Sometime after school this afternoon, in a scene likely repeated in thousands of high school gyms around the country, Jeff Braun will sit down at a table and make the biggest decision of his life to this point.

Braun, a Winters Mill offensive lineman, will sign a national letter of intent, finalizing a decision he made in November 2006: to attend and play football for West Virginia.

For Braun, who knows without a shadow of doubt where he wants to go to college, today's signing makes perfect sense. However, every other potential college recruit, including football, field hockey, soccer and male water polo players, as well as track and field and cross country performers, who sign letters of intent today might want to think twice before putting pen to paper. The letter of intent is perhaps the most onerous document in American sports.

While professional athletes can force trades and contract renegotiations, the letter of intent, started in 1964 and used by virtually every Division I and II school outside the Ivy League and the service academies, pretty much binds athletes to a school for as long as the school wants them there or for the length of their eligibility, whichever runs the longest, while the schools are bound to the scholarship for only one year.

Meanwhile, if a choice made under often-intense pressure and scrutiny no longer works for the student, or if the coach or coaches who recruited the athlete has left, the recruit must receive the school's permission to leave to avoid a steep penalty.

With a school's permission, a transferring student often must sit out a year, but does not lose any eligibility. However, an athlete who leaves a school without the school's release not only must sit out a year, but also loses a year of eligibility.

The opportunity to receive a college education while playing their sport of choice is remarkable and available to only a handful of the millions who take part in high school athletics. The letter of intent provides a level of security to the colleges that a kid won't leave on a whim.

"These kids have been committing to several different schools because they are still kids," said Tom Lemming, a recruiting expert for CSTV. "If there were no rules in place, they'd be bouncing around from school to school to school. It would be chaos. One little thing now, and they just jump."

However, the colleges use the scholarships as the carrot to entice the students, with the letter of intent as the stick to keep them in place.

Particularly odious is Section 19 of the letter, which reads: "I understand I have signed this NLI with the institution and not for a particular sport or individual. If the coach leaves the institution or the sports program [or is not retained], I remain bound by the provisions of this NLI. I understand it is not uncommon for a coach to leave his or her coaching position."

Indeed, in Braun's case, the head coach in place when he gave his oral commitment to the Mountaineers, Rich Rodriguez, absconded in December for Michigan. Luckily for Braun, Bill Stewart, who coached West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl on an interim basis and was given the permanent job after the game, was the point man in his recruitment.

But, while Rodriguez was able to split and coach immediately in Ann Arbor, Mich., any West Virginia players who might want to follow him have to get the school's release from the scholarship or else lose a year of eligibility as well as sit out a transfer year.

Lemming said he has never heard of a school not granting a scholarship release, but many attempt to dictate where an athlete can transfer. For instance, Notre Dame refused to allow quarterback Demetrius Jones to transfer to Northern Illinois, forcing him instead to go to Cincinnati, a school that is apparently not on the Fighting Irish's future schedule.

Some, such as Jennifer Brinegar, Indiana's assistant athletic director in charge of NCAA compliance, have suggested that schools could tender a scholarship letter to graduating seniors without the binding language. Brinegar told The Tampa Tribune, "Speaking as a parent, I don't know if I would have my child sign an NLI."

Not signing a letter of intent is an option many basketball recruits have chosen to pursue, but it hasn't caught on with football players yet.

"You'd have to be so good that the school would have to say, 'We pretty much trust that you're going to show up here,'" said Andy Staples, who covers recruiting for SI.com. "You'd have to be pretty darned good to get them to do that without some sort of guarantee that you're going to show up there."

Until then, athletes will remain shackled by a system that provides plenty of take and little give.

milton.kent @baltsun.com