A couple of days ago I heard that Notre Dame verbal commitment Tee Shepard was going to pick his school (USC or ND) out of a hat. Immediately, I sat down and wrote an article about the immaturity of Shepard and other recruits.
Today, the South Bend Tribune reported that Shepard is Irish, and I also owe him an apology. Seems I was guilty of jumping to a conclusion before I knew the whole story. Especially the part about Shepard being immature, because as it turns out his actions were more mature than I could have imagined.
First, I questioned why Shepard’s father would transfer him from Fresno Central East High School to Fresno Washington Union High School before his senior season knowing he may not be eligible to play football. I also wondered why Shepard himself would agree to this, but since he is still a high school kid I was at least glad to see that dad still ruled the household.
Turns out that if Shepard had stayed at Fresno Central East High School he would not have had the applicable educational requirements to graduate at the end of this semester and enroll in college early. Therefore, when presented with the scenario that if he did transfer he may not have been able to play football, graduating and enrolling in college early trumped his senior season. Hats off to Shepard and his father for that one.
Second, I wrote about how fed up I was with these antics of committing, de-committing, visiting, etc. Turns out that Shepard’s official visit to Arizona State was prompted because, a week earlier, on his official visit to Notre Dame, he was told he may not have had all the requirements to enroll early. That being his goal all along he visited Arizona State to talk to them about the same thing. Soon after his official ASU visit, Notre Dame and Shepard worked out the missing requirements and he was all set to enroll early at Notre Dame. Simply put, he was keeping his options open thinking he couldn’t get into Notre Dame and once he found out he could he was set.
And last, while in early grade school Shepard was diagnosed with a hearing problem. Today he wears two hearing aids to help him out with the problem. His official visit to USC was prompted, among other things, by his attraction to their facilities that were better suited to deal with his condition than the ones at Notre Dame.
If Shepard had gone to USC for that reason there is no one anywhere that could have blamed him, but in the end he still chose Notre Dame. I’m happy about that, but I’m also happy to apologize to Tee Shepard, an extremely mature young man.
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