Brantley's MySpace page, and the kids at Rumors & Rants have compiled the angriest messages.

I wouldn't show up for the All American game in SA this year. It won't be a warm welcome for you. So, what are you going to do when you sit behind Tebow for 3 years and your girlfriend breaks up with you? Yeah, like the other guy said, don't say your word is "solid as oak" when your lying. Also, take all the Longhorn stuff off your board. You're not a horn. ... I just wanted to let you know that my younger brother, who attends UF and is a Sigma Chi, boned your girlfriend a couple of months ago.

We don't know why athletes would ever have a MySpace page, we really don't. That said ... if Eric Gordon has a MySpace page, it's probably best you not tell us about it.

Texas Fans Are Classy [Rumors And Rants]

We bring all this up because the fight for star guard Eric Gordon, between our Illini and Kelvin Sampson's Indiana Hoosiers, has been the ugliest local recruiting brewhaha we can remember. Not to bore with you too many details, but Gordon, from Indianapolis, initally verbally committed to Illinois, and then re-opened the door when Sampson, breaking with what some consider a gentleman's agreement concerning verbal agreements, began recruiting Gordon anyway after his hiring. Well, as you'd probably expect, it set both fan bases off and brought out the worst in everyone. Grown men, screaming and shouting and hurling allegations and nasty names, in person and (especially) on message boards, all over the decision-making process of one 17-year-old kid. Recruiting makes us not like sports sometimes.

Oh, and Sports Yenta claims to have a source that Gordon is going to Indiana. To which we respond, if true: Those goddamned cheaters they must have paid him off Sampson's a crook Indiana SUXXXXXXXXX!

Eric Gordon Reportedly Headed To Indiana [The Sports Yenta]

You can read about how he calculated things in the article, but he figures that a player with an NBA future is worth between $900,000 and $1.2 million per year* to their athletic department. Raymond Felton was worth $1.18 million, followed by Sean May at $1.02 mil. For Illinois, Deron Williams, Luther Head, and Dee Brown all checked in between $940,000 and $975,000.

Now, consider those figures, and then the amount that UNC spent on players' scholarships: $318,097. Not a bad little racket they have going. So maybe the next time a shady coach promises a high school player an Escalade to come to his school, it won't be seen as a shady recruiting practice, but rather, a shrewd investment on behalf of an institution of higher learning.

* Note: Calcuations include only basketball contributions, and not any potential proceeds from make-you-want-to-sew-your-ear-holes-closed rap songs, such as the one recorded by UConn's Ed Nelson.

How much would players be worth? [IndyStar.com]
College Athletes Continue To Disgrace Rap Music [Deadspin]

The U.S. Army All-American Bowl is a high school football All-Star game, where, every so often, they'll turn the attention to a kid on the sideline, who will then reveal which football factory he'll attending. And most of the time, the clever little devils will pick up the wrong hat first, and then switch to the hat of the school that they've decided to choose. It's high-brow entertainment. The dude pictured above eventually went with Cal.

And the entire thing in sponsored by the Army. So what we end up with is a crowd full of Army personnel, sacrificing for their country, looking on as we hang on the every word of high school kids who won the genetic lottery. Strange.

The East and the West are tied at 7 in the 3rd quarter.