Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Indiana signee Cody Zeller shares stories from his recruitment

Although every high school basketball prospect must familiarize himself with the NCAA rulebook in order to avoid jeopardizing his eligibility, few are as well-versed in the nuances of the process than Indiana signee�Cody Zeller.

Not only did dozens of elite programs show interest in Zeller before he chose the Hoosiers last fall, the 6-foot-11 big man had already watched his older brothers Luke and Tyler sign with Notre Dame and North Carolina respectively.

Zeller shared some of his favorite recruiting anecdotes on Monday in a blog post on the website for "DistinXion," a basketball, cheerleading and character training camp his family runs. Among the highlights:

? Because a coach cannot drive a recruit on an unofficial visit anywhere off campus, one coach let Zeller and his family out of the car at the edge of campus and told them to walk the rest of the way to their destination.

? In an effort to get around rules restricting the phone calls they could make to recruits, coaches would often call Zeller and quickly say, "Hey Cody, hang up and call me back." A recruit can call a college coach as much as he'd like.

? Zeller often received as many as 15 to 20 fliers, letters and pamphlets per day from the schools that recruited him, not that the deluge of mail did any good. The only ones he bothered to open were from Old Dominion because they always sent sports comics.

? College coaches sometimes are prohibited from doing anymore than exchanging "a formal greeting with a recruit when they come to watch him practice or play, but the definition of "a formal greeting" varies from program to program. Zeller said some coaches "talked for quite a while." Others would do no more than shake his hand.

Maybe the most ridiculous rule of all Zeller has encountered deals directly with the blog post he wrote for the DistinXion website. Since the NCAA doesn't allow athletes to support, market or endorse a company ? even a non-profit organization run by his own family ? Zeller must remove all his blog posts and pictures from the DistinXion website once he officially enrolls at Indiana.

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