re: Can someone explain to me what a “handler” is for these big time high school recruits

Top recruits (say top 100) literally gets hundreds and hundreds of scholarship offers, sometimes starting at 8th grade.

So for the next five years you have coaches, recruiters, etc., doing what they can to get you on.

Handlers are the gate keepers. The days of sitting down with mommy and daddy and deciding where to go based off education first, sports second are long long gone.

Top College athletes are extremely self centered. They've been told they are above mortals there whole lives.