His recruiting road took twists and turns, but ultimately led Sav’ell Smalls to hometown UW
When Sav’ell Smalls rolled out of bed in the morning over the past couple of years, it wasn’t unusual for him to wake up to 20 or so text messages from coaches in the SEC.
“They get to their offices at seven in the morning, so it’s still four in the morning over here,” said Smalls, who headlines The News Tribune’s 2020 Northwest Nuggets class. “So it’s four in the morning and you wake up and have 20 messages. One of them might even wake you up at five in the morning.”
That’s life as one of the nation’s top recruits. Smalls, who returned to Kennedy Catholic for his senior season after spending his sophomore and junior seasons at Garfield High School in Seattle, is one of a handful of five-star recruits across the country, per 247sports.com’s composite rankings. The 6-4, 244-pound defensive end/outside linebacker had received 31 college football scholarship offers, with a list that includes schools like Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Ohio State and much of the Pac-12.
These days, when a player receives that coveted fifth star on any large recruiting database, it sends fans of the schools into a frenzy, flocking to social media to encourage that recruit to come to their school. That kind of attention might sound nice, but it can be overwhelming for some 16 to 18-year old kids.
“All of the mail, all the phone calls, all the beat writers for ‘Gatorzone.com’ or all these different recruiting sites for every school, trying to gain insight on him,” said Kennedy Catholic coach Sheldon Cross. “A lot of adults trying to gain access to him because of social media — there’s a side of that that’s probably very tough on kids. I think there’s a side of it that’s kind of fun at first and then towards the end of it, I think those guys are glad to be done with it, glad to stop getting those phone calls from random people and all the tweets from Alabama fans.”
Twitter, in particular, turns into an interesting place where the high school football recruiting space is concerned. Fans — often grown men — hurl insults at each other while trying to convince recruits to pick their school.
“To see that side of it, it’s probably pretty daunting for these kids nowadays,” Cross said. “You have to have some mental strength to pick the best fit for you and your family through all of that noise. I think there’s a lot of noise in recruiting and then it’s like, what’s real and what’s not. What do you really trust when the dust settles? … There was a weight lifted off his shoulders the day he announced he was going to UW at our assembly.”
Smalls, now a University of Washington signee, had a tumultuous recruiting road. At one point around the spring of last year, he had eliminated the Huskies from consideration altogether.
“I just wanted to get out of the state,” Smalls said. “I had been here all my life. I just felt like it would be best for me to go somewhere else, get new learning experiences and experience a different culture than the same one I’ve been around my whole life.”
But things change. UW gave Smalls some space, but never gave up on recruiting him. Smalls met with then-coach Chris Petersen and then-defensive coordinator — now UW’s head coach — Jimmy Lake in August. He left that meeting with clarity.
“They just explained the benefits of coming to UW,” Smalls said. “All the players they’ve developed on defense. They put players in the NFL, just like Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State have. They’re right there with them.”
Another draw? Washington’s business school. Smalls wants to play in the NFL, but he also wants to study business. Eventually, he’d like to give back to his community.
“I’d definitely want to do something for the inner-city of Seattle, bring back black-owned businesses and move us back into the neighborhood, because we’re kind of being pushed out,” Smalls said.
Even when Petersen stepped down and Lake took over as the program’s head coach, Smalls didn’t waver in his commitment to the Huskies.
“He’s been in the program, been there with (Petersen) for a lot of years,” Smalls said. “He’s one of the best defensive minds in college football. … He wants to take the program back to the top, back to the College Football Playoff. He just instilled that confidence in me, my parents. I really just think he’s the man for the job.”
It’s fair to wonder if Smalls would have ended up at Washington, had he not returned to Kennedy Catholic for his senior year. Being around guys like junior quarterback Sam Huard, a UW commit, and a talented crop of local players and other highly-sought after recruits, may have played some part in Smalls wanting to stay home and build toward something special on Montlake.
“Just being around (Huard), seeing how he works, how much he puts into football and how dedicated he is to it, I know once he comes up to Washington in December, he’s going to work his tail off and do everything he can to get the (starting) job. … Having the opportunity to go at with him again — and hopefully some of my other teammates from this past team, as well — that’d be a really cool opportunity to have.”
Smalls is ready to turn the page to college, where he hopes to take the Huskies to national prominence once again. And with arguably the state’s most talented high school class coming in 2021, Smalls said he wants to show all the state’s top players that Washington is the place to be.
“I feel like we have some ballers coming in, especially with this 2021 class,” he said. “If we go out and ball and prove to that class that this is the place to be, do it at home. I feel like we can really do something special and put our names in the history books. You just have to work for it.”
