Sport: Fattening Them Up for Football

Some grade schoolers are held back so they can put on pounds

Throughout the land, college football stadiums yawn empty and forlorn, awaiting the contests of next fall. But in one important respect, next fall has already arrived: the recruiting war, the annual midwinter crusade to corner the market on high school football flesh, has begun. College coaches have abandoned their campuses and sallied forth to woo players from small-town fields and big-city playgrounds.

In some cases, players have been preparing for these visits since age twelve or 13. Parents squeezed by inflation and sons fired by dreams of glory have become so...

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