Straight from an article on 247 that dropped a few hours ago-
247 ARTICLE
The sad part, I don’t think ZE will be the last of his kind. The hoopla and attention of today’s recruiting is creating this.
Hopefully Evans can be de recruited and his life can get back on track.
At 18, with essentially no life experience to tell him otherwise, that’s a tall order.
One of my most respected mentors was an award-winning elementary school teacher. She said that, for good or ill, a parent’s job was largely done by the time the child was 6 years old, and it’s well on about impossible to change the life track of a 12-year-old.
Her position was that the few redemptions past that age were a function of the child him/herself. She said they were the few hard-wired exceptions, and it really wouldn’t have mattered who the parents were or what they did.
For the vast majority, outsiders, defined as someone other than the kid, had little to no permanent influence after age 12. IF the child got on track, it was a personal choice born of observing what happened to others when they made the wrong choices, and it is an exceedingly rare human being who can make those distinctions at that age
Point being that (1) parents need to be fully engaged as to age-appropriate consequences before the child has the ability to be so, and (2) at age 18, heretofore insulated from consequences for his actions, Zach Evans is who he is, and only he can change himself.
No coach, not even Nick Saban or Paul Bryant can / could change him from the outside.
At this point, his options are slim (himself), and none (other people).
For his sake and that of the people he has the potential to hurt, I hope he gets his act together. But the numbers are against him, and I don’t expect it.