For today’s War Story Wednesday, I thought I’d keep to the theme of player-agent relationships and the ups and downs of building a kinship with a young man that is ultimately futile. Spoiler alert: this is a two-parter, so you’ll have to come back tomorrow for the conclusion.

At any rate, on with the story.

I gained a client in the winter of 2011, a recently certified NFLPA contract advisor, and right away I could tell he was more devoted than most. Intense and focused, he oozed desire, and I came to expect frequent phone calls from him as he had questions on a number of topics. He was, and is, devoted to information and leaves no stone unturned in the pursuit of improving his performance as a player rep; I’ve even recommended him to a big agency seeking prospects for adding to its team. In the course of working with him we became pretty good friends.

As I recall we spoke pretty frequently the summer of 2011, then less frequently through the fall, which is not uncommon. Most of my clients prefer to be pretty close to the vest when it comes to their recruiting targets. However, at some point, he let it be known he had one client he felt pretty secure in signing, a running back at a major Northeastern FBS school. I shared his excitement, though I cautioned him that, until the young man’s bowl game was played and there was a signed SRA, he need be careful about counting his proverbial chickens. Still, it was a big potential ‘get’ for him, a skills-position player from a storied program. This was not a player who was a lock to be drafted, but he had great raw tools, including a sizzling 40 time, despite some off-the-field questions that would have to be dealt with in due time.

It was around November that my friend asked me about someone who’d become a regular presence on the rusher’s Twitter page. I had no idea who this person was and I told him so. The new person was not certified with the NFLPA as either a financial planner or agent, and had the look of a ‘street runner,’ or a person who attaches himself to a prospect, then brokers him to an agency for a fee. This set off some alarms with my friend but he was still confident in his chances.

All the details are foggy almost three years later, but as I recall, the running back returned from his last game on a Friday night. It was at this time that the person my friend had alerted me about, the possible street runner, was announcing on Twitter that he had signed the prospect. They were even on a local radio show together that Friday, touting the player’s draft chances and celebrating his college career.

My friend was beside himself with panic and worry at this point. He had spent months building a close friendship with the player and had even lobbied to get him a coveted spot in a postseason all-star game, a frequent practice by agents during the recruiting process but one that comes with no strings attached. The events of that Friday night set off a 24-hour period that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

Details and the conclusion of the story on Thursday.

There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to recruiting. Today I wanted to expand some on the nature of ‘breakups’ in recruiting.

When an agent, or a financial planner, or a combine prep trainer, or anyone in the business decides he’s going to pursue a potential client, there’s a lot that goes into it. The football professional has to make sure the player has NFL ability, and every recruiting decision ultimately turns on that question.  Let’s say the determination is made that the player’s ‘got it.’ Now the pursuit begins.

Most seasoned agents will start with reaching out to a current client playing in the league who knows (or is related to) the prospect. They might also contact a coach on staff for the player. If it’s a less seasoned agent/financial planner/etc., he might just cold-call the player’s family or message him through his school email. In some cases, the first contact will be at a school’s ‘agent day,’ though that’s a very touch-and-go proposition that we’ll discuss at some other time. The point is, a relationship begins to build as regular contact begins. Most often, the relationship initiates sometime in the spring/summer before a player’s senior year, then often continues throughout the fall. Often, a player cuts off contact during the season to focus on the field, but just as often, there’s regular communication between the prospect and the professional. A bond is formed that is genuine.

So here’s the point. The usual media portrayal of a person in the business is of a blood-sucking mercenary who sees players strictly as dollar signs. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me they got into the business because they saw all players as victims of unscrupulous agents, and shows like this just feed that stereotype. It’s a lie, and a lazy generalization. Almost every one of my agent clients and every one of the financial advisors I work with is a genuine human being. So what does that mean? Well, for one, it means it’s very difficult for them to extract themselves from relationships when a player tells him he’s out of the race.

I was talking to an agent yesterday who has had a great degree of success in a short time in this business. He told me a story of a prospect in the ’15 draft who said this week that he didn’t want to go further with the relationship: the young man had decided that my friend would no longer be in consideration to be his agent.

At this point, the agent had already personally flown out to visit him twice. He had met his family. He knew the young man’s parents pretty well, and maybe had even met his siblings. He had spoken to him countless times and they had discussed plenty of things outside of football. This particular agent is young, so I’m sure he identified with a lot of things that the player was going through for that reason. He had watched games from previous seasons and knew exactly what the kid had to work on, and had mentally built a game plan for shoring up his weaknesses. I’m sure my friend already had an idea of how he would market him to teams had he signed him. He had made a real investment in the young man, but it was all over, just like that. My friend compared it to being dumped by a girlfriend. I hear this story all the time.

Now, you may say this is the nature of sales, and you may say it’s the price to be paid for working in a tough business. You would be right. However, as I’ve mentioned multiple times in this space, there’s a human element to this business, and it’s rare that people on the school side (coaches, compliance officials, etc.) give football professionals credit for being people who really care about the players they recruit. If you’re considering a career in football, don’t make the same mistake. To succeed in football, you have to pour your heart into this profession. That’s an awesome thing when you hit the peaks, but a really hard thing when the inevitable valleys come.

I was contacted today by a combine prep facility that had a huge 2014 draft class. They really made strides and have good momentum. They wanted to know if we had compiled our master list of top prospects for the 2015 draft class. Our list includes a lot of information that makes identifying top players and communicating with their parents a lot easier; we’re big proponents of doing things the right way. At any rate, it’s a real reminder to me that things don’t ‘just happen’ in the football world.

Here’s an example. There’s a South Florida-based combine facility that had its biggest draft class ever last year. Why is that? Well, one reason is that few gyms do a better job of preparing a player for the 40-yard dash, the most popular measure of pure athleticism for NFL prospects. Their ability to do this is essential, but a bigger reason for their success is that they are take-no-prisoners salesmen. They send out info to every potential draft prospect who measures at all on scouts’ radar screens, from offensive linemen in out-of-the-way places to wide receivers at tiny schools with limited football tradition. However, where they really excel is in calling and wooing agents. They have a white-hot intensity about calling, calling and calling until they get their message across. Of course, they send emails as well, but they go out of their way to try to get voice to voice with as many contract advisors as possible. It’s paid dividends. They add new agencies every year and train lots of athletes (and even train a few with remote NFL chances on a reduced rate or for free).

I think a classic mistake that new people to the business of football make is thinking they’ll get business because they’re really good. This is especially commonplace with new financial advisors who get certified by the NFLPA as part of its licensing program. Sometimes, I’ll talk to people new to the program, and the first thing they tell me is how much money they have under management, and how many certifications they have, and how long they’ve been in the business, and where they graduated from college. Look, LOTS of people in this business have those qualifications. That’s one reason why they’re giving football a go; it’s because of the success they enjoyed with non-football clients. You’ve got to make that connection with young athletes or you’ll fail.

Most people don’t think of working in football as a sales job, but in almost every case, there’s some form of sales to things. I know that’s not glorious and exciting, but it’s no less true. More thoughts on recruiting and the various pitfalls in tomorrow’s post.

For today’s interview, we chose Renee Farrell, whose son, Dillon, signed with the 49ers as an undrafted free agent this spring. He’s already shown his versatility with the team as he’s also gotten plenty of time at tackle in the early going.

The Farrell family experience at the University of New Mexico is quite a departure from the experience of last week’s interviewee, Gina Swanson, whose son was drafted out of Arkansas this spring. Gina was effusive in her praise for Arkansas’ efforts to prepare parents for NFL possibilities. That was not the case for the Farrells, who entered the 2013 season with plenty of unanswered questions.

Did it concern you that Dillon was going into his senior season with a team that had struggled and that wasn’t in a major media market? Did you feel that would hamper his NFL chances?

“Absolutely, yes. That was one of our main concerns. I just thought that perhaps it was because they were struggling in the win-loss column. I didn’t know much about the University of New Mexico when he committed, so I just thought, coming from the SEC area, they were also that crazy about football, but it didn’t really turn out that way. I just didn’t know about it; none of us did, so we just thought, when the struggles started happening, that it was a bad omen that things wouldn’t look good, though in Dillon’s wildest dreams I don’t think he ever thought he’d have a chance at the NFL. He had people over the years in high school say ‘I’m going to see you playing on Sundays someday,’ but as a young kid. He’s a pretty humble guy, and he would kind of shake it off. He was just trying to get that college offer.”

What kind of guidance did Coach Davie and/or his staff provide regarding agents?

“I’m not sure how much. I guess that would be a question for Dillon. For us in particular, I don’t remember hearing anything. We knew about some of the after-season all-star games but I would not say we were contacted by the coaching staff about those games. As far as how much it was talked about, that would be something Dillon would know more about than us. Going into the season, we were contacted by the coaching staff, and they told us he had a chance to play pro ball. It was maybe thrown around, but we didn’t really think anything about it. We had a meeting for senior parents with the coaching staff, but it was after the season, there at the end, and they kind of talked about what would happen, how the pro day thing would work, and they would do whatever they could, and work with the guys, but we didn’t know what to expect. We just thought, that’s good, you know? They actually did have (a meeting for parents), but not in the spring (before his senior season). It was more toward the end of the season. Their last couple of games were (on the road), and I know I wasn’t at those games, but it could have been the senior game when we were all in there (and had the parents meeting). The last couple games were away games.”

Going into his senior season, what was your perception of where Dillon would go in the draft? Where did you get that information?

“We didn’t know really much about it. The only info we had about the NFL is when we started getting the (ITL) newsletters. We thought, maybe this is something he can shoot for, and we’ll support (him) in anything (he wants) to do, and that’s why the newsletters were eye-opening for us. I think it would have been awesome to have done those in the spring, only because just in case, I hate to call New Mexico a small school, but maybe the under-the-radar players would benefit from it. I think he was maybe a little afraid to even hope for it. Just having the knowledge of what it was all about and what the process was was invaluable to us. But we didn’t even, I mean, myself, I didn’t even know a lot about the process. You’re thinking, golly, of course he’s gonna go in the draft, and go high. He’s my child! But you just don’t know, and if you don’t know about he process, there’s no way to understand where they might would go. Then by the time we did (sign with) Casey (Muir of CRM Sports Management) and started working out, and the projections were late round or free agent, you just kinda went, ‘OK,’ and it was actually accurate. But we didn’t really have an idea about that.”

For more from Renee on Dillon’s expectation level and how they found the answers they sought, visit Inside the League.