From Player to Product: How the System Sorts and Discards Talent
The role of the high school athlete has changed. Development is no longer the primary objective. Readiness is. Players aren’t scouted for potential—they’re filtered for utility. The question is no longer “Who can become great?” but “Who can contribute now?”
This isn’t about effort or desire. It’s about market function. Players are evaluated not against peers, but against older, more physically mature alternatives: college transfers, international professionals, postgrads with years of training. Coaches aren’t building talent—they’re managing inventory. Categorization comes early: impact player, rotation piece, developmental risk. Anyone who doesn’t fit is quietly removed from the process.
This didn’t happen by accident. The introduction of the transfer portal, extended eligibility, and NIL economics collapsed the middle tier of development. Programs once willing to invest in talent now opt for proof. Why wait for potential when production is available?
Publicly, coaches still speak the language of growth—“fit,” “upside,” “long-term development.” Privately, they consult spreadsheets, metrics, and age profiles. Evaluation has become acquisition. Scouting has become sorting. Development has become an external responsibility.
The effect is quiet disposability. Players who would have been recruited ten years ago are now passed over, not due to lack of talent, but due to timeline. The system penalizes late bloomers and rewards early packaging. The path to a roster spot isn’t skill growth—it’s market readiness.
Parents are rarely informed of this structural shift. The myth of meritocracy—“if you’re good enough, they’ll find you”—still circulates. But the reality is governed by access, ecosystems, and visibility. If you’re not already in the system’s line of sight, development alone doesn’t guarantee opportunity.
The psychological toll is real. Players accelerate physical growth, skip foundational skill work, and mimic what they think will earn attention. They chase output, not improvement. Coaches claim to want development, but reward only results.
As a result, the middle tier of talent—players who need time—is being hollowed out. Not because they lack promise, but because the system no longer accommodates it. The rise of plug-and-play recruiting has displaced any model that values patience or originality.
This is labor policy disguised as sport. The athlete is no longer a student with potential. He’s an asset to be maximized. And if he cannot deliver immediately, he’s bypassed. The shift from educational pipeline to talent marketplace is complete.
The language hasn’t caught up, but the structure has. Development is now a private endeavor. College programs have outsourced the burden, and with it, accountability. Players are told to prepare—but the criteria for selection have changed without warning.
The rhetoric still encourages work. The reality rewards readiness. This isn’t a miscommunication. It’s design. And unless players understand the structure they’re navigating, effort alone becomes a misaligned currency—valuable, but no longer exchanged.
We are not cultivating athletes. We are extracting performance. And discarding the rest.
Author’s Note
There was a point in my life when I stopped asking why things felt unfair and started asking how they were built. That shift didn’t come from inspiration—it came from exposure. I stopped looking for uplifting answers and started following systems to their source.
That’s the lens I brought to this essay.
I’ve coached. I’ve recruited. I’ve watched players get passed over—not because they weren’t talented, but because they weren’t ready fast enough to fit someone else’s timeline. What looks like failure is often just misalignment with a system that rewards polish over growth and silence over explanation.
This isn’t about blame. It’s about structure. And unless we start naming how it works, we’ll keep confusing being overlooked with being undeserving.
—Dino Cook