Canon Firing Line
Lifeblood
By Ellis Cannon
PSR Publisher

I've spent time this winter wondering why the coverage of college football recruiting has become such a big deal.

I have the answer - and it has something to do with baseball.

What we've long said about baseball remains true about baseball. Its attraction each spring-and later this month-is all about rebirth. It has nothing to do with what happened months ago when we last saw baseball teams; it has everything to do with what lies ahead-or, for fans, what they hope lies ahead-for those same teams.

That's the same rationale with college football recruiting - except the hopes aren't limited to this upcoming season. Instead, they extend years.

College football recruiting is the lifeblood of the sport. And in some ways, it represents to that sport, and those fans, what the beginning of baseball does in Florida and Arizona.

I always found that appealing. So years ago, when trying to find a niche, recruiting was natural. I was passionate about it and played to a strength - research.

So when were in Florida on a family visit and I caught a local TV show on recruiting, it got me excited and thinking about something fresh. Also, based on the type of prospects Florida puts out, many of the stars being highlighted were also likely future pros.

But there was also a level of interest in the topic-if you've spent any time in the South you know how important college football is there-that I had never seen before.

I rolled my sleeves up after we returned to Pittsburgh, wondering how I could translate that here.

To this day, I can recall leaving my office-that would be our basement-and running upstairs to tell my wife and mother I was confident about developing a niche in college football recruiting, believing it was a topic this market had more than enough room to grow.

Check out early PSR's and you'll see it. Opportunities followed and led to others. It remains one of our natural areas of interest and, to some extent, fascination. We'd like to think our annual coverage of college football recruiting, contained in this issue and presented by Allegheny General Hospital, once again reflects that information, insight and passion.

Those hopes of developing the focus on recruiting many years ago predated what has since become a much larger area of interest, both locally and nationally. It's now a national holiday and those guys on television I watched in Florida have probably gone on to early retirement.

That's not in the cards for me, but it's still fun. It's still about research and passion. But it will always be about rebirth and the future.

And will always be special.

Ellis Cannon is the Publisher of the Pittsburgh Sports Report.