Sterling Sanders could feel the tears coming on.
It was late October and Sanders was elated. He’d just committed to Boston College inside coach Bill O’Brien’s office. A handshake sealed the deal.
The three-star defensive lineman from Blytheville, S.C., had always dreamed of playing at the Power 4 level but wasn’t sure whether the opportunity would ever come. That changed when Boston College became his first — and only — P4 offer in early October. And the offer was too good to pass up.
There were tears of joy.
“I couldn’t believe I was going to make it this far,” Sanders said.
There was one problem: He had been committed to Georgia Southern since June. He developed a close relationship with coach Clay Helton and the entire Eagles staff, particularly “Miss Lex,” as Sanders called director of on-campus recruiting Lex Villarreal. She, as much as anyone, had comforted him through the death of a high school teammate.
Now he had to tell her and the rest of the coaching staff that he’d just committed to another school.
“I really loved Georgia Southern. Georgia Southern did everything for me,” Sanders said. “It was very hard to flip.
“I was like, ‘OK, let me make this big decision. I have to put my big boy pants on.'”
Sanders called his position coach to break the news but got voicemail, so he texted rather than leave a message. He texted Villarreal as well, and was relieved when Georgia Southern staffers wished him well and told him they understood his decision.
Offer to flip to another school can be an agonizing process for prospects and coaches alike.
“A kid is going to flip. That’s just what happens,” a Big Ten recruiting staffer who was granted anonymity said. “You build that relationship and you know their birthdays and you know what’s going on in their life — (if) they have prom coming up or homecoming or whatever it may be, and ‘Oh, he took his girlfriend out on a date’ or ‘It’s her birthday.’
“You invest so much time that when they flip, it’s almost like a breakup. It’s so disheartening.”
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