Jim Baxter’s MIDLANDS PREP SPORTS, produced by SCVARSITY, is the place to go for all things prep sports,, from news and game predictions to rankings and player highlights. .
Jim Baxter is a national recruiting/football analyst with more than twenty-five years in the industry. He is A former publisher from Rivals.com and owner of the legendary SCVarsity.com, the top high school sports website on the internet for more than two decades. His work as appeared in national publications such as Athlon Sports, Sporting News and Deep South Recruiting. He is the former co-host of The Overtime Show on Fox, On air recruiting expert for Cumulus Media’s 107 5 and CBS Sports Radio. He has served as a color analyst for Fox’s Football Fridays as well as ESPN High School Football. He is the founder/owner of SCVarsity and Midlands Prep Sports and the author of the best selling books “The Book on Evaluating Football Players” and “Get Recruited: The Guide To The Recruiting Process”.
To Reach JB, email scvarsity@sc.rr.com
THE STORY
In 1995, I published my first novel, The Revelation. It affordd me the opportunity to start my own business and published my own magazine. After preparing for a short time, the first issue of The Varsity Sports Journal was published. It was a gloss, full color magazine covering high school sports in South Carolina. During that time period the world wide web was budding. I decided to get a “website”, though I had no idea what a website was. My intetion was to promote the magazine with the website. I begin putting some of the stories on that website, SCVARSITY.COM and watched as the first followers begin to find the site. I remember it started with ten or twenty, then dozens of visitiors turned into hundreds of visitors and then that turned into thousands. I was approached by a representative from a young company called Rivals.com and they asked me to join the network. SCVarsity was one of the first Rivals.com sites and as the intenet exploded, so did the business. I was amazed as I watched thousands of vistitors turn into a million views a month and sometimes more, on our website. SCVarsity was the top high school website in the country for more than the first dozen years or so.
I worlked the Nike Football Combines and Elite 11 Camps in the late 90s and got tired of seeing the athletes from my state not get invitiations so in 2006, SCVarsity launched the All-State Football Combine. That combine ran until 2017 and we saw thousands of players come through that event. That led to our training camps and the luanch of QB1 Performance.
I began to get tired around 2017 and in 2018 decided to step away from camps and the television show I had been doing with my friend Corey MIller on Fox. The year after that I stepped away from radio, as well. After a social media debacle with some political activists, I decided to step away from sports all together and focus on my writing career. I have 13 books published, including multiple best sellers in the horror genre and in the sports genre.
But the thing is, sports is in one’s blood. It’s in my blood. It’s not just who you are but is what you are and what you’ve become. Someone asked me if I missed the sports industry and my honest answer is, I’ve missed the relationships. I still have players whom I helped ten and twenty years ago call occassionally to check in. Those bonds and relationships formed are precious and that is why I’ve relaunched SCVarsity with the intent on covering just the MIdalnds area of the state. Recruiting will be statewide, the rest of the coverage will be targeted in the MIdlands.
I hope you enjoy the site and can feel and see the passion I havve for these kids and these sports.
