“Slept On?”
It began in September with our prep profiles and grew into profiles of entire classes and associations. But now, four months later, we have done our best to cover the top prospects at every level of high school and prep school basketball in New England.
Did we get everyone? Of course not. But we got everyone we were aware of.
The question is, what does a player do when they think they should be recognized but aren't. This isn't just with regard to NERR but any type of content, coverage, or even recruitment.
Well, one option is you can make a social media post and we've certainly seen our fair share of these over the years. But every kid (or parent or coach for that matter) who tweets about how they are "slept on" or "disrespected" risks coming across in a negative light. Those who post on social media with maturity and humility, have an opportunity to promote themselves in positive ways through video, statistics, links to newspaper articles, and other resources.
Another option is to reach out personally, again this can be to anyone from college coaches to local beat writers to NERR. But again, the key is how you do it. Those who communicate amicably and cordially have a much better chance of being responded to and getting that consideration that they believe they are lacking.
Here's the bottom line, advocating for yourself, your kids, or your players is a good thing, but doing it in the right way is critical. No college coach, local reporter, or NERR representative is intentionally leaving someone off. They may not have the same impression of a player as you do but that may be because they don't have enough information and no competent evaluator is ever averse to getting more information, so long as it unbiased and factual information.
So, in short, congratulations to those players who have been recognized in all of the below content. To those that haven't - work hard and advocate for yourself with maturity and class - because your communication can reveal your character and you may be hurting yourself instead of helping yourself.