“It’s a good thing you’re one of the owners. I’m not sure where else you could call and only give a day’s notice,” Ava said.
I could probably call Greg and have him get Monical’s banquet room, but she was right. Having your own restaurant for events like this was convenient.
◊◊◊
After brunch, the girls were going to the mall. Dad and I had a meeting with Caryn and Megan to talk about my businesses. We came in the back and found crates of mail stacked halfway up the wall. I looked closer and saw they were recruiting letters.
“What do you want us to do with all this?” Megan asked as she came back to get a soda.
“You should read it all,” I said, and Dad smacked me on the back of the head.
“Ignore him. We’ll take them to the recycling drop on the way home,” Dad offered.
We followed Megan into the conference room. On the wall were eight-by-tens of Wolf, Tim, and me in full color. In the background, there were black-and-white action shots of each of us from yesterday’s Washington game. There were eleven different photos. Each had us Photoshopped to wear the jersey of each school on our list, plus Kentucky. Each picture had the school’s name and logo, and underneath it had hashtags. For example, Ohio State’s string said: ‘#WhyNotUs #GoBucks.’
“This is cool,” I said.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Caryn said as she sat down.
Caryn linked up the video conferencing, and I soon saw Jack Mass, Frank Ingram, Shannon Goehl, and Kent Crain’s faces all up on the big-screen TV. Something must be up if the brain trust was all present.
Caryn was all business and called the meeting to order. She seemed to be evolving into the role of COO. I remembered when we’d hung out in my trailer on the set for The Secret Circle.
Shannon Goehl, our corporate counsel, was up first. She informed us that we now had all the companies registered with the appropriate government entities. The reason why everyone was on the line became apparent when Kent, the senior manager for Dawson Management, got his turn.
“We’ve been going through Craig’s contacts and talking to them about us being their managers. Kendal signed up six new clients, and I was able to sign four. They’ve also agreed to use IDC – Public Relations and Mass Investments,” Kent announced.
“We’re ahead of our most aggressive projections, according to the business plan. We’re going to need to hire more managers to help out Kent and his team,” Frank, president of Dawson Management and a managing partner of IDC – Public Relations, shared.
“What does that mean?” Dad asked.
“In the short term, we may need to spend some money to hire and train people. But if we continue at the pace we’re going, we’ll be in the black way ahead of projections,” Caryn explained.
“I want to hire some people familiar with modeling. We haven’t touched David’s modeling contacts yet,” Kent said.
“I know who you should calclass="underline" Aubrey Dunham,” I suggested.
“Was she the woman I met in the UK?” Dad asked.
“Yes. She and Adrienne are friends, and she’s currently working at Ford Models in Europe to help train new models. She knows the business and just recently retired from being a full-time model herself.
“The other person you might want to contact is Clare Thomas. She’s the niece of Deb Thomas, who’s a vice president in charge of talent development in Ford Models’ Chicago office. Claire was my agent there but quit and went back to school to get her MBA,” I said, giving them a couple of options.
The discussion then turned to my recruiting.
“We mocked up pictures we want to send to each school’s bloggers and sportswriters,” Frank said. “I need to give Lily credit for coming up with the hashtag #WhyNotUs. It’ll help brand the three of you as a package.”
“I like it,” I admitted.
“We’re also getting requests from ‘insiders’ to talk to you about your recruitment,” Megan said. “They told me they want to make their ‘crystal ball’ predictions, whatever that means.”
“One of the recruiting websites has people who’re supposed to be plugged into college football make predictions about where a recruit will end up. I admit that I find it amusing to read some of the fan message boards’ meltdowns when a prediction changes. We could have some fun with this,” I said.
“I recommend against that. If you start creating a bunch of drama, you risk alienating potential fans. People will look at you as an attention-seeker and write you off,” Frank advised.
He could be a total fun-sucker sometimes, but he was right. Message boards tended to create their own drama. Diehard fans of a school hung on every post and tried to glean any information they could get or make up. Since they were on the Internet, where they could hide from the world in their parents’ basements, they could be a bunch of cyberbullies while acting like experts.
Some of my favorite threads were the ones where they tried to prove that their school was better than a rival. The Ohio State and Michigan fans had it down to an art form.
What made it all hilarious was that these adults apparently didn’t have anything better to do. They spent their time trying to figure out what a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old meant with a post to social media. It felt a little like they were stalkers when their comments would stray to talking about the girls the recruits would either start to follow or get messages from.
The Wisconsin board was convinced I was going there. That was all because Dawn, the college basketball player I’d met on the trip, and I had started following each other online. I was sure that if I got onto Kentucky’s message board, I’d find they were talking about me following John Phillips, their starting quarterback, and my friend.
“Okay, fine. I do have something else to talk about. My mom was approached by a representative of Southwest Central State. They wanted me to come for a visit and seemed to indicate they might pay for it.”
“I’ll talk to Duane Morris and find out what we should do about that,” Shannon said, going into lawyer mode.
Mr. Morris was the sports attorney Ms. Dixon had hired to deal with NCAA issues. From there, we wrapped it up and drove home.
◊◊◊
I was in my apartment, reading ahead, when Cassidy came in looking sad.
“What’s wrong, Bad Girl?”
That brought a grin to her face.
“Mr. Hicks is mad at my dad. Dad has to go talk to him tonight,” she explained.
Mr. Hicks was our athletic director and Coach Hope’s boss. I kept my expression neutral because Cassidy was a friend.
“Dad would like to talk to you before he meets with Mr. Hicks,” Cassidy said.
“I’m fine with that.”
We did need to clear the air, or I would have a problem working with him for the rest of the season. Cassidy sent a text and then ran downstairs when there was a knock at the door. Duke came running up the steps. I’d left him in the house with the little ones taking naps. Duke acted as an early warning system for when the boys woke up. Peggy appreciated it because she didn’t have to check on them. Duke would come to get her as soon as one of them would stir.
I was glad to see my dad come up first, followed by Cassidy and Coach Hope.
“Somehow, this seems wrong,” Coach Hope said.
I gave him a confused look.
“I just assumed you’d be off on some adventure. This just seems so ordinary, but then again, you do get good grades,” he said while pointing to the book I was studying.
“I’m not a natural like your daughter. I have to work for my grades,” I said.
Coach Hope actually grinned, and Cassidy gave me a dirty look. She put zero effort into studying and was a solid ‘B’ student. Her dad and I both knew that if she tried, she would be getting ‘A’s.
“I wanted a chance to talk to you and the other boys I owe apologies to before school tomorrow,” Coach Hope said, getting to the point of his visit. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to Wolf and Tim when they came back. If I had, none of this would have happened.”