University Of Washington Offers Poly's Waller, Jackson
- Details
- | Sunday, 21 February 2010 22:04
Photo of Waller by Stephen Dachman
You really can't say enough about Steve Sarkisian, and the job he's done lately recruiting local football talent. We stood with him on the sideline of Poly's CIF championship win over Tesoro in 2008, just days after he was named the new coach at the University of Washington, and he expressed admiration for the depth of talent in Long Beach. His years at USC certainly acquainted him with the talent from Poly, and the other schools in the Moore League.
Sark cashed in on that familiarity pretty quickly, getting Talia Crichton from Lakewood in 2008, and then league Player of the Year John Timu and Princeton Fuimaono from Jordan this season—the attention he's paid to local talent, and his loyalty in not yanking Timu's offer even after the senior sustained a serious knee injury, have gone over well with local players and coaches. Now, Sarkisian seems to be seeking to up his program's profile to another level in Long Beach, by getting the first offer in to Poly juniors Corey Waller and Kameron Jackson.
Both players participated in the Army All-American Combine (the highest honor the event bestows on underclassmen, who aren't eligible to participate in the actual game), and Waller in particular will be a high-profile recruit headed into next year. The 6-3 junior had a fantastic junior season, with 60 tackles, 8 sacks, a pick, 2 safeties, and a blocked punt—he also saw some playing time as a sophomore on that CIF championship-winning team Sarkisian watched in person. Tall, strong, and fast, Waller is the kind of player who can be scary as a pass-rusher, or in run coverage. Jackson, a safety, had four picks 25 tackles last season, and is primed for a great senior run.
Neither have committed, but it's notable that UW is the first school to offer—it should help to give them a leg up on other schools who are slower to the competition (USC in particular is expected to make a hard run at Waller). Regardless of where they end up, you have to admire UW's attention to the local scene—being the first school to recognize the ability of Waller and Jackson, players in the backyard of USC and UCLA, is pretty impressive.
And, should they end up signing with UW eleven-and-a-half months from now, the idea of a Huskies defense in a few years with Crichton and Waller on the line, Fuimaono at linebacker, and Timu and Jackson in the defensive backfield, has to be pretty exciting to local prep football fans.
University of Washington is ranked 16th in the top WORLD university ranking. It is number one for research grants for all state universities in the nation. Yes, grad schools are exceptional. And yes, more of these ranking analysts give higher mark than UCLA. Don't read one or two and make a thesis out of it.
and their are 4 seasons in the year
UW is a fine research university, but I stand by my statement that for undergrad, it's no better than any huge state school with a high acceptance rate. UW has fine graduate programs in law and medicine. One of my son's friends will be attending UW in the fall. He is a good kid, but he didn't work hard enough in school and wasn't admitted to any of the UC's other than Riverside. I really believe that he would have been better off going to community college and transferring to a UC. UW has an acceptance rate of 61% for undergraduate admission. Hardly what I would call a selective or prestigious university.
UW is indeed a commuter school in that a lot of kids home on the weekends (about 3/4 of the students are from the Seattle area). Another one of my son's friends was a scholarship athlete at UW and decided to transfer after his freshman year because he felt that the social scene had much to be desired and wasn't able to adapt to the weather in the Northwest.
Looking forward to welcoming these guys to U-DUB! Go Purple Be Gold.
UW is HIGHLY selective the average GPA to get in is 3.85.It is, as the UC schools (Davis, LA, Berkley) and USC are considered "public ivy."
Plus, the 61% acceptance rate is reflective of the relatively low number of applications it receives (under 20,000) vs. the UC schools (40,000- 50,000+). Most of the applicants to UW are in-state students. People in-state (who actually know about the selectivity of UW and don't make assumptions from a state away) will only fork over the $65 to apply if they know they can get in. Whereas UC schools get thousands of applications from across the United States because it is there "dream school" even though they have no chance.
Think about it - No one says "I want to go to Seattle and hang out in the rain." Instead they say "I want to go to college in sunny California."
Further, your friend's son that got in to UW by not working that hard, might have something to do with the school needs out of state students to pay the large out of state tuition costs, as the in-state tuition is around $7,000 a year.
Also, UW is ranked in the top 20 in large amount its undergraduate schools (business, pharmacy, education, political science, engineering, graphic design, etc).It is not simply a typical big state undergraduate school.
Lastly, I went to UW (obviously I am biased), but I also attended law school at Michigan and visited a semester at UT. I can honestly say that UW was the finest educational experience of my life and probably would not have had such opportunities had I not gone to a school with a reputation for providing an excellent education.
Why are academics even being brought up? It's true that UCLA and USC are superior to UW in academics, so are Harvard and Princeton, but is that at all relevant? These are major D1 recruits, very few of them actually consider a school's academics so long as they are not a Boise State of the world. You're very new to recruiting if you think these kids are going to pick USC or UCLA over UW because of academics, if they do it will be ebcause of many reasons other than that. Please go take the irrelevant academics discussion elsewhere.
On the school part: the UW is a very strong public university. The comparison to CSU-Long Beach is silly. No, it's not Princeton or Harvard, but the diversity of the student body, the location in a diverse city, and the quality of the faculty make for a great place to go to school. Come on up y'all!
Unc