NCAA FootballWeird But True

Grown Man Sends High School Kid 105 Letters In One Day

On last Thursday’s Parks and Recreation (warning: mild spoiler), Tom Haverford, the character played by Aziz Ansari, spent the episode going through a desperate, pathetic, painful-to-watch string of attempts to woo Rashida Jones’ character of Ann Perkins. This culminated near the end with him singing to her in the least-romantic, most-painfully-awful way imaginable.

But… it worked in the end. Why? As Ann put it, “You wore me down.” It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t smooth, but he was persistent. But why bring this up now? Well, ladies and gentlemen, Nick Saban is basically Tom Haverford:

Alabama made national headlines when it mailed 105 recruiting letters in a day to a running back from Atlanta this week, Norcross High School junior Alvin Kamara.

Usually, Saban puts stamps on only about 4-6 letters per day to Kamara.

Nick Saban is 60 years old. He has three national titles and many millions of dollars to his name. He sent over 100 letters in a day to… a child. A talented child, yes – Kamara’s rated as a four-star prospect by Rivals and boasts scholarship offers from half the SEC already – but a high school junior nonetheless. Remember when we talked about how creepy recruiting – and religiously following it – is? This story about sums it up.

So why does Saban do this, anyway? Well, just like Tom singing in Ann’s face about being her boo, it works:

“Yeah, I got home and [letters] were failing out of my mailbox,” Kamara said. “It was crazy but I liked it.”

And Saban knows recruiting. He signs one of the nation’s top-ranked classes every year…and not coincidentally, has one of the nation’s top-ranked teams every year. Kamara might sign elsewhere – even Saban can’t get everyone he wants – but as uncomfortable as this game can seem, he knows how to play it, and plays it as well as anyone. So don’t be surprised if, about a year from now, Kamara signs on the dotted line for the Crimson Tide and thinks this of his future head coach: “You wore me down.”