NORTH CAROLINA TECH PREPARATORY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY
Stanley Jean Baptise

From Scout.com
Receiver visiting this week
By Kyle Ringo


Colorado football coaches are continuing their search for a wide receiver to add to the 2009 recruiting class as you first learned on Scout.com last week. This week they are bringing, perhaps, their main target to town. Get inside for this Scout.com exclusive.

Stanley JeanBaptiste is scheduled to visit CU on Thursday and could stay in Boulder through Saturday's scrimmage, he confirmed today.


Chi-Emeke Worthington, an assistant head coach at North Carolina Tech Prepatory Christian Academy where JeanBaptiste played last season, said he has been working with Colorado coaches to arrange the trip and the plans were finalized this morning.


JeanBaptiste is a 6-foot-3, 190-pound product of the Miami area with Haitian roots. He attended two different high schools as a prep, leaving one for the other in order to focus on his grades. He then spent a semester last fall at North Carolina Tech to work on raising his test scores. With all his academic issues seemingly resolved, he is ready to get started on his college career.


"I'm excited," JeanBaptiste said. "I'm just hoping they've got nice facilities and a nice atmosphere and stuff, and if I get along with the people well."


JeanBaptiste said CU has not offered him a scholarship yet. He's not worried about it at this point. He's more interested in seeing how he might fit in with the program. He said he wants to pursue a communications degree in college and would like to study broadcast journalism.


CU badly needs more depth at the wide receiver position. It's no secret the program didn't get all the players it was targeting at the position in recruiting and the lack of depth became an even more pressing problem this week when 2008 signee Chance Blackmon announced his decision to transfer close to home in Texas.


JeanBaptiste's former coaches at North Carolina Tech said he has all the tools to become a solid receiver in major college football. He made about 30 catches for approximately 500 yards and six touchdowns last fall.


"He's a very fluid athlete," Worthington said about JeanBaptiste last week. "He's deceptively fast. With his frame, sometimes it doesn't look like he's running very fast, but he's pulling away from everybody. He's so long. He definitely is a guy who can be a vertical threat, and he will go up over defenders and get the ball."

From Scout.com
CU hopes to sign another 2009 recruit 


 

By Kyle Ringo

Publisher
Posted Apr 2, 2009


It has been nearly two months since Colorado football coaches signed 19 players on national letter of intent day. Coach Dan Hawkins still has two available scholarships with which to work and it appears the program will use at least one to add another player. Scout.com has confirmed one prospect in the mix. Get inside for more.


Wide receivers were a top priority in the 2009 cycle, and while CU successfully landed three players at the position, coaches wanted more. Players such as Diante Jackson, Emory Blake and Markish Jones flirted with CU right up to signing day and then went elsewhere.

CU landed two highly regarded prep prospects from the Dallas area in Jarrod Darden and Terdema Ussery but those two are the only sure bets to join the roster in the summer. Junior college wide receiver Andre Simmons has a lot of academic work to do to make it to Boulder and play next fall.

So CU coaches have spent the past two months scouring the nation and talking with their contacts searching for wideouts who may have slipped through the cracks somehow. They have literally searched from Miami, where they found one possibility, to Hawaii.

Scout.com asked CU wide receivers coach Eric Kiesau this week if he is still actively recruiting wide receivers to sign this spring or summer.

“Absolutely. And I think we will,” Kiesau said. “We’ve got some guys and there is some interest out there.

"That’s the one thing with me and just our style in recruiting. I’m going to go after big-time players. A lot of schools don’t do that when you win five games. You don’t go after the top guys in the country. I’ll role the dice and I’ll do that. I’ve done it everywhere I’ve been and Hawk has done it.

"Yeah, we did miss on a few, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. That’s kind of where we are now. We’ve got some guys we’re kind of looking at and evaluating. We don’t want to take a guy just to take a guy. We want to make sure it’s the right guy. As you know, with us we like to take a little bit longer and get to know the kid and get to know their high school program and kind of figure out what they’re all about. We’re not just looking at tape and going, ‘Oh, that guy’s a baller. Let’s offer him.’ We’re in the process of doing that right now. When that will happen? I don’t know. But is it a high priority for us? Absolutely.”

Stanley JeanBaptiste is a 6-foot-3, 185-pound receiver who grew up in the Miami area and moved between several high schools. He spent much of his junior and senior years working to improve his academic situation and took an extra semester to work on it last fall when he attended North Carolina Tech Prepatory Christian Academy, where he also played football.

North Carolina Tech assistant head coach Chi-Emeke Worthington confirmed CU has been in touch and is considering offering Jean-Baptiste a scholarship.

"He came up here and did a great job and got his test scores up and everything, and now he's ready to go out there and play some football," Worthington said.

Jean-Baptiste played alongside another former CU recruit last season. Ed Tinker, a prospect from the Pittsburgh area, signed to play at Pittsburgh in February. Worthington said there weren't enough balls to go around last season or Jean-Baptiste's numbers would have been better than the 30 or so catches he made for about 500 yards and six scores.

"He's a very fluid athlete," Worthington said. "He's deceptively fast. With his frame, sometimes it doesn't look like he's running very fast, but he's pulling away from everybody. He's so long. He definitely is a guy who can be a vertical threat, and he will go up over defenders and get the ball."

Kiesau said speed is the key ingredient he is looking for in this particular search. He has tall receivers in Ussery and Darden and doesn't want to add another player with similar ability. One prospect who fits into that description would be Jewel Hardy, a lanky wideout from Compton Community College, who visited CU late in the recruiting process. Hardy is likely not in the mix because he so similar in style and ability to the two players who are already signed.

We will continue to follow the situation in the coming days and weeks.

JeanBaptiste being patient 
By: Kyle Ringo
Scout.com

The Colorado football program hosted wide receiver Stanley JeanBaptiste on an official visit two weeks ago but still hasn't offered him a scholarship. Find out what JeanBaptiste is thinking and what other program has offered him inside.

Stanley JeanBaptiste said he spoke with Colorado wide receivers coach Eric Kiesau this morning but he still hasn't received a scholarship offer.

"He's just telling me to be patient and he's going to keep me informed about the scholarship coming," JeanBaptiste said. "That's all they're telling me." JeanBaptiste said he is under the impression that CU coaches are waiting to learn if one of their recruits will qualify academically in Boulder.

Colorado has at least two available scholarships with two more opening up after the spring semester because former quarterback Matt Ballenger and former wide receiver Chance Blackmon are transferring this summer.

"It's kind of hard, but I like Colorado because I can get playing time," JeanBaptiste said. "So I'll just be patient with them."   Colorado also has offered a scholarship to former Michigan wide receiver Toney Clemons, who will choose his next school by mid-May and visited Boulder last weekend. Clemons would not be able to play next season because of NCAA transfer rules.

JeanBaptiste said there is a chance he would consider coming to Boulder without a scholarship but with a promise of one in the future. But that isn't the ideal situation, especially considering he has a scholarship offer on the table from Florida International, which is recruiting him to play safety.

The 6-foot-3 wide receiver from the Miami area says he is trying to be patient with CU because he really likes the program and wants to be a Buff, but doing so is hard because Florida International has ramped up its efforts to land his services in recent weeks.

JeanBaptiste said he last played defense in his senior year in high school. He played wide receiver, a little bit of cornerback and saw plenty of action at safety that year.

He attended North Carolina Tech Preparatory Christian Academy last fall to work on improving his test scores. He played wide receiver there and caught about 30 passes for more than 500 yards and six touchdowns. He prefers to play wide receiver at the college level, but will play defense if it means the difference between getting a scholarship or not.

JeanBaptiste said when he was in Boulder, he spent time running routes and catching passes from CU quarterbacks and they had immediate chemistry. He believes he could contribute right away next season if a scholarship offers comes his way.