Athletic recruiting?

I never thought a member of MY family would ever be recruited for an athletic team!

Yesterday, I received an interesting telephone call and email. The New Mexico Tech sailing team had heard that Gerald might be attending that school, and they offered him a chance to be on their crew for the Mallory Cup championship this year.

Unfortunately, the quarterfinal round, which the Rio Grande Sailing Club will be running at Elephant Butte Lake, coincides with Gerald’s trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in the national We The People competition, so he won’t be able to participate in the Mallory. Of course, if he did, there would be a problem of conflict of interest, since Pat and I are up to our eyeballs in the planning and running the event.

Still, it is interesting that the college sailors thought highly enough of Gerald’s sailing ability that they wanted him on their team. When Pat and I were in high school, we were recruited for academics – we both had high SAT scores, and I was a finalist for both the National Merit and Presidential scholarships. I ended up with a walk-in closet knee deep in recruiting materials. Gerald also had a good SAT score, and so he, too, has been getting college recruiting packages for his academic abilities.

So getting attention from college recruiters isn’t something new for us. But getting recruited for athletics is something new – even if the situation is a bit odd, since New Mexico is an unexpected place to be sailing at all, and New Mexico Tech doesn’t really have an athletic program anyway, and there are no athletic scholarships. Not that that would really matter, since the lottery plus NMT scholarships mean Gerald would be getting a free ride whether he sailed or not.