BE warned kids. You can be gay, but not stupid.

Most AFL recruiters are reluctant to divulge their draft criteria, especially in the wake of Matthew Rendell's sacking by Adelaide for an attempt at private, constructive honesty.

But the amazing truth is that football ability is only half of the modern drafting equation.

Recruiters now spend half their time doing background checks and psychological assessments in their search for coachable, intelligent, quality men.

Wild, misguided, rebellious draft-age kids with freakish football talent, but poor grades and a lust for trouble, be told. AFL clubs already know who you are, and who your friends are; and they don't want you.

Recruiters now check Facebook sites for bad signs.

They analyse friends, they analyse parents, and they search for criminal history.

They interview relatives, coaches, teachers, classmates, and teammates.

They profile your social environment, and your home environment. And every player invited to the draft combine completes a psychological test.

There is also a separate taped interview with each club, where recruiters will double check a draftee's intelligence and honesty by asking bizarre lateral questions, and probing personal questions that they already know the answers to.

"Some of the things the kids get asked these days, people would never get asked in all their lifetime,'' one current AFL recruiter told me, while admitting that club psychologists will watch the tapes and re-analyse the answers, the nervousness levels and the general body language.

"Anyone can see the talent. What you have got to be able to do as a recruiter, is work out whether they will survive the system,'' he said.

Confidence, leadership traits, a mental capacity to learn, and a history of adhering to guidelines, are other assets sought.

Geelong's triple premiership recruiting guru Stephen Wells explained: ``We don't go as far as some clubs (checking Facebook and social media sites) and we are not recruiting for the church choir, but we speak to junior coaches and teachers. They have to be coachable.''

But another long-time club recruiter, who preferred to remain nameless, admitted researching deep.

"We're doing more and more of it. I once spent a third of my time on it, but now it's half. Psyche testing, interviewing friends, parents, speaking to coaches and people around school and other teammates about them,'' he said.

"We look for specific kids we know will get through. How is he going to handle the environment, the setbacks, the injuries.

"I tell the kids at every interview, it's been tough this year (Year 12 at school), but it's the second toughest year of your life. If you get drafted, next year will be your toughest.''

Recruiters also know that studies conducted in America on the drafting of US college kids suggest that some level of family affluence, stability and intelligence, is a factor when it comes to them surviving long-term in a strict sports system.

And the modern AFL recruiter's reputation and livelihood does not simply depend on whether a top 10 pick becomes a champion; his fallback cushion is to simply snare a quality, 250-game servant.

What they cannot afford is an early pick disaster.

The poorly educated, rebellious kid may have all the skill in the world, but the likelihood that he will not make smart choices with training, diet, rehab, punctuality, and the adherence to the club and society's rules, makes him too big a risk to take first or second round.

Their best hope is that a club with strong leaders and a history of success will take a chance late in the draft and back their strong system to develop them.

The good news is, sexual preference does not appear to be an issue in the AFL, as it is in the USA, where recruiters are not permitted to ask a draft prospect if he has a girlfriend.

The next frontier is DNA testing for genetic health problems, with clubs already making themselves aware of family health and injury history.

The advice to draft age kids is simple. Remove the drinking photos on Facebook and tidy up your language. Study for a respectable Year 12 score. Get a look at a written psyche test pre-draft camp.

Tell your mate with the criminal record you won't be seeing him for a while. And don't be afraid to admit to a recruiter that you are gay.

That's the least of their concerns, and they already know anyway.

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Originally published as It's the end of the dumb footballer