College Recruiting

Sylmar High School, which sends fewer students to four-year colleges than almost any other Los Angeles high school, is expecting dramatic increases in the number of college-bound graduates this year. Last year, the school started an aggressive college recruitment program. And the efforts began to pay off this fall, when 36 Sylmar students went on to Cal State Northridge, up from just 12 last year, said Ludim Seja, director of university outreach at CSUN.

Get ready for an invasion of private jets arriving from Lexington, Ky.; Durham, N.C.; Gainesville, Fla.; and elsewhere carrying college basketball coaches hoping to woo a growing group of talented guards from the high school class of 2015. The days when Southern California wasn't represented at the McDonald's All American Game will be a thing of the past thanks to an infusion of young talent from the Inland Empire to the San Fernando Valley. College recruiters already have their eyes on three sophomore guards who have established themselves as elite national prospects — Tyler Dorsey of Bellflower St. John Bosco, Marcus LoVett Jr. of Burbank Providence and Aaron Holiday of North Hollywood Campbell Hall.

Sylmar High School, which sends fewer students on to four-year colleges than almost any other Los Angeles high school, is expecting dramatic increases in the number of college-bound graduates this year. Last year, the school started an aggressive college recruitment program. And the efforts began to pay off this fall, when 36 Sylmar students went on to Cal State Northridge, up from just 12 last year, said Ludim Seja, director of university outreach at CSUN.

"OMG. " That's my reaction in text lingo to the NCAA rule change set to take effect June 15 that will allow college basketball coaches to make unlimited phone calls and send unlimited text messages to high school juniors and seniors. Get ready for "Textageddon. " College coaches were banned from sending text messages to high school prospects in all sports five years ago, but everything is about to change with an NCAA-approved experiment involving boys' basketball players.

Some years ago, at a clinic in Santa Barbara, the great football coach, Bear Bryant, was holding forth on the arts and mysteries of recruiting. The hour was late and the bourbon flowing, and Bear was moved to drawl: "Well, if you got some boys who are good students and have some ability, you send them to Cal or Stanford. But if you have some whiskey-drinking, women-chasing, pool-playing studs who are ath-a-letes , why, you just send them down to ol' Bear to win a championship with!"

A decade of image packaging has amounted to a virtual revolution in the post-secondary-school sales pitch. In other words, Willie Loman is alive and well on America's college campuses. Rather than take flak from friends, students who apply to Harvey Mudd College are advised in a letter from the California engineering school's dean of admissions to "try saying it fast . . . it sounds a lot like Harvard Med."

For the third straight year after a New Year's Day bowl appearance, UCLA's football team has traded on its good reputation to get letters of intent from a strong group of high school prospects. Once again, the Bruins' crop of recruits ranks among the best in the nation. Of the 22 players who signed letters of intent with UCLA Wednesday, three are high school All-American linemen, and five were listed among the Best in the West. The 1985 class is long on big linemen.

At college fairs in high schools and convention centers around the country, recruiters draw lots of questions from parents and prospective students. But these days Mark Rasic also is getting something else: plenty of wisecracks, skepticism and sympathy. Rasic is the Los Angeles-based western representative for Loyola University New Orleans, a 5,500-student Jesuit school that escaped the worst of Hurricane Katrina and is scheduled to reopen in January.

When Ted Tollner came to USC as an offensive coordinator under John Robinson in 1982, the traditional tailback assembly line was still moving, but the product was not up to its usual high standards. Marcus Allen, the last Heisman Trophy winner, was gone and a committee operated at the position, partly because of injuries, but also because no one emerged as a dominant running back. It was the same in 1983, when Tollner became head coach.

To be fair to Santa Monica College, the sunset photo of the pony-tailed jogger framed by palm trees against an ocean backdrop is not the only way its brochure recruits foreign students. The pamphlet also boasts that the school sends more graduates to the University of California than any other community college. And it touts the tuition--$151 per unit--as a bargain. Still, the cover image of "sun and sea and the beach" was what caught the eye of Ute Braun, who came from Germany to enroll.

Few players have benefited more from the state basketball playoffs than Marquis Salmon, a 6-foot-7 senior at Sun Valley Village Christian. When the Crusaders' season was extended by an at-large berth to the Division V playoffs, Salmon got a second chance to impress college recruiters. "He's been phenomenal these last four weeks," Coach Jon Shaw said. "He's impacted the team at both ends of the floor. " In a Southern California Regional semifinal upset, the Crusaders knocked off top-seeded Playa del Rey St. Bernard, 75-65, behind Salmon's 29 points.

Where they're headed Top Southland college football recruits who signed NCAA letters of intent Wednesday: Player, high school, position, college choice Donta Abron Jr., Upland, running back, Colorado Jeremiah Allison, Dorsey, linebacker, Washington State Chaz Anderson, Loyola, defensive back, Boise State Travis Averill, Servite, offensive line, Boise State Alex Ball, Westlake, kicker, Lamar ...

There has been a longtime assumption, if not an unwritten commandment, in the world of high school sports: Thou shall play for your high school team if you want to be spotted by a college recruiter and offered a scholarship. Don't tell that to Palm Desert High senior Tanner Rahier. He is a shortstop bound for the University of San Diego who hasn't played high school baseball since his freshman year. "If you have the talent, they'll find you," Rahier said. Rahier is an example of the changing landscape in college recruiting.

Given what appears to be a tightly competitive year in college admissions, Katie Frake of Long Beach hedged her bets by applying to 11 schools. "I figured it would be the safest thing, the best thing. So I applied to a bunch because I wanted to be sure I would get into someplace I like," said the 17- year-old Wilson High School senior, whose application list includes UCLA, Stanford, Santa Clara University and the University of Chicago. Frake is far from alone with those concerns as she and other students hover around their mailboxes and computers this month to await admission decisions.

They're loyal Lakers fans headed into Celtics territory and having no second thoughts. Kyle Caudill from Brea Olinda, Lonnie Jackson from Valencia and Ryan Anderson from Long Beach Poly are set to sign letters of intent with Boston College on Wednesday, the first day of the NCAA early signing period for winter and spring sports. Each is a Southern California native who decided leaving for the East Coast was best for his basketball and educational future. "It's kind of another challenge in life, getting outside your comfort zone," said Caudill, who is 6 feet 11. "On the East Coast, you either learn to play or you don't play.

There's no high school quarterback in Southern California quite like Michael Eubank of Corona Centennial. He's 6 feet 5, weighs 220 pounds and looks as though he should be on the cover of a muscle-and-fitness magazine. "I take it as a compliment that they try to say I'm a finely tuned athlete," he said. When he runs with the football, feel sympathy for the mother or father of the kid who's trying to tackle him, because Eubank is so big and powerful that he might run over the defender.

This fall 4,852 freshmen are expected to enroll at UCLA, but only 96, or 2%, are African American -- the lowest figure in decades and a growing concern at the Westwood campus. For several years, students, professors and administrators at UCLA have watched with discouragement as the numbers of black students declined. But the new figures, released this week, have shocked many on campus and prompted school leaders to declare the situation a crisis.

Chances are excellent you've heard of the University of Miami's football Hurricanes, 37-0 and vying for their second national championship in a row. But what of senior Devi Sridhar, who won't be suiting up to play in today's Fiesta Bowl? The UM biology major, who is also a violinist, tennis player, author of a children's book on Indian myths and speaker of five languages, is one of the latest crop of Rhodes scholars. At just 18, the senior is the youngest Rhodes laureate in American history.

Seantrel Henderson, the nation's biggest — and by many ratings, the best — major-college football recruit, didn't show up for summer school classes at USC this week. Instead, he remained at home in Minnesota, igniting renewed speculation that he might ask to be released from his scholarship and prompting Trojans coaches to make their second trip to see him in just the last few weeks. Henderson, a 6-foot-8 offensive tackle who weighs in at well over 300 pounds, is vacillating about his decision and perhaps considering playing for Miami or Ohio State, according to various reports, though neither he nor his father has been quoted saying much more than no comment.

All-City running back De'Anthony Thomas of Los Angeles Crenshaw, the No. 1 college football prospect in Southern California, showed up at the City Section track and field preliminaries on Thursday at Lake Balboa Birmingham leaving little doubt about his college choice. He was wearing a cardinal and gold USC sweat top, which didn't exactly match with his blue Crenshaw attire. Thomas didn't seem to mind. He was just relieved that he had made his college decision and didn't have to hide his feelings.