How do I explain this to those of you who don’t encounter college basketball players’ Twitter and Instagram activity?
*deep breath*
So.
Something high school players like to do when they’re being recruited is announce their “top seven,” or “top eleven,” or “top four,” or whatever the number is of schools they’re presently considering, a list that usually—not always, but enough of the time—only shrinks over time until the player decides where to go. When they do decide where to go, they announce that as well. Fans of the teams involved comment on the tweet or the Instagram post, the player gets told he’s going to win the Heisman or make the Final Four or be a legend forever in (insert college town), the player is also told unspeakable things by fans of jilted programs, I imagine it to be about the biggest dopamine hit a teenager can receive and probably also a little terrifying. To make these posts stand out, and to build their own personal brand, they work with graphic designers—guys who will photoshop them into different teams’ uniforms, take their quote and put it in a font that fits the graphic, get all the relevant teams’ logos together into one picture, etc. The end product often ends up looking like this example, released 46 minutes before I typed this:
As we’ve established, dopamine for days, right? Especially with graphics like that the focal point? And with the transfer portal and the NBA Draft test-the-waters thing and with everything else giving college athletes choices at a time when documenting your life in real time is commonplace in younger generations (casually mentions the guy who runs an Instagram account for his dog [link here please follow]), you may be able to see where this is going.
We get a lot of graphics these days.
We get graphics when recruits narrow down their top 17, and then their top nine, and then their top three. We get graphics when recruits commit. We get graphics if they decommit, along with a letter jammed in there in six-point font. We get graphics when they commit again, and then graphics when they sign, and then graphics with a letter when they enter the transfer portal after two years because their coach just jumped ship for a different mid-major, and then graphics without a letter when they exit the transfer portal because they talked to the new coach and he won them over, and then graphics with a letter again the next year when they enter the transfer portal again because the new coach lied to them, and then graphics when they actually do transfer, and then graphics (w/ letter) when they enter the NBA Draft, and then graphics (w/ letter, usually) when they exit the NBA Draft and return to school.
We get a lot of graphics these days.
The letters are always good, too, which is to say they’re always the same and they’re funny in their sameness. The first paragraph is them thanking God, their family, the program they’re leaving or remaining with, and the fans. Then there’s a cookie cutter transition to the second paragraph, which has the meat of it—the thing they’re actually doing. Then there’s a third paragraph and I can’t think of what it says because I usually don’t read that far (my eyes are hurting by then), but it’s there.
Some players change it up—we get videos, we get the notes app if they’re in a hurry, they aren’t on social media because someone pulled them aside and told them to save themselves—some players change it up. But it’s a big thing, and when college programs themselves aren’t doing it for their athletes, they turn to professionals who will produce these graphics for them. Professionals like Joe Tipton, whose work is shown above.
This morning, Joe Tipton caused a little bit of a stir. Which is to say he didn’t cause the stir, but he sure inflamed it. I don’t know much about Tipton’s career path (what started as a trickle of hearing the name “Tipton Edits” has become a steady stream) but he evidently works in the recruiting blogosphere, which is an ingenious synergy that also feels very obvious, and until today, I never thought about him more than to know that he did this. Didn’t know his name was Joe. Didn’t think about how players must pay him for his service (unless the site traffic is the payment?). Just saw “Tipton Edits” and heard it echo through my head, like a significant name early in an intellectual thriller.
Then, this morning happened.
Yet another thing I never thought about is how these graphics guys must have a ton of inside info, because players are reaching out to them to make the graphics before, naturally, the graphics are released. There is a time in which the graphics are being produced in which only the recruits, the graphics guys, and probably a couple dozen other people (because these are 16-23 year-olds) know the information on said graphic. The release time is planned, the recruiting blog working with Tipton gets its writeup done to be able to accompany that release time, the player gets ready to have 55-year-old Tennessee fans tell him he’s their hero while 54-year-old South Carolina fans threaten to kill his family, it’s a whole thing.
Yesterday, a non-Tipton graphics guy broke the code. Today, Joe Tipton pounced.
Josiah Strong, a good-not-great player out of Illinois State, a pretty-bad team in the Missouri Valley, evidently was planning on using 336 Edits to tell the world he was headed to Colorado State, a pretty-good team in the Mountain West. Then, 336 Edits inexplicably broke the news early, and in doing so turned off replies to the tweet in which they did it, something often done on Twitter to suppress backlash. Wacky move, and Tipton was not having it, cracking down (and making a compelling case for me to use Tipton Edits the next time I’m deciding between the Black River Falls Culver’s and the Hudson Culver’s as I drive through Wisconsin).
I don’t know what happened here, but I don’t really care, either. What I love is that the recruiting graphics guy market is so charged with animosity that we’ve got accusations flying and a graphics guy telling recruits to be careful who they trust.
College sports find the most creative ways to encounter drama.
Joe Kelly vs. the Yankees
The White Sox open a four-game home set with the Yankees tonight, which makes it time to remember that the first big Joe Kelly moment (there were other great ones, but those were prequels) was when our guy stood up for teammate Brock Holt after the Yankees tried to go Ty Cobb on him and spike him with rusty cleats. The ensuing melee gave us Joe Kelly’s shirt getting ripped open after he fought a man 45 pounds heavier than him on the Fenway Park grass (Joe Kelly won). It was the kind of moment that, if it happened now, would lead teens to say, “Joe Kelly is a vibe,” but since it was 2018 instead simply led us to become a Joe Kelly blog during the non-NIT season.
So, keep an eye out for that. Tyler Austin is no longer with the Yanks (he’s out of the league, but in a good redemption arc he played for Team USA last spring in whatever international baseball was happening last spring), but that clubhouse has to remember our guy. He’s the defining image of last decade for them.
Burnley Didn’t Play, Burnley Had a Day
Burnley was idle yesterday, but with Leeds losing and Everton drawing, the Clarets are in a slightly better position when it comes to avoiding relegation. Sunday is a big morning. Six and a half straight hours of nailbiting footie over in England. I’m probably going to have a little heartburn but that might just be because of coffee and heat and fatigue because it’s going to be kind of a weird weekend schedule-wise.
In other soccer news, I knew Leeds’s coach was American but I didn’t know his name so, assuming he was between 40 and 60 and knowing he was white, I called him Paul all day, which I think is a better name for him than Jesse Marsch. Jesse Marsch, you are Paul now.
NITransfer
Hassan Diarra, most famous for being the guy Fran Fraschilla kept using to bring up New York pizza during Texas A&M’s 2022 NIT run, has committed to UConn. I wonder if Fraschilla has heard yet. If he hasn’t, can whoever tells him please record him turning, widening his eyes, and saying, “He’s gonna be closer to that New York pizza!”?
You Know Who Else Does Basketball Stuff in Milwaukee?
I just think it’s interesting that Shaka Smart moved to Milwaukee, the Bucks immediately won a title, and now they might be on their way to another (thanks to NIT legend Bobby Portis, of course). I just think it’s interesting.
***
Viewing schedule tonight:
7:30 PM EDT: Leafs @ Lightning (TBS, second screen)
I’ve been promised a Toronto Maple Leafs heartbreaking collapse, and a Toronto Maple Leafs heartbreaking collapse I expect to receive.
8:10 PM EDT: Yankees @ White Sox (MLB TV)
*smiling at an inexplicably panicking Aaron Boone*
9:30 PM EDT: Suns @ Mavericks (ESPN, second screen)
I want to see Marquese Chriss do it again.
