For the past 50 years, the prime raw resource in the sports industry has been black muscle. The work of the industry is to extract those bodies from where they primarily reside - in the black neighborhoods of rural and urban America - and then put them to work.
Now a sophisticated recruiting apparatus has been created for just that purpose. The apparatus is called the Conveyor Belt.
The recruiting process creates a fascinating reversal of fortune: The poor become rich, and those with the least access to higher education receive scholarships to some of the best schools in America.
Ultimately, a child's movement into the world of sports shouldn't be about the athlete alone, but about the athletes and their parents and guardians. Ideally, the conscientious parent walks along the Belt every step of the way, looking over the shoulder of all the operators who do the teaching, training, and coaching, making sure neither child nor handler loses focus. Sadly, in many cases, the parent or guardian is the one who loses focus.
One of the common tactics of the Belt is to drive a wedge between the athlete and any adult who can't be bought off, even the parent. College recruiters know how to manipulate kids, cajole high school coaches and seduce some parents. When they have to deal with a competing authority figure who won't be co-opted, the get frustrated and redouble their efforts to get a direct line to the kid.