Earlier today, my wife and I found out that our oldest son, Jake, was a late addition to the all-star swim meet for his region in his best stroke, breast stroke. My first instinct was to run to Facebook and post it (after all, isn’t that where it’s acceptable to brag these days?) but then thought better of it.

Many parents of NFL prospects aren’t so circumspect. It’s not just social media, of course. So many parents of NFL players — and, increasingly, parents of NFL hopefuls —  see their kids as their ticket to status, and they don’t mind using their sons’ agents (and even prospective agents) as a vehicle for that status. Here are a few examples.

• Yesterday, I was on the phone with an agent who had his first draftee in 2015. Believe me, this young man was a surprise draftee by any measure. At any rate, by the by, the young man’s mother found out that his agent’s wife’s cousins are well-known actresses/singers. “Seems like an NFL player’s mom should be able to get a job with someone like that,” she chided the agent. When the agent politely explained that he couldn’t make that happen, he was the player’s ex-agent within a few months. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked me. “Tell my wife’s cousins that they should give my client’s mother a bunch of money?”
• A few years ago, an NFL cornerback’s mother kept bugging her son’s agent to fly her cross-country to one of her son’s games. He had trained this player in the expectation that he’d go Top-100, but alas, he’d been drafted much later than that. Still, eager to please the player’s mother, he bought her flight. She promptly called. When he answered, ready to accept her thanks, instead she complained because her seat wasn’t in first class.
• In 2006, an agent friend recruited an SEC player aggressively on the expectation that the young man would be a combine invitee who’d be drafted in the top three rounds. Though he got a Senior Bowl invitation, he was snubbed by the combine. This didn’t stop the player’s father from asking for a flight plus accommodations in Mobile. My friend swallowed hard and picked up the bill. However, when the player’s father asked for all his meals to be covered that week, my friend told him no. “I don’t think Reggie Bush’s agent tells him no,” the father replied.

These are just the stories I can think of off the top of my head. With recruiting starting to heat up, and players’ parents more entitled than ever, I’m sure I’ll be hearing plenty more similar stories in short order.

I just got done watching this video, in which ESPN’s Darren Rovell interviews social media magnate Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk just invested in Symmetry, the South Walpole, Mass.-based agency that includes Michael ‘Mook’ Williams and Brian McLaughlin. The agency will henceforth be known as VaynerSports.

Here are a few thoughts on things that might be hurdles, at least in the near future.

• Building a brand doesn’t happen overnight. Pitching players on off-field opportunities is smart, no doubt about it. It’s probably the most compelling reason why players fire their agencies, especially when those agencies are still on the new side (as is Symmetry/VaynerSports). On the other hand, most players don’t want to spend countless hours blogging, hanging out on Skype, or whatever. This is especially true of the kind of players that Symmetry has on its client list, i.e., lower-profile linemen, etc., who aren’t by their nature particularly flashy. These players signed with Symmetry because they didn’t need a big, sexy agency. It might be a bit of an uphill climb to convince them they now need to go a different route to gain a Vaynerchuk-style presence that can be monetized.
• Recruiting is taxing. You can tell in this video that Vaynerchuk (who’s always excited anyway) is super-charged by the opportunity to watch players, talk to players, get to know them, and otherwise enjoy the trappings of working in the business. Still, the ins and outs of the game; the bumps and bruises acquired by travel; the frustration of getting snubbed by players and/or their parents; the road blocks presented by well-meaning but overly bureaucratic schools; and the non-responses to celebrity that might come from NFL types, all tend to take a toll.
• Recruiting the Northeast is tough. Being based in Massachusetts means there aren’t a ton of top recruits in your backyard, and though the firm has been able to establish its range with a few clients, for the most part, they’re going to have to keep extending that reach. That leads me to my next point.
• Recruiting is expensive. As we’ve already established in this space, it costs about $35,000 to get a player rated in the top three rounds from college to draft. And those costs are only going up. Fortunately, Vaynerchuk’s got a good young agent (McLaughlin, who’s featured in the video) to help him avoid costly mistakes, but he’s going to have to fight the temptation to take shortcuts.
• There are no guarantees in this game. Take Vernon Adams, for example. The Oregon QB came from a flashy school; has an exciting style of play that earned him plenty of media plaudits; did exceptionally well at the No. 2 all-star game, the East-West Shrine Game in St. Petersburg, Fla.; and otherwise acquitted himself well during the pre-draft process. Despite all of this, Adams couldn’t even get an undrafted free agent deal with the NFL, and was among the two-thirds of passers that were not selected by NFL teams and went unsigned after the draft. Now, he’s playing in Canada, where the margins are much, much smaller for agents.
• Celebrity doesn’t always travel well. Though Vaynerchuk is undeniably talented and successful, it will take a little doing to get to the conversation stage with top prospects. For example, I think we can all agree that Morgan Stanley is established in the financial realm. Despite this, I’ve been told by some of my financial advisor clients that they’ll introduce themselves to a player as a Morgan Stanley advisor, exchange pleasantries, perhaps even give the player a business card, and still, as they part, the player will say, ‘nice meeting you, Mr. Stanley.’ Players tend to be laser-focused on their own careers and usually have a good grasp of pop culture, but don’t always have much vision outside of those worlds. Parents may be far more receptive, but ultimately, most players make their own decisions when it comes to agents.

As a student of the player representation business for almost two decades, this is an experiment, and one I’ll be interested to watch. But if it’s a success, I don’t expect it to be overnight.

This time of year is fun for me because it’s when we celebrate our successes at Inside the League.

With OTAs under way and rookie mini-camps in the rear-view mirror, there’s no more mystery about who’s going to be drafted and which players will line up an NFL contract despite not being selected. So many agents dream of having first-rounders in their inaugural year certified, but this is incredibly unrealistic. A far greater measure of success is simply having a player in the league in your first three years registered with the NFLPA. In fact, if you don’t have someone certified in that time, you have to start over, taking the exam again and paying the initiation fee.

For the last 3-4 years, we’ve spent June interviewing the agents we partner with who’ve had such success. It’s a lot of fun celebrating this accomplishment while learning a little more about their experiences in their first year, as well as how they wound up becoming contract advisors. Every year, only 15-20 independent agents — i.e., agents who came into the business with no connections, no hookups and no relatives slated to be first-rounders in the coming year — actually land a player on an NFL roster, and 70-80 percent of those agents are part of our team, I’m proud to say. That’s why it takes all month to interview them, and why we publish our interviews to the people taking the exam this summer in a daily newsletter.

This year, I turned the job of interviewing ITL clients over to my ace intern, Mark Skol. So even though I’m not doing the interviews myself, it’s still awfully informative to read each account.

One of them, Maryland-based Jon Howard, got interested in the business when he tried (unsuccessfully) to get his brother into the league.

Another interesting thing: opinions on the NFLPA exam really vary. Some of them feel the test was pretty easy (like Mississippi attorney Jay Bolin, whose interview is tomorrow). Some of them, like South Florida-based CPA and attorney Bob Engler, feel it’s quite hard. Others, like Baltimore-based attorney Gary Leibowitz, feel it should be a bit more practical and based on actual agent practices, rather than simply about the CBA. Most, but not all, used our practice agent exam (the only one on the Web) to get ready.

Of course, some of the things they’ve said weren’t exactly shocking. All of them are passionate about football and wanted to find some way to become involved in the game, and saw the agent avenue as easiest. One of them is my former intern, Murphy McGuire, whom you’ve already read about in these pages.

If you’re getting ready to take the exam this summer, I hope you’ll join us. One of the things you’ll get is access to our newsletter. I want you to be one of the people whom we write about next summer.

Today, I wanted to share a story that will be included in our newsletter for people taking the 2016 NFLPA agent exam. I passed it along because our newsletter series, which usually includes bracing honesty about the business, needed a little bit of light and encouragement. And it’s true, of course.

Thomas Sherzan got certified in 2014. Based in West Des Moines, Iowa, he doesn’t live in a football hotbed and he didn’t come into this game with stacks of contacts in the college and pro game. He came into the game like a lot of people – he has a passion for football and for helping people, and he felt he could do some good and maybe make a little money. These aren’t Thomas’ words, but having known him for two years, I think it’s a fair summation of who he is and what his goals are. My impression is that he recruited using our Profile Reports and reached out to scouts using our email template, but couldn’t get traction. That’s got a lot to do with where he’s located. There are just fewer opportunities for agents with fewer schools.

Then, on Feb. 9, I got an email from Givens Price, a defensive tackle that recently finished up at Nebraska. I get emails from draft hopefuls all the time. They hear from a buddy about our newsletter series on the draft process, or they may find us on Google, or they get referred from a teammate we’ve worked with, or whatever, and they send an email, asking for help in finding an agent. In this case, I usually locate whichever agent I work with that’s closest to the player and just forward the email along. I rarely give it any more thought than that. So I sent Givens to Thomas with the warning that there were no obligations and that he didn’t even have to acknowledge the young man, but Thomas did that, and Givens subsequently signed.

I really don’t know any more details than that. I didn’t really hear from Thomas on Givens (wasn’t even sure he signed with him) until Saturday night, when Thomas messaged me. “Neil, thanks for the Givens Price referral,” he texted. “He signed with me and tonight he signed as an UDFA with the Cardinals.” I was so stunned that I had to confirm that he was on contract, not a tryout (he assured me that he was). Keep in mind that, for the past 24 hours, my team of five former NFL scouts, from the dozen or so my subscribers regularly work with, had been coaching 15 agents on how to get their players onto a roster. It came as a complete shock, but it was also a feeling of euphoria. Getting to share the experience of getting a player on a 90-man roster with one of my clients is part of what makes my job a lot of fun.

Now, you may be thinking, who cares? The kid signed with an NFL team as a UDFA. They’re not even bringing him in as a DT (he’s going to be tried at tackle). So what?

Well, I pass this story along because succeeding in this business is a lot harder than it looks, and more expensive, too. The point is, it can happen for you, if you want to make a run at this business. All you have to do is know how to do it. We’re here to help you with that.

This time of year, I get lots of questions from newer agents about how they can drive interest in their clients, and what real interest from NFL teams even looks like. Do teams play it close to the vest, afraid their interest will be exposed? Or do they let it all hang out, throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to get as much info as possible on a player they like?

To get these answers, I called my former right-hand man at ITL, Houston-based Murphy McGuire, who passed the NFLPA exam last summer and who now represents Texas Tech WO/KR Jakeem Grant, who set the Internet on fire last month with his performance at the Red Raiders’ pro day. I’ll turn it over to Murphy on what Jakeem’s experience has been over the past three-plus months.

“When we signed him, I was of the belief he would be a late pick. He had a late-round grade. Now, in January, he was coming off a huge bowl game against LSU, and that really helped him a lot. Of course, he was also an All-American as a return guy, but his size is always the first thing teams talk about. At his bowl game (the College Gridiron Showcase in Bedford, Texas), he measured at 5-5 and 5/8, so he’s 5-6 in cleats. How many 5-6 players have been successful in the NFL?

“Anyway, I knew going into the CGS that we needed a good week, and he had a huge week, really lit it up, and talked to every team. All teams interviewed him, which was good, and created a really good vibe for us. Then we waited. I think there were two weeks from then until the last wave of invites to the combine, and there were 4-5 scouts that texted me and asked if Jakeem got a combine invite, and I said, ‘no, still nothing.’ I thought the scouts would hep push the needle for him, but they didn’t seem to, so no combine invite. But he said, ‘I don’t care, I’m gonna prove everyone wrong.’ He has a permanent chip on his shoulder. I mean, he set the all-time receiver mark at Texas Tech, which is kinda known for throwing the ball, so nothing deterred him.

“We got through that time, so he was training at D1 Sports Training in Lubbock (in February), and I got good feedback from his trainers there, but no calls through the combine and into early March. I maybe got two texts from scouts until his pro day on March 11.

“His pro day was crazy. He ran a stupid 40, had 15 reps and threw them up like Mighty Mouse, had a broad jump around 10 and his vertical was about 37 inches, so it was good. Anyway, I started getting calls then. His pro day was on a Friday (March 11), and I got a call from a national scout right after the pro day. He wanted to see him catch punts, but before that, wanted to huddle with his GM and scouts. That following Monday, (the national scout) reached back out, and that’s the week when we got calls, texts, emails, and I think that first week after (pro day) he had one workout, and the next week none, but we set up three the following week. Then this week, he had a Top 30 visit, and he has one next week. So far, he’s gotten four total workouts in Lubbock, plus two top 30 visits. He even had two workouts on the same day last week, one in the morning and one toward the afternoon. One team flew in the day before the workout, went to dinner with him and got to know him, and then the other flew in his special teams coach and watched him catch 7-8 punts, met him, then left. They really liked him.

“So overall, interest didn’t really start until after pro day. It’s a little out of the norm, his 40 time, but I would tell any agent who has a guy with a UDFA or late-round grade, call a scout or text a scout. A lot of times, scouts will respond to a text way faster (than a call). Email is OK, too, but I like to text them. I feel like I actually get more back from them that way. It’s convenient. He may be thinking, I’m not gonna call this (agent), but let me text him and start a dialogue. But most of them initiated contact.

“The one (scout who contacted me) today, about 48 hours ago, they told me, we’re not bring him in for a Top 30, and it was a scout that wasn’t even at the pro day who’s been talking to me. And he asked me, ‘how’s the interest level going,’ so I told him about the Top 30 visit and the workouts, and said, “I want to let you know, there’s a lot of interest.’ So I think I leveraged nothing into something. Then two days later, I got an email saying they want to bring him in, and when’s the best day? With a young (agent), you might be intimidated, but don’t be arfraid to push back. Say, ‘look, I understand your (situation), but there is interest, and if you want to do something with him, you might need to bring him in.’ I think I did a decent job of pushing back a little back.

“The first workout, one of the special teams coaches texted me, and then the last three reached out to Jakeem or me, and said, ‘we want to do this.’ Both of the Top 30 visits, the first one I spoke to the scouting coordinator a while, and then they brought him in. I don’t know if that has anyting to do with me or not, but there could be something there. I think I might have helped.

“I would say, of all the teams that have reached out ot me or Jakeem, Jakeem has been reached out to before me about 65-70 percent of the time. The player has been the first point of contact. That’s not what I expected, but that’s how it’s gone.

“I’m not sure what I expected. I expected interest. I expected teams to reach out. It just doesn’t become real until it really happens. You’re prepared, but you’re not, and then, it’s really happening. Luckily for me, working with ITL for the last three years, I got to meet a lot of agents who told me a lot of stories, so I kind of knew what to expect. It can be, man, I’m really talking to (a scout)! You can’t really expect it until it hits you in the face. I’ve had 3 special teams coaches call me, and they’ve told me to have my phone handy the week of the draft, and I assume most that have worked him out will want to be in touch, I don’t know if he’ll have any more workouts. I mean, I wasn’t expecting any Top 30 visits, but what’s to say there won’t be more?

Today, Pro Football Management’s Howard Shatsky, who’s worked with such notable NFL players as Michael Strahan, Brian Westbrook and Mike McCrary, wraps up his thoughts on how to be forthright with a player when his career prospects are dim.

Telling a young man that it’s time to move on from his football dreams is a very difficult conversation to have.  I do not want to be the person who crushes a young man’s dream of playing in the NFL.  However, I also do not want to be the person who encourages a player to keep trying when there is virtually no chance of success.

One reason why is because, in most cases, the player does not work during this time.  Thus, when he finally realizes his NFL dream is over, he is 4-5 years behind his graduating class in terms of work experience.  So, what can that player put on a resume?  A prospective employer is not impressed by a resume with no work experience. An interview where the former player tells a potential employer that he has not worked for the last few years because he was training to play in the NFL does not usually go well.  Thus, by avoiding this talk, I feel the agent is doing his client a disservice.

I recently had to have this difficult conversation with one of my players.  I told him I had done everything I could to try and get him an NFL opportunity, but after almost two years of trying, I felt an obligation to be honest with him and tell him I did not think I would be able to get him that NFL opportunity that he so desperately wants.  This conversation was particularly difficult because I feel the player does have the ability to play in the NFL.

I told him that if he felt another agent could get him a chance, I would terminate the Standard Representation Agreement (SRA) between us and that he would be free to sign with another agent.  I also told him that if he did want to keep trying, I would stick by him and continue to do my best.  I suggested he try playing in the CFL, getting some great game film and then trying to come back and play in the NFL.  It does happen: Dolphins DE Cameron Wake is a prime example of this, and became one of the NFL’s best defensive lineman after a short stay north of the border.  But again, Wake is the exception.

The conversation took place while I was having lunch with my wife.  After we hung up, I turned to her and said, ‘you realize I feel like I just ruined that kid’s life and crushed his dream.’  However, is that really what I did? Or did I help my client by encouraging him to write his resume and get a job?

I recall Bill Parcells telling a client of mine that if the day ever came when he was tired of getting hit in the head on a daily basis, that there was no shame in moving on.  I believe Bill was correct.  In this case, the player is an extremely intelligent person, and as I told him, I felt he could be successful with or without the NFL, and that the NFL was not the end all and be all.  As an intelligent young man, I told him I felt he could be very successful in the business world, and that if he did take my advice, I would do whatever I could to help him get his first job outside of football.  As of now, I do not know what the player’s decision will be.

What I do know is that by being honest with my client, I had fulfilled the promise I make to every player or coach I represent: that I will never lie to them and always look out for their best interests.  The final decision is always the players.  Will he decide to take my advice and ‘hang up his cleats?’  That remains to be seen.  However, I can sleep well at night knowing that although it was extremely difficult, I did what I had promised: I gave him the best advice I could.

I asked longtime NFLPA contract advisor Howard Shatsky of Professional Football Management to provide me with his thoughts on how, and when, to tell a player it’s time to ‘pursue his life’s work,’ as legendary Steelers coach Chuck Noll used to tell players he’d cut.

Howard made some excellent points. His thoughts are below:

What’s the best way to handle a player who is projected as a late-round pick or an undrafted free agent?  When is too long when it comes to pursuing NFL dreams?

Obviously, many of these players are released before even making an NFL roster, or after a season on the practice squad, or at best a year or two on the 53-man roster.  So what’s an agent’s obligation regarding a young man’s non-football future? During my 27 years as an agent, I have had to have this conversation with many players.

Some agents choose the easy way out.  They just stop taking the player’s phone calls until they are fired and no longer have to deal with that client.  Others will tell the player to keep working hard, that an opportunity is coming. The reality is that if one of these “bottom of the roster” players is released and is not picked up for an entire year, he has very little chance of getting back in the league.

This is not to say it does not happen.  I recently represented a player from a small school who went undrafted and sat out the entire year.  However while sitting out, he had a job and would work out before and after going to work.  Most players do not work during this time, even though it is physically impossible to train for eight hours a day.  When asked what they are up to, they often say they are “training to get back in the NFL.”  To me, that is a synonym for unemployed.  There is no reason a player cannot work while attempting to get back in the league.

Ultimately my client’s hard work paid off.  He performed so well at the Regional Combine that 14 NFL teams expressed interest in him.  He ultimately signed with a team and was released, then picked up by another NFL club and spent the entire season on their practice roster.  The next season he finally made the 53-man roster and will now enter 2016 with one season toward his pension and free agency.  But looking at things realistically, if he makes the 53 for the next few seasons, by the time he is an unrestricted free agent — which is when the majority of NFL players “cash in” — he will be 29, so he is playing in hopes of getting that one big contract.

But again, this is the exception, not the rule.  Most players who sit out an entire NFL season have very little chance of making it back to the NFL.  This is not always because they do not have the ability to play at the NFL level. It’s just that the reality of the business is that most NFL teams would rather take a chance on a player coming out of college than one who has been “on the street” for a year.  That is extremely frustrating to both the agent and his client.  Some players who have been in training camps feel they have the ability to play in the NFL and in some cases they are correct.  Many times I have had a client tell me, “just get me an opportunity and I know I will get it done.”  The problem is that often, even though an agent may spend hours calling NFL teams and even trying to call in favors, he is unable to get another opportunity for the player.  It is at that point I feel an agent has an obligation to speak with his player and tell him it is time to move on.

More from Howard on Friday, including a recent experience with a client in just this situation.

This week, we’ve been talking to New York City-based Eugene T. Lee of MBK Sports, a veteran NFLPA contract advisor who’s been in the league since 1997. Eugene recently wrote a book about his experiences in the business, My Brother’s Keeper: Above and Beyond “The Dotted Line” with the NFL’s Most Ethical Agent. Today we’ve got the second half of our interview with Eugene. For the first half, click here, and for a war story from my history with Eugene, click here.

What was Brian Warner, AKA Marilyn Manson, like in high school?

“He was older than me. When he was a senior I was in eight grade, but one of my best friends from high school, his older brother was friends with him, and he said (Warner) would wear the polo shirts with the collars turned up and the denim jacket. He was kind of a preppy burnout.” (laughs)

Many agents, like you, recruit their alma mater heavily. Why do you choose to do that?

“There’s a connection. A lot of times (while recruiting from other schools), it’s buyer beware, but when you have a connection with the school, you know the kind of player that will get in, the program philosophy and the type of young man that goes to Notre Dame, and that graduates. Ninety-nine percent of the time that’s the kind of man we like to represent, in terms of the values we carry.”

How has your appearance on the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary The Dotted Line affected recruiting?

“I thought going into it it would help a lot more than it has. At the end of the day, if you have this huge client list of retired guys, it doesn’t really help you. You have to stand on your own two feet. It piques (potential clients’) interest but you gotta come with something behind it. Maybe going in I thought it would have much more of a compelling effect, but at the end of the day you really have to recruit a player based on what you can offer him, as far as services and experience, and I would have it no other way. If they signed with me just (because I was on The Dotted Line), I’d have questions about him.”

The book title claims that you are the game’s “Most Ethical Agent.” Interesting title. How did you decide on it?

“Well, I came up with the name, “My Brother’s Keeper,” and I loved that reference. It’s a biblical reference, and speaks about my faith, and being a Christian, and the mentality that I have when I represent a young man. “Above and Beyond The Dotted Line” and “By the NFL’s Most Ethical Agent” came form my publisher. They said, ‘it has to be superlative,’ and I said, ‘I know I’m ethical, but I don’t want to brag,’ and they said, ‘just go with it.’” (chuckles)

You’re aggressive about getting film into the hands of scouts, whereas most agents see it as unnecessary in the modern cyber age. Do scouts really take your DVDs and watch them? How do you know?

“We haven’t done DVDs in a few years. We’ve gone digital. The NFL’s Dub Center (the league’s film bank) has the games, but the reason we do that is to make sure they watch the best film on our guys. . . If you have a small-school player, like a Brian Witherspoon, teams might not have all his games in the Dub Center, so it’s valuable especially for smaller-school players. Now we send out MP4 files and links via email.”