Tuesday, September 22, 2015
By Greg Gulas
AUSTINTOWN
As ScoutingOhio.com celebrates its 10th anniversary this fall, owners Mark and Stephanie Porter remain thankful that back in 2005 they didn’t name their football recruiting service ScoutingtheUnitedStates.com.
Their cars, which have collectively logged nearly 750,000 miles over that span, are happy that they decided to stay regional as well.
“What started out as a favor to a few friends after Canfield’s football team finished their state runner-up season, has taken off to the point that not even I could ever have imagined,” Porter said at Monday’s Curbstone Coaches’ luncheon. “We wanted to name it Scouting Youngstown, but then I got some requests from schools in Toledo and other places across the state so that’s how we settled on our name.
“One contact led to another, everyone liked the highlight videos and information that we provided and before you knew it, this became a full-time process.”
Porter added that local contacts are the ones who helped paved the way in getting the word out.
“Jeff Bayuk, current Warren JFK head football coach, was my coach at Canfield and he liked what we were doing,” Porter said. “He was at Hubbard at the time so we helped with their squad.
“I played with [Canton McKinley’s] Dan Reardon so while he was at Ursuline, they, too, came on boar,” Porter said. “Cardinal Mooney’s P.J. Fecko and I played together at St. Charles and they were in.
“[Niles coach] Brian Shaner was at Rayen back then and he was committed and before you knew it, Boardman, Mark Brungard at Poland and Dick Angle at Howland were also sold on the idea.
“Everything just took off.”
It wasn’t long after that when college coaches began to embrace Porter’s service, which at the time was free and available to anyone who desired to use it while scouting for their respective colleges.
“When we became full-service, we originally had just 20 colleges looking at our top-100 breakdown,” Porter said. “We would send a DVD box set to the coaches, who in turn used it in their recruiting process.
“Now, Stephanie and I canvass the entire state with 90 colleges and universities on board, half of which are Division I schools with the others Division II and III subscribers.
We rank over 5,000 players in the state now and are pretty in-depth with everyone’s analysis,” Porter said. “Our search engine is what really has changed everything since those early days. We see everyone that we rank.”
Porter’s breakdown still includes their top-100 at all positions, but they’ve expanded to include the top 1,000 in their respective classes as well.
Player analysis includes everything from height and weight breakdowns, to 40-yard dash times to players who have already been offered and by which schools.
Other personal information such as ACT and SAT scores are included.
“Social media has also changed the game so while I get asked, and also ask to befriend someone on Facebook, students must remember that what they post also becomes part of their analysis,” Porter said. “While the area is down, number-wise, there are still plenty of players from the area with Division I offers.”
According to Porter, area players from the class of 2016 to watch or who have already been offered by Division I institutions include Andrew Cree and Keevon Harris of LaBrae, Keemari Murry of Warren Harding, Tommy Carnifax of Howland, Hubbard’s George Hill, Andrew Armstrong of Cardinal Mooney and Jabbar Price and Jonathan Neeley of Ursuline.
Area players from the class of 2017 already offered or looked at include Warren Harding’s Lynn Bowden, Victor Williams of Howland and Jordan Murphy and Jacob Scheller of Crestview.