08-04-2009, 10:11 PM
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Was MuckFich06 until I was a smartass.
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 4,400
Points: 1,741,339.49
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Total Points: 1,741,339.49
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In the age of Facebook, Twitter and texting, top prospect - 08.03.09 - SI Vault
Article on the role of mail in Nelson's recruiting process. Interesting little nugget here:
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The closest any school came to truly personal correspondence were a few letters from Ohio State. The Buckeyes' coaches sent cards following up on phone conversations they had initiated with Nelson or his father, Bruce, who grew up in Columbus.
Roberto,
Your family knows as well as anyone how passionate Columbus is about the Buckeyes. You and your teammates are the show in town. Being a Buckeye is a very special honor.
Go Bucks,
Coach [John] Groce
P.S. Great job in summer school?B in Algebra!
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Some other highlights:
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With that as the high point it is no wonder that on most days Nelson heaved the latest bundle behind the recliner without even a cursory look. In all, he opened only 387 pieces of mail, or about 18%. (He later permitted SI to open the sealed letters.)
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Quote:
Gleason used a paper calculator created by the Environmental Defense Fund to estimate the environmental impact of the 135 pounds of paper used to recruit Nelson. Next he estimated the impact of the paper being sent to all Division I hoops recruits in a given year.
His computation began with the average weight of paper each college sent to Nelson, which was 2.4 pounds. Most schools send mail to at least 100 players in each class (according to three recruiters who spoke to SI) and are targeting two classes (juniors and seniors) simultaneously. If each of the 347 Division I basketball programs sends 2.4 pounds of mail annually to 200 kids, the environmental impact each year of the production of that paper, according to Gleason's analysis, would be:
? the consumption of 220 tons of wood, the equivalent of about 1,526 trees;
? greenhouse gas emissions equal to what 39 cars produce in a year, and the use of enough energy to power 32 homes for a year;
? and 167,034 pounds of solid waste, which would fill six garbage trucks, and 1,423,939 gallons of wastewater, the equivalent of two swimming pools' full.
Noting the environmental cost compared to the number of letters Nelson opened, Gleason asked the obvious question: "If recruits don't open the letters, why keep sending them? Why waste all that money and paper?"
Some schools might soon ask themselves the same thing. In May, Michigan and Ohio State jointly announced that they would cease printing media guides. Bygones from the pre-Internet age, these publications contain as many as 208 pages (the NCAA-mandated maximum) of records, stats, player biographies and other team information that is now also readily available electronically. Long a recruiting tool, they are no longer of much value on that front either. (Nelson received 44 guides and says he looked at "one or two.")
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Quote:
During the summer before his senior year of high school, Nelson met Oregon State coach Craig Robinson, better known as President Barack Obama's brother-in-law. Robinson called Nelson four times last fall and went to Santa Barbara to visit him in September. In November, Nelson spurned UCLA and Ohio State and signed a letter of intent to play for the Beavers.
How many pieces of recruiting mail did Robinson and Oregon State send Nelson?
Zero.
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. I don't know where we stand with the kid from Iowa State but I think we are very very close to maxing ourselves out on scholarships for 2010. With that said, back to Nelson.
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