Jacob Boy, 52, has verbally committed to play at Harvard.

Leaning back in his chair, Rob Keys heaved a heavy sigh as he spoke.

"This is my life," he said, pointing to a table covered by boxes filled with resumes and evaluation forms and containers full of CDs.

Keys is the college football recruiting coordinator for Slippery Rock University. His eyes have been glued to statistical data and highlight films for weeks.

College football's national letter of intent day — when high school gridders can sign on the dotted line with a collegiate program — is Wednesday.

"From mid-October until the end of February, we've been going at a pretty intense rate," Keys said. "Evaluating information, talking on the phone, visiting families, having families visit here ... The recruiting process is year-round."

Between players SRU targets on its own and unsolicited information received in the mail or through the Internet, Rock head coach George Mihalik estimates he and his staff look at 1,800 high school players from October through February each year.

The NCAA Division II school signs roughly 25 players per year.

"Seems a little crazy, doesn't it?" Keys said of the process. "The reward is seeing a kid's face light up when you present him the opportunity to play college football.

"You become part of his dream and that moment is the culmination of a lot of work on the part of everybody involved."

That work is much harder for NCAA Division II and Division III football programs. Wednesday will virtually end the recruiting efforts for Division I schools.

Division II schools recruit throughout February and try to find walk-ons beyond that. Most Division III schools recruit players through May.

"Any person sitting in the stands at a high school football game can point out the Division I prospects," said Jeff Hand, head coach of Division III Westminster College. "Division II players usually have either the size or speed, but not both.

"At the Division III level, we're hoping to get kids who have some speed or some size ... We can't give athletic scholarships, so it's a whole different ballgame."

Division III schools can put together academic scholarship or financial aid packages, but no athletic inducements.Hand said his program will look at at least 1,000 players and sign 35 to 40 per year.Division III Grove City College requires incoming freshmen to apply for admission by Feb. 1 of the previous academic year."That forces us to recruit a year ahead of time, basically," Grove City coach Chris Smith said. "Our program has lower numbers than a lot of D-III schools because of our school's academic selectivity."Most recruiters will go to a high school and talk to seven or eight kids. We go to a high school and talk to one or two. We have to be a little more particular, but we can sell individuality, too."Each May, Smith and his staff send letters to every high school coach in Pennsylvania, Ohio and parts of other states looking for tips on potential college players."If the return rate on those letters is 30 percent, that's pretty good," Smith said. "We may end up contacting 1,500 kids and get 500 responses."Then you see if they're a good fit for the school and your program and the paring process begins. Generally, we'll sign 32 to 40 players a year."While Smith primarily looks at high school juniors — a Saturday in July before their senior year marking GCC's first real recruiting day — SRU coach George Mihalik deals strictly with seniors.Mihalik says he simply has no time to look at highlight films of juniors."We're getting stuff sent to us on juniors now," he said. "I get at least 10 new ones e-mailed to me every day from all over the country."I'm just not ready for that yet."

SRU's head coach for 22 years and involved in collegiate coaching for 34 seasons, Mihalik has endured the technological transformation of recruiting."We used to go through reels and reels of 16-millimeter film," he recalled. "We lived in the darkroom. Then it was 8-millimeter film, then VHS tapes, then DVDs ... Now the Internet makes a huge impact. We're getting stuff on kids from Hawaii.""I got one VHS tape sent this year. It's all DVDs or Internet," Keys said. "If information from a kid or coach doesn't include video highlights, he has no chance with us. We won't even look at it."There just isn't any time."Once a college coaching staff decides which players to go after, home visits begin. Mihalik is on the road four or five nights a week during January, talking to kids in the comfort of their own living rooms.NCAA recruiting regulations dictate when a coach can do what and where with a recruit."The recruiting manual is 328 pages long — with no pictures," Mihalik said. "Our staff takes a test on it every year, administered by the university. If you can't pass that test, you can't recruit."Selling their kidsFacing such long odds in trying to land their players in college football programs, high school coaches put in long hours after the season in efforts to do so."People think our work is done the day our season ends," Moniteau coach Jeff Campbell said. "That's when our most important work begins."I spend hours and hours cutting film, putting together the highlight tapes, calling coaches, making contacts, trying to use every resource possible to get our kids where they want to go."That stuff can become a fulltime job in and of itself, if you let it," Campbell added.

Mars coach Scott Heinauer compared a high school coach's role in recruiting to that of a used car salesman."They're trying to sell cars, we're trying to sell our kids," Heinauer said. "I put together a Web site with video packages and informational items on all of our players desiring to play college ball."If a coach from Missouri calls wanting some info on a certain kid, I give him the key to the Web site. The job is to promote your kids the best you can because that's what coaches from other schools are doing with their kids."Mars sent eight players on to college ball last year. Heinauer sees another five going this year.By comparison, perennial District 9 Class AA powerhouse Karns City sends maybe one or two players a year to college football."At Karns City, we're a little out of the way," KC coach Ed Conto said. "Recruiters can go into Pittsburgh and hit 50 schools. Unless we have a kid they're really interested in, they're not gonna come out here."A lot of our kids go on to trade schools. They're not interested in college. The ones who are, we have to determine if they have the ability to do it and at what level, if the school they're looking at fits them academically and athletically."Too many players wind up going to the wrong place. They drop out and leave, then don't go back," Conto added.

High school coaches participate with recruiting services and attend college recruiting nights. The latter are generally hosted by a high school and bring in 30 college coaches or more."I went to the North Pittsburgh recruiting night (at North Allegheny High School) and brought 25 DVDs with me," Knoch coach Mike King said. "I'll be visited at school by about 20 college coaches in an average year, too."Once I break down film, I'll go back in with a John Madden telestrator and circle each kid coaches may be interested in. It's a tireless, seemingly endless process, but you're driven to do it because you don't want your kids to be overlooked."Mihalik said there used to be one recruiting service — a business designed to publicize high school players to college coaches — in Western Pennsylvania."Now there's 25 of them," the SRU coach said. "It's mind-boggling what's out there."Yet the coaches deal with it."Open a door for a kid and it's all worth it," Campbell said. "These kids are at a critical point in their lives."Fun, yet stressful timeMars lineman Brody Evanson, Knoch linebacker Jake McTighe and Moniteau defensive end Jacob Boy are among Butler County seniors going through the recruiting process this year."There were 20 to 30 schools dealing with me at one point," Evanson said. "I got my first (college) letter my sophomore year."Evanson has trimmed his list to five schools. A player can make five official visits to schools during recruiting season and he made his first one only recently."It's kind of stressful," Evanson admitted of the process. "You're dealing with a lot of information and you don't know how much (scholarship) money the scouts will give you."Boy had as many as 50 schools looking at him. Most backed off when he verbally committed to Harvard in December. Boy is carrying a 4.0 grade point average."I loved it at first," Boy said of being recruited. "But it's surprising how it plays out. No one tells you what's going to happen, so there's no way to prepare for it."Just the fact that people out there knew who I was ... It strokes the ego a little bit. Overall, I think it's a good process because it forces you to look at your life and what you want to do with it."McTighe had 10 schools looking at him at a variety of positions, including fullback, tight end and linebacker."Part of it makes you feel good because all that hard work has paid off," McTighe said. "But I've been stressed out a lot over this."Wherever I go, my major is undecided. I've been told it's better that way because you can look at what the school has to offer once you're there. Like everyone else, I'm just looking for the right fit."McTighe feels no shame in feeling stressed. He said every high school kid being recruited should feel that way."If they don't, there's something wrong with them," he said. "This is the first big decision we're making in life. We're deciding what path to follow."I'm taking my time. The last thing you want to do is screw it up."

Here is the 2009-10 college football recruiting calendar that coaches and athletes are required to follow:<B>Aug. 1 to Nov. 28</B> — Quiet Period and Evaluation Period<B>Nov. 29 to Jan. 30</B> — Contact Period (with following exceptions):<B>Dec. 13</B> — Quiet Period<B>Dec. 14 to 17</B> — Dead Period<B>Dec. 18 to 20</B> — Quiet Period<B>Dec. 21 to Jan. 1</B> — Dead Period<B>Jan. 2 to 10</B> — Quiet Period<B>Jan. 11 to 14</B> — Dead Period<B>Jan. 15 to 16</B> — Quiet Period<B>Jan. 31</B> — Quiet Period<B>Feb. 1 to 4</B> — Dead Period<B>Feb. 5 to April 14</B> — Quiet Period<B>April 15 to May 31</B> — Evaluation Period<B>June 1 to July 31</B> — Quiet Period

<B>• Contact</B> — Any time a coach has face to face contact with high school athlete or his parents off the college campus and says more than hello<B>• Contact Period</B> — When a college coach may have in-person contact with athlete and/or parents on or off the college campus<B>• Dead Period</B> — When the college coach may not have any in-person contact with athlete or parents. Letters and phone calls are permitted.<B>• Evaluation</B> — Activity by a coach to evaluate athlete's academic or athletic ability, including visit to high school to watch athlete practice or compete<B>• Evaluation Period</B> — Coach may watch athlete play or practice, but cannot have in-person conversation.<B>• Official Visit</B> — Any visit to a college campus by athlete and parents paid for by the college. The college may pay for transportation to and from college, room and up to three meals per day and reasonable entertainment expenses.<B>• Unofficial Visit</B> — Any visit by athlete and parents paid by the family. Only expense athlete may receive is three complimentary admissions to a home athletic contest.<B>• Prospective Student-Athlete</b> — An athlete beginning ninth-grade classes<B>• Quiet Period</B> — Coach may not have any in-person contact or visit athlete's high school. Athlete and parents may visit a college campus during this time and coach may write or telephone the athlete.<B>• Verbal Commitment </B>— A college-bound athlete's commitment to a school prior to signing a national letter of intent. Verbal commitments are not binding on either the athlete or school's part and can be announced at any time.<B>• National Letter of Intent</B> — A signed financial aid agreement contract binding to the athlete and the schoolSource: NCAA.org

Rob Keys, football recruiting coordinator at Slippery Rock University, goes through the stacks of player profile CDs in his office. Slippery Rock, an NCAA Division II school, signs roughly 25 players per year after looking at about 1,800. Division II schools recruit through February.

Knoch's Jacob McTighe runs over a Blackhawk defender in the first quarter of their game last September. The Knoch senior had 10 colleges looking at him at a variety of positions, including fullback, tight end and linebacker.

Mars lineman Brody Evanson lifts weights during a recent workout. Evanson says there were 20 to 30 schools interested in him at one point. He now has trimmed his list of potential colleges to five.

Slippery Rock University head coach George Mihalik, rear, and football recruiting coordinator Rob Keys check out a prospect board in the football office at SRU. Mihalik, SRU's head coach for 22 years, has seen recruiting technology evolve from the days of 16-millimeter film to VHS tapes and DVDs and now the Internet.