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It’s good to woo the mothers. Making them happy is imperative, actually, especially when it comes to food. Mothers have been known to sway their sons, after all. To nudge them in a certain direction regarding where to play college football in the Southeastern Conference.
Half a dozen current and former SEC recruiting coordinators confirm that moms have to be treated as though they’re special—basically feted when on official recruiting visits to schools with their sons. Future SEC championships, even national titles, could hinge on fulfilling a request for something as small as a soft drink, or providing an item not on the menu for the players; the women’s tastes and palates are more refined than those of football-playing teenagers: Sometimes catered macaroni and cheese or hot dogs won’t cut it.
Matt Lindsey, a former recruiting assistant at Alabama, remembers a few years ago the highly sought-after Landon Collins, a defensive back from Geismar, Louisiana, brought his mother with him on a recruiting visit to Tuscaloosa. She mentioned that she really would like to have a king cake on her trip. It was around Mardi Gras, this visit; but finding such a confection in Tuscaloosa turned out to be harder than the people tasked with the job figured.
This was before Collins was an All-American safety and helped win a national championship for the Crimson Tide, on his way to the NFL; it wasn’t clear then if sending a recruiting coordinator on a king cake quest would help win over Collins, or was ridiculous. Lindsey and other staff devoted themselves to looking, though, and eventually found one.
“One time, [a] mom was the most particular mom ever,” Lindsey says. “She would tell you requests right before a lunch. She was like, ‘I don’t eat shrimp with tails on them.’ So we’re getting the caterers to go through de-tail the shrimp. Just so she doesn’t see them.”
Schools send questionnaires to parents who are joining their kids on recruiting trips, inquiring about what foods they like, or if they have peanut or shellfish allergies.
“You want no stone unturned,” Lindsey says. “You want everything perfect. You want to make sure every minute is buttoned up, and the meals are such an important part of those weekends. Eight or nine meals. Imagine planning a wedding every weekend, and having nine wives to make happy, and nine mothers-in-law.”
Not long ago, on the weekend of an official visit to Texas A&M University, the mother of a player coveted by Aggies football coaches was obsessed with a particular brand of iced tea. She not only asked for it, but acted as if it was crucial to their experience on campus.
“If I saw [the tea], it would give me flashbacks,” says Danielle Braswell, now the executive director of recruiting at the University of Kentucky, but then working in recruiting at A&M. Though she’s blocked the exact kind of tea from her memory, she remembers the trouble it caused; only after spending a couple of hours driving around College Station did Braswell discover this item.
On the day of the meal, “we thought we could go into H-E-B and find this tea, or at Walmart. But it was not anywhere. We were scouring the town, and then we found it in a hole-in-the-wall gas station and bought it out. Every single bottle of tea, we bought it. [We were] recruiting his mom.”
She continues, “Kids are a lot simpler. The players, if you get them Chick-fil-A, most of the time they’re happy.”
About certain items, though, today’s recruits can be as exacting as their mothers. Andrea Hollis, director of recruiting strategy at Mississippi State University, says recruits no longer want any old chicken wings. “They want flats, or their specific barbecue flavor, with ranch; you’re personally going to order all of these different needs for the recruits, based on whatever flavor and sauce,” she says.
While recruits may not be as hard to impress as their mothers, athletic departments in the SEC use up to one-third of their recruiting budgets to try. If a recruit says he wants Red Vines but only sees Twizzlers, staffers better find Red Vines. Midnight pizza after a night on the town with players? A recruiting coordinator is on call 24-7 while recruits are in town.
At Alabama, recruits get a memorable mashup of food and football at Bryant-Denny stadium: Their tour includes taking the Walk of Champions with the current team; sitting in recliners in the huge locker room, and putting on crimson jerseys to see what they look like on their shoulders; followed by a buffet meal in a luxury suite; later on, they dine at a fancy place called Chuck’s Fish, at an upstairs table with head coach Nick Saban himself. At Ole Miss, recruits often have dinner at the linen-covered long tables at City Grocery, Instagramming their dinner and the restaurant’s balcony view of The Square.
“Business owners are willing to bend over backwards for football,” Lindsey says.
In Starkville, home of Mississippi State University, “There’s a hibachi spot in town, UMI,” says Hollis. Recruits like to see the chef throw rice in the air and set a tower of onions on fire.
At the University of South Carolina, it’s a tradition to take recruits to the Ruth’s Chris Steak House in downtown Columbia, not only for the steak, but for the name, for the clout of being able to say they’ve been there. Future Gamecock sons and mothers have been known to want a take-out bag from Ruth’s Chris, to keep.
“That’s part of the recruiting in the SEC, going the extra mile,” Lindsey says. “Maybe one of the coaches knows a recruit’s mother or grandmother likes Krispy Kreme or Little Debbie cakes,” and the coach will come to her with such an offering, maybe some Skittles or Welch’s fruit snacks.
He’ll pull her aside to say the team has a surprise, just for her.
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