doverbird...
I understand where you are coming from on the stats piece. Not sure if it is on purpose or simply bad record keeping. I know that there have been a number of discussions in my area about player stats being "adjusted" to justify All-District selections but since I don't score the games I couldn't tell you that was fact. I do know that when I hear the stats discussed at the end of the year they don't seem to line up with what I felt that I witnessed all year but again, I didn't keep my own book.
I agree that colleges may not look at stats but you're right, they do matter to a lot of the kids. I have heard so many of the kids talking stats over the years so to think that it isn't important to them is simply not true. But I also feel that there is almost no way to really fix the issue so when I run across it I simply have to shake my head and just chalk it up to "it is what it is".
I will say this though. While my son was going through the process of moving to the next level he had to fill out a lot of bio pages where they asked about things such as All-District selections etc. and since my guess is that many of those awards can hinge on stats I would believe that it sort of does matter. The flip side is that my guess is that many of the coaches already know who the studs are so if someone comes at them with weird stats on a player that didn't impress on the field when they played that school they might raise an eyebrow so...