Thursday, December 27, 2007

First Day on the Recruiting Road







I just got back from my first ever recruiting road trip, a whirlwind 360 miles roundtrip Camarillo to Escondido journey. I left at 9:00 a.m. and walked in the door at 6:00 p.m.

The purpose of the trip was to have a face-to-face visit with Brandon Bennett, the lineman from Willamette University, to help him make the decision to become an Elefanti. That's him in the first picture.

Instead of meeting at his house, we met at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant called "
El Indio de Tijuana". The name alone spoke of great cuisine...I was not disappointed! Meeting him in a place like this was a perfect way to start the discussions, two large guys eating really good, cheap food. What a great way to start a player-coach relationship.

The meeting went well and I believe strongly that he will join us. He just wants Davide, our Head Coach/GM, to send him a contract in order to formalize everything. He said he was 99% committed to coming to Italy so I hope our search is over.

The farewell tour continued last night as Martha Jimenez-Ito got about a dozen Rio Mesa H.S. people together at Chuy's in Camarillo for dinner and drinks. As always with this crowd, we all had a lot of fun. In the picture, Martha is on the right with Koreen FitzGerald at the the gala event.

I am really going to miss these people who have been so important to me but I have to press on. Adventures require sacrifices and the cost of this one is not having my family and friends nearby for support.

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