Junior Year Box Set

“David, I’d like you to meet your new personal assistant and recruiting coordinator, Brandon Rigby,” Kendal said.

“You related to someone?” I asked because Kendal worked for Rigby, Thompson and Associates, and Don Rigby was one of the managing partners.

“My uncle is Don, so I guess I am,” Brandon said with a smile. “You mind if we sit down for a couple of minutes before this gets started?”

“Let me get my mom and dad, and we can talk,” I said.

“Actually, since I’ll be working for you, I’d prefer it if just the two of us talked first. I would love to meet your parents before I leave, though.”

I agreed, and we went into my parents’ office and shut the door.

“I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with me as your assistant. When I heard about the job, I wasn’t thrilled to be working with a high school kid. Uncle Don told me to straighten up and talk to Tom and Kendal before I made an ass out of myself. I’m glad I did because when I was through talking to them, I was impressed. I hope we can get along and I can help you out. Before we go back out, is there anything you want to know about me?” Brandon asked.

“How are you qualified to be my personal assistant and recruiting coordinator?” I asked, not sure yet if I liked Brandon or not.

“In high school, I was a top 150 recruit; I played cornerback. So I know the recruiting rules. I ended up going to Harvard and bypassed playing football because my dad wanted me to join the family business. He owns a law firm in New York City. In May I took a leave of absence and went to Europe for the summer. I needed to figure out what I wanted to be, not what my dad wanted.

“My dad cut off my credit card a week ago and sent me a plane ticket for home. I wasn’t ready to go back to school, so Uncle Don told me about this job. I can do this and take some general classes at State towards my degree,” Brandon said.

“I have a couple of quick questions. Do you work for me, the firm, or my mom?” I asked.

“I’m paid by Rigby, Thompson & Associates, and you’ll be paying for me out of your company, so technically, I’m employed by them to work for your dad, but I’ll report to you and liaison with Kendal,” Brandon answered.

“That didn’t really answer my question,” I said.

“It was a polite way of saying that I’m obligated to tell your dad if you get out of line, but I hope to never have to,” he said.

Okay, he wasn’t going to be my buddy, which was probably for the best, since he’d called me a ‘kid’ earlier.

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While everyone got situated in the living room, I retrieved my mom’s laptop, plugged an HDMI cable into it, and hooked it up to the 72-inch big-screen TV, my dad’s newest pride and joy. I used the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to bring up the college football schedule for the coming year. I also opened a spreadsheet so we could keep track of the games we wanted to go see.

“What I wanted to get everyone together for was to start getting serious about where we’ll end up going to college. Jim’s a senior, and I want to play ball with him, so we can’t put this off any longer. We’ve been to both Kentucky and Northwestern. My mom still has photos from the Northwestern trip, so the first thing we have to agree upon is that what happens on a recruiting visit, stays on a recruiting visit,” I said to some chuckles in the room.

“I’ve hired a recruiting coordinator to help us through the process. Brandon Rigby has gone through this process himself. Why don’t you tell everyone what we should be looking for on a trip?” I suggested.

“First of all, you get five official visits to campuses. An official visit to a college campus is paid for by the college. The college can pay for transportation, room, and meals while visiting, and reasonable entertainment expenses, including three complimentary admissions to one home football game.

“Unofficial visits are a little different. The athletic department is allowed to give you each up to three tickets, but no other perks or gifts.

“I would suggest that for unofficial visits you make the travel close enough so that you can drive. I would keep the official visits for the trips you would need to fly to. That’ll save you the cost of airfare. Another suggestion is that you go only when you have home games. I tried the away game and then travel to a campus bit, and it makes for a long weekend. Plus, you’re not going to want to do it every weekend.

“For the juniors, I’d recommend you save your official visits for your senior year,” Brandon said.

“What can we expect on a visit? And what’s different with an unofficial visit?” Ty asked.

“Good questions. The only difference between an official and unofficial visit is you pay for the trip, hotel room and food. Everything else is pretty much the same, but they may give the official visitors preferential treatment.