These days at ITL, we’re re trafficking a lot of information about the postseason all-star games that are a key to getting ‘discovered’ by NFL scouts. I get a lot of calls about agents and/or players getting ‘screwed’ by all-star games that claim a player is not good enough to play in a game, or that they’re full at the player’s position. Well, sometimes it’s the player (or his agent) that does the screwing.

Here’s a good illustration. When I ran the 2008 Hula Bowl, we were the No. 3 game, but we had challenges (as I’ve recounted in the past) related to getting players to commit. These challenges were related to our place on the schedule (players arrived during bowl season) as well as the fact that getting to Hawaii is no easy task. That’s why I was really excited when we got a commitment from a Big Ten linebacker who figured to go in the fifth or sixth round.

As I recall, I had been in regular contact with the school’s head coach, working with him in an attempt to get 3-4 of his players into the game. I already knew the drill; he would encourage a couple of his late-rounders to participate in the Hula Bowl if I would take 1-2 of his ‘program’ guys, i.e., players who had no realistic shot of even going to an NFL camp, but who had been loyal soldiers for the coach.

Unfortunately, the coach was having the same conversations with his own agent, and had worked out a similar deal with him. This agent was an old-school guy, and never one to be an ITL client. Therefore, I had no relationship with him, and he had no interest in my lobbying or evangelizing for my game. It was clear he was going to try to get the linebacker into a ‘real’ game, and the Hula Bowl did not qualify.

Still, I didn’t know that when I was trying to schedule the player’s travel the week before the school’s bowl game. Like many colleges, the town where he had gone to school was quite remote, and we’d have to fly him out of Chicago. Though the head coach had been quite enthusiastic about him playing, I didn’t get the same vibe.

“I gotta fly out of my college town,” he insisted, and wouldn’t budge.

I tried and tried to convince him to fly out of a bigger airport, but he wouldn’t. So I went back to my scouting contacts to get a better handle on his pro prospects; each was adamant that he was a late draftee. So I eventually relented and booked him out of a tiny airport local to his college town. The price of the ticket exceeded $1,000, which was probably 3-4 percent of our entire travel budget.

That’s why I was furious when his agent called about a week later, just days before the player was scheduled to arrive, and told us he wouldn’t be coming. He didn’t have a reason why, but it didn’t matter, because no reason would have been good enough. Now I had to replace the player, finding a flight just days before our players were set to arrive, and spend money on top of the $1,000 I’d already spent. But here’s the kicker: there was no way I could get the money back or the ticket back once his name was on it.

In other words, not only had I been royally gamed by this young man, but I’d just handed him a $1,000 travel voucher. And there was nothing I could do about it.

He wound up skipping the all-star process altogether, and missed out on an attempt to solidify his standing in the ’08 draft. Perhaps as a result, he fell completely out of the draft, and had a brief cup of coffee in the league before his pro gridiron career ended.

I hate to take any pleasure in a player’s misfortune, but I have to admit it was hard not to smile when the last pick was announced that spring and his hadn’t been called. Meanwhile, I’ve never spoken to his agent since.

We focus mostly on the business of football in this space, but I don’t do enough to encourage aspiring grid professionals to find a corner of the industry to make their own. So today, I’m discussing a couple of things that happened Thursday that puzzle me.

These observations might help budding entrepreneurs. Or if you’ve got answers, and you understand what I clearly don’t, please let me know. Here we go.

• Occasionally, my friend Darren Heitner of SportsAgentBlog.com will Tweet a brief item from one of my Rep Rumblings reports at Inside the League.  On Thursday, he Tweeted a note about Michigan WR Devin Funchess that I had on the site this week. That item is fairly typical of the type of thing we post on a daily basis this time of year, and when my cell beeped about the Tweet, I just kinda shrugged my shoulders. As I’m writing this, about 22 hours after he posted it, that one Tweet had been retweeted 66 times and Favorited 25 times. I’m at a loss on what gave that Tweet such impact. I mean, I get it: the kid’s a junior and projected as a first-rounder, but it can’t be a surprise that he’s considering leaving early from a program that’s had its struggles the last few years. Obviously, Michigan is one of the more storied programs in the nation, and plenty of Big Blue fans have had their knives out on Twitter in a misery-loves-company kind of way. But it still has me scratching my head. One way or another, this one item had an incredible amount of impact. What’s especially odd is that within the last hour, he tweeted a similar item about Mississippi St. LB Bernardrick McKinney, also a junior who could be a first-rounder if he comes out. Here’s an SEC player from a school that’s had a lot of success this season, and after the first 45 minutes, we have one RT and one favorite. To me, that’s odd.
• I didn’t post Wednesday this week, so I pushed War Story Weds. to Thursday. My story yesterday involved the professional, fair-minded approach one of my long-time clients took in picking a prime ‘plum’ off the Hula Bowl ‘tree’ in 2007. Almost as soon as I posted it, I got a text from him and we messaged back and forth a bit. My immediate response to him was the shock I feel when a major agent that is already an ITL client contacts me about one of my blog posts here. These readers are already paying for an ITL membership to have the high-level football tools and information needed to perform in an ultra-competitive industry. I mean, if you’re reading this, my thoughts are that you’re someone who’s still learning about the business, which is why at times I discuss some pretty elementary topics. However, apparently, you’re joined in reading by some of the people who’ll be doing first-round contracts next summer. I guess the takeaway is that when you’re in a business as fast-moving and information-centric as sports representation, you better always be learning. If that means that at times you find yourself in a Football 101 classroom, so be it. I hope that’s a lesson the aspiring football professionals out there really take to heart. I know I agree, no matter the business.

Since I missed posting yesterday (sorry, it’s just a really, really busy time), and War Story Wednesday has become pretty popular, I decided to share a war story from my past today, even though it’s Thursday. Hopefully, today’s story illustrates not just the intense competition even off the field, but the way things can be handled when there’s controversy.

This one comes from my days running the 2008 Hula Bowl, which was then the No. 3 all-star contest. It turned out to be the last year the game was played, but at the time, it had a great name and substantial reputation. Still, it was just the No. 3 game. Then, as now, the Senior Bowl was No. 1 and the Shrine Game was No. 2. We were trying to change that, but couldn’t. For that reason, I knew going in that everyone that accepted an invite would leave immediately if they got a Senior Bowl or Shrine Game invite. But I couldn’t be bothered with that; I had a job to do and I did most of my own evaluation.

Back then, the practice of scheduling games by mid-major teams on Tuesdays and Wednesdays was still new, so unless you were looking for a game mid-week, you might not find it unless you happened to come across it while channel-surfing. That’s how I found a game featuring Eastern Michigan against another MAC opponent one night, and it’s how I ‘discovered’ DT Jason Jones. For whatever reason, Jones had not gone into his senior season as a highly touted prospect, and he was not on my radar screen. However, by the end of the game, he definitely was. From his interior line spot, he was disruptive the whole game, stacking up the run and getting consistent penetration on passing plays. He looked like the kind of kid with big ability but limited headlines that I could ‘sneak’ onto the Hula Bowl roster. And I did. As I recall, I reached out to him through Eastern Michigan’s pro liaison coach, and in short order we had his info sheet signed and returned.

Unfortunately, these agreements are not binding, so I had to sweat things out, wondering if he’d ever make it to Honolulu. Everything looked good until we got to December, at which point I got a call from Mike McCartney.

At the time, Mike was still a relatively new agent, but an up-and-comer, and he was with one of the bigger and more reputable firms in the business, Priority Sports in Chicago. We’ve always had a great relationship, and I admire the fact that his father, Bill, founded Promise Keepers, an international Christian organization devoted to making men better fathers and husbands. By the way, Bill McCartney also won a national championship as head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes in 1990.

When Mike called in early December, I figured the news wouldn’t be good, and it wasn’t. He had signed Jones, and Jones would be accepting an invitation to the Senior Bowl. I would have been a fool to make the case that he should also play in the Hula Bowl, and I didn’t, but Mike was very gracious in the way he’d handled it, which I appreciated. Today, Mike and I still have a really good relationship.

Someday, maybe next Wednesday, I’ll discuss the way things are more often handled with another story.