Tuesday, January 16, 2024
If you were to attend an all-star game in the early 2000s, scouts didn’t have to wear their team-logoed wind suits to know who they were. They were the ones with thinning (or no) hair, long in the tooth and (often) long in the waistband. In other words, they were riding out their final years in football as scouts, but they were coaches at heart.
This is because, In most cases, they were hired when a friend got hired to coach an NFL team and needed a trusty (and friendly) eye who knew a certain area extensively. More often than not, it was a former Big Ten coach who lived in Ohio, or a former SEC coach who lived in North Florida, or even an ex-Big Sky coach who lived in Idaho. These scouts were the voices of experience, and never arrived at a school without dozens of friends he could mine to gather information.
Those days are gone. These days, if you show up at an all-star game, you might not know the scouts from the players. More often than not, it’s because they were themselves on the field not too long ago. They’re far younger and often still in shape. This is true for a number of reasons.
Here’s the bottom line: If you make the right relationships, you can grow with people as you grow. It’s no longer necessary to connect with someone who has four decades in the game and hoping for a smooth ride into retirement. As a young, rising person in the industry, this is probably to your benefit.
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