The thing is that I don’t blame coaches for doing this. They are the ones who take the fall if things go crappy, and it is a job like everything else. They are going to exploit a flawed system, and rightfully so.

Actually, it doesn’t mean jack even AFTER they sign the LOI. Sure, there’s a modest penalty for breaking an LOI, but increasingly even that tepid sanction goes unused. The person “committed” just whines about how circumstances have changed, and gets released.

The very idea of commitment has become an anachronism. It used to mean pledging to do something even if it came to pass that, later on, you wanted to do something else. Indeed, if anyone could do what he wanted for any reason that popped up, there would be no sense in asking for, or giving, a “commitment” to begin with. It is precisely the turning away from later temptation that giving a “commitment” used to represent.

My father taught me that there is a term for keeping your word. The term is “honor.” In a culture that devalues honor in favor of convenience, it is unrealistic to expect people to do what they promise to do.