— Watts Dantzler is one of the most highly recruited offensive linemen in Georgia, and the intensity with which he’s being recruited will only intensify the closer he gets to the 2010 football season.
Having covered Southeastern Conference football — Tennessee in particular — for 20-plus years with The Chattanooga Times, I understand how the recruiting process works. College coaches will increasingly pressure Dantzler to join their programs, bashing other recruiting rivals along the way. Personally, I don’t think trying to push Dantzler into signing will work.
Dantzler is — and will — “handle” his recruitment his way.
Already, the 6-foot-8-inch, 315-pound Dantzler has grown somewhat weary of being a big-time recruit, a process that can swing from madness to all-out insanity on the whim of an Internet rumor.
So, to alleviate some of the building pressure on him — a move that sometimes works but can occasionally blow up in a prospect’s face — Dantzler has told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that he will announce his choice of college suitors on Nov. 16, his birthday. And he’s narrowed his list of options to five: Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Those schools will likely — nothing is rock-solid on the recruiting trail and is subject to change in the blink of an eye — get official visits from the big Catamounts star.
“A lot of people just kept asking me what my top five was,” Dantzler told the Knoxville paper. “I was tired of answering that so I put those (schools) out.”
Dantzler, however, has given himself a little wiggle room by saying he will make unofficial visits, which means the schools won’t be picking up the visitation tab, to North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest next month and could cause an alteration to his final five choies.
The top five schools on Dantzler’s current list have put themselves at the top of his priority chart and one is likely going to win the sweepstakes for his athletic services when signing day rolls around next February.
Dantzler knows as much about the programs and traditions of those five football programs as they know about him. For instance, he’s made two visits to Tennessee, once to the 2008 Alabama game and the 2009 game against Western Kentucky.
Obviously, he’s extremely familiar with Georgia and what the Bulldogs mean to his family. Dantzler’s father, Danny, who died last year from Lou Gehrig’s disease, played football at Georgia and his mother attended Georgia. The prevalent feeling is that the other finalists will have to do a whale of a job to get Dantzler to break family ties with the Bulldogs.
But that remains a possibility. Watts told the News-Sentinel the same thing. “He (Danny) was OK with whatever college I wanted to go to,” Watts told the paper.
n Tony Ingle, the Dalton native who continues to put Kennesaw State University’s men’s basketball program on the hardwood map, directed the eighth-seeded Owls to a 72-69 upset of No. 1 seed David Lipscomb in the first round of the Atlantic-Sun Conference tournament.
On Friday, the Owls needed two wins to gain an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Their roll ended when East Tennessee State University eliminated them from the conference tourney with a 69-64 victory.
The Owls, who won a Division II national title in 2004 and moved up to Division I competition four years ago, are getting regional publicity for their current on-court exploits and Ingle is racking up PR points with his folksy approach to the game and life in general.
He’s written a book, “I Don’t Mind Hitting Bottom, I Just Hate Dragging,” along with Kyle Whelliston. I’ve heard it’s funny, which is something you would expect from Ingle.
After the upset of Lipscomb, Ingle said, among other things, in a post-game press conference that “We had four guys in double figures.
“I think the last time we had four guys in double figures, Moby Dick was a minnow.”
And Ingle once coached at Brigham Young for a while and suffered through an 0-19 winless streak while acting as the Cougars’ interim head coach.
Ingle approached the skid in his usual manner with a joke.
Israel Ingle (Jeanne and Tony’s youngest son): Hey, daddy, knock-knock!
Tony Ingle: Who’s there?
Israel: Owen.
Tony: Owen who?
Israel: You’re Owen 19!
See what I mean.
Larry Fleming is sports editor of The Daily Citizen. You can write to him at larryfleming@daltoncitzen.com
