Written by Doug Goodnough
George Yarberry, ’95, had the night of his life.
As a senior guard at Maumee High School in Ohio, he scored a career-high 30 points and made eight 3-point shots against Toledo-area rival Perrysburg. Sitting in the stands that night were Hillsdale College basketball coaches Bernie Balikian and Mark Huffman, who were there to scout a Perrysburg player but quickly shifted their attention to Yarberry.
Yarberry, unfamiliar with the recruiting process, soon decided to visit the Hillsdale campus with his mother. When Hillsdale’s coaches offered a full basketball scholarship, Yarberry’s recruitment was over.
“Within five seconds, my mom said, ‘We’ll take it,’” he said.
Now, Yarberry has spent much of his professional career trying to help high school student-athletes with their college recruiting experience. As founder of the Elite Football Network, he travels the country providing opportunities for prep student-athletes to earn college athletic scholarships.
After earning his Hillsdale degree in marketing, Yarberry worked in Yellow Pages advertising and marketing for four years. However, he longed to start his own business.
“For me, it was everything to get a scholarship,” said Yarberry, who grew up in a single-parent home during high school. “I knew that I wanted to give back because of my story growing up. I never made a highlight tape. I never visited campuses. I never knew what the recruiting process was all about.”
Taking a leap of faith, Yarberry put down a $5,000 deposit and rented out the Pontiac Silverdome to host Michigan’s first high school football combine in 2001. Calling it the Midwest Elite Football Combine, he recruited coaches to work the camp and student-athletes to attend. More than 400 high school student-athletes and 100 high school coaches attended that first combine, and Yarberry quit his marketing job and began his own recruiting business.
For more than 22 years, Yarberry has been a road warrior, attending high school football and basketball games most weekends. His business includes developing highlight videos for high school student-athletes and now has Athlete Video Services to go with his recruiting business.
“We’re different in that we have a film crew that videotapes everything,” Yarberry said of his business model for his camps. “The kids get a highlight video of the camp. They can use that as a recruiting tool. Recruiting is about camps. You can take the camp to (coaches).”
He recently created a YouTube channel and plans to debut a Midwest high school football magazine later this year. From Cleveland to Chicago to Las Vegas to Indianapolis, Yarberry will go just about anywhere to scout and evaluate the best talent in the country.
“It’s like a mouse on a wheel,” Yarberry said of his hectic schedule. “I love what I do. I’m around sports, which is what I want to do. And I’m helping a lot of kids. It works well for me.”
He still manages most of the camp logistics himself but has a network of coaches and former NFL players who help instruct and evaluate high school football talent.
“There’s a laundry list of (NFL) guys who have come to my camps and I’ve helped over the years,” Yarberry said.
Despite his hectic travel schedule, Yarberry is a husband and father of two. He met his wife, Lisa (Hakim), ’93, at Hillsdale, and they have a grown son and a daughter who is a student at Michigan State University. Residing in Beverly Hills, Michigan, they recently attended Hillsdale’s Homecoming Weekend, and said they were very impressed with what they saw.
“That basketball arena is absolutely amazing,” he said. “We told friends how amazing the campus was. We’ll be back next year for sure.”
Yarberry, who is still in the Hillsdale career record book for 3-point field goals made (154, 10th) and 3-point field goal percentage (42 percent/sixth), said he follows the Chargers program from afar.
“I’m always checking the box scores looking at how the team is doing,” said the former shooting guard. “It’s great to see that the program is taking it to another level.”
He said winning the 1995 conference tournament and playing in the NCAA Division II tournament was a career highlight. And his on-campus Hillsdale experience has helped him both personally and professionally.
“I feel like I had a great career,” Yarberry said of his Hillsdale basketball experience. “The close personal connections between the faculty and students really helped me. I wouldn’t change anything.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Published in October 2023
