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Norman, Okla.
– With eight of the eleven 2008 BASS Elite Series events in the record books, the
end of year races are starting to come into focus. As the plot lines concerning Angler of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Classic qualification and even tour card requalification continue to develop, time is running short for those who haven’t experienced success at the scales.
To date, only one Elite Series rookie has experienced what can be characterized as unqualified success. That man is Bobby Lane, currently in 18th place overall and with a sizeable lead in the ROY race. While some pundits have argued that Lane, with substantial experience on the FLW Tour, is not a “true” rookie, for purpose of the season-ending awards BASS considers him to be one, as they did 2004 and 2006 ROYs Greg Hackney and Steve Kennedy, neither of whom was a fresh-faced youngster when they came to BASS tour-level events.
But while Lane has held his own, the other ten rookies, nine of whom remain (Bobby Myers dropped out after four tournaments), are all struggling. Here’s where they sit in the AOY race:
• Wade Grooms 54th
• Brian Clark 70th
• Billy Brewer 73rd
• Cory Waldrop 82nd
• Clark Reehm 88th
• Pat Golden 90th
• Jay Fuller 91st
• David Sherrer 101st
• Randy Allen 107th
With three events left to go, their chances of making the Classic have not yet been extinguished, but they’re dwindling quickly. Even worse, with no Wild Card tournament scheduled for this year, it may be “one and done” for some of them, whether or not they have the funds to continue.
Speculation about why they’ve struggled so much may take into account many factors, including – rookie jitters, new bodies of water, increased financial pressures, even as compared to last year. But it can’t be argued that it’s categorically impossible for a rookie class to do well.
One only need look back to the 2007 crop of Elite Series rookies, twelve of them in all – Derek Remitz, Matt Sphar, Casey Ashley, Jason Williamson, James Niggemeyer, Scott Campbell, Marty Robinson, Brian Hudgins, James Kennedy, Glenn Delong, Matt Amadeo and James Charlesworth – to see a group that fared better in the standings and in the wallet.
AOY Race
As noted above, after eight events this year, only one rookie is on pace to make the Classic through the Elites. After eight events last year, Remitz and Ashley were both in the top 25 of the AOY standings. Brian Hudgins was only four spots outside of the Classic cut. By the end of the year, Hudgins had plummeted out of contention. Remitz and Ashley dropped as well, but remained within the Classic field, and Matt Sphar made a heroic climb up the ladder to make his first Classic.
Perhaps more telling, while this year’s rookie class currently averages 80th place in the standings (including Myers), at this time last year the median for rookies was 56th place, a full 24 spots better. While they struggled somewhat as a group over the last
three regular season tournaments, in the end, they still averaged 63rd in the standings.
The possibility for movement, both upward and downward, still exists, as evidenced by Hudgins’ fall from 41st to 78th over the last three tournaments and Sphar’s leap from 47th to 29th. Of the twelve 2007 rookies, four improved over the final three tournaments, seven dropped and one stayed in exactly the same spot.
Top Twelves and Money Finishes
This year’s rookie class has fared particularly poorly in terms of making the cut to Sunday. Lane made the final twelve at both Florida events, but aside from those two finishes Reehm’s 2nd at Amistad, Brewer’s 8th at Amistad, Waldrop’s 8th this past weekend at Wheeler and the 7th by Grooms at Kentucky Lake this past weekend were the only “TV day” appearances. Of those six finishes, only Reehm flirted with victory. Even Lane’s 3rd place at the Harris Chain left him almost six pounds behind winner Mike McClelland.
Ten of this year’s rookies have fished eight events and Myers added four entries, so they’ve made it to Sunday a miserable six out of 74 times, just over seven per cent of the time. They’re ratio of money finishes is not much more encouraging. They’ve logged 23 top fifties so far, or 27 per cent of the time. Last year, through eight events, the rooks had produced 9 out of a possible 96 top twelves (nine per cent) and 40 out of 96 money finishes (42 per cent).
Additionally, the 2008 rookies have never landed three of their members in Sunday’s field, while the 2007 crew did it at the California Delta (Remitz, Charlesworth and Niggemeyer). As for Top Fifties, the 2008 group had a season’s best five at both Kissimmee and Amistad, and averages three members per event, while the 2007 rookies averaged five per tournament. In fact, at the Delta, 10 of them made it (and Campbell barely missed) and they matched or exceeded the ’08 group’s top number of five in five of the eight tournaments. And it wasn’t the same names over and over again – while five ’08 rookies have fished Sundays to this point, at this point last year the wealth had been spread among seven first years.
No Dominant Force
The semi-good news for the 2008 rookies as a group is that nine of their eleven members have had at least one money finish. The bad news is that except for Lane, only Brewer and Reehm have had more than two. Only Lane has made it to Sunday twice.
Last year at this time, every one of the rookies had made the money at least once. Only two, Remitz and Ashley, had made the Top 12 more than once, but each of them had won an Elite Series tournament and the $100,000 top prize that goes with that victory.
Which brings us to another point – financial solvency. While we can’t know for sure what kind of financial backing or sponsor support this year’s rookies have, to date they’ve spent $462,000 on entry fees and are barely past the $300,000 mark in collective earnings. Last year’s group had pledged $528,000 at this point, but partly as a result of the two big wins they’d grossed over $600,000 through eight events.
When one considers that expenses, particularly gasoline, have risen dramatically since this time a year ago, the disparity grows even larger.
Despite the fact that Remitz and Ashley earned large single-event paydays, they weren’t the only ones whose revenues exceeded entry fees through eight events. Matt Sphar and James Niggemeyer had both earned more than the $44,000 they spent for eight entry fees and several others were well within range. This year, other than Lane, Reehm is the only one who has achieved that distinction and the dropoff in earnings after that is quite rapid.
Home Stretch
Will the rookies learn from their early season experiences and improve in the last
three events, or will it be like the transition from college basketball to the pros, where a 30 game season gives way to 82, and many players hit the wall?
There’s not necessarily a one-size-fits-all answer.
Last year’s rookie crop stayed strong in terms of making the cut to day three – four members made it at Erie, three at Toho and an incredible eight made it to that point at the Potomac River. In all, 15 of 36 entries (42 percent) earned a check in the last
three tournaments. But their performance dropped in terms of Sunday appearances. They were shut out at Erie and the Potomac, and avoided the complete skunk when Delong and Niggemeyer made it at Toho. But 2 for 36 (under six per cent) is even lower than the ’08 group’s rate to date.
With no monster paydays (Delong’s $39,000 at Toho was their best check), their earnings ratio suffered too. They earned just a few thousand dollars more than the $198,000 they shelled out in entry fees.
Looking forward, none of this year’s group of rookies would seem to have an inside track on a particularly good performance at Old Hickory, Erie or Onieda. That’s not to say they can’t win it, just that with a high proportion of their cadre from Texas/Oklahoma/Louisiana/Arkansas and the Carolinas, there’s likely no advantage (home lake or otherwise) working in their favor. At the same time, most of their competition has been to at least
two of the three tournament venues.
Sophomore/Rookie Challenge
While the 2007 rookies seem to have outperformed their next-year counterparts, in some respects it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison – different schedule, different condition. On top of that, it’s not a team sport. Each angler stands alone on his own merits. But still, it may be instructive to see if they experienced the dreaded “sophomore slump” or whether their year-to-year performance has changed in any way.
Taken collectively, their performance seems rather similar. They went from an average of 56th place after eight events last year to 58th on average in the end of year standings. Now they average roughly 63rd place. But the individual changes are dramatic in some cases.
Three of the sophomores are in line to make the Classic, including two of last year’s contenders, Remitz and Ashley. Jason Williamson is not far out of the cut, Matt Sphar might be able to make a late season charge as he did in 2007 since two events remain near his New York home. Campbell is in 60th, Niggemeyer is in 76th, and the four others (Charlesworth did not requalify) are in 87th or worse, including Amadeo and Kennedy in 105th and 106th, respectively.
Two of them are better off than both their eight event and eleven event positions (Hudgins and Ashley) while eight are worse than either of those marks (Remitz, Campbell, Sphar, Niggemeyer, Robinson, Kennedy, Amadeo, Delong. Williamson is four spots better than he was after eight events in 2007, and exactly the same as his end of year position.
Niggemeyer has made the most precipitous fall – he went from 53rd after eight events last year to 44th after the season ended to 76th right now. Hudgins, on the strength of a breakout season, has made the largest climb. He was 41st after eight events last year before plummeting to 78th at year’s end, but now he’s in 14th overall.
Through eight tournaments, they’ve had a total of 88 entries, which have produced seven Top Twelves, (Ashley and Williamson each have two). That eight per cent is very close to their rate at this time last year and beats the rookies’ five per cent.
They’ve had 38 Top Fifties, though, a stellar rate of 43 per cent, which slightly exceeds the 42 per cent clip they were at last year and is far larger than the ’08 rookies’ 28 per cent rate. This effort has been led by Hudgins, who has earned a check in every event, including a Sunday showing at Kissimmee. They’ve matched the rookies’ season-best five members in the money five times, and they’ve beaten it once. The only time they had less than five members in the money was at Kissimmee, where they placed four, and Kentucky Lake (three)..
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