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UPPER MARLBORO, Maryland — The University of Michigan’s athletic department has offered a full scholarship to Champion Francis Winner of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Mr. Winner has been in the recruiting spotlight since his father (Charles Winner) first launched the twitter tag #RecruitChampionWinner. At the time, Winner was didn’t play any sports on account of his only being 3 years old. He is now 4.
“It was crazy, that tag blew up and we had coaches from all kinds of sports looking to recruit Champion: football, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, badminton, the U.S. chess team,” the senior Winner told us. “I, of course, was leaning towards football or basketball, but honestly I was impressed with the recruiting effort that the competitive Cloodle™ team from UPenn put forward. I mean, we are big Cloodle™ fans here at the Winner house—we have all the expansion packs.”
“We’re sports agnostic.”
And the sport for which Champion was offered a full scholarship? TBD.
“We are really interested in Champion. We are sport agnostic as far as he’s concerned,” said Mark Freedman, the head of the university’s athletic department. “We know he’s never played any sports before and he’s 14 years from graduating, but we don’t want to be one of those teams that look back, 16 years in the future, and say to ourselves ‘Damn, we should have tried harder to get that kid.’”
When we asked Freedman what impressed him so much about Winner, he didn’t have to think long. “Upside. The recruiting game is all about upside. It’s easy to go after the 15 year-old 7-footer from Romania who can shoot the 3-ball. Or a 300 pound sophomore with a knack for blocking. Those are no-brainers. The hard part is finding the talent before it has five years of “amateur” experience in a professional Italian sports league.
“But also, if I’m being honest, he has one hell of a name.”
PJ Layman, who has been in the college football recruiting business for forty years, provided some historical context. “The recruiting game is evolving,” he said. ”A decade ago we were all worried that maybe trying to recruit kids before they were in high school was crossing a line. Now? I’ve got a team scouting the labor and delivery floors of several major U.S. hospitals.”
For the Winners, being offered a scholarship before you’ve learned to shoot on a rim higher than 4 feet or kick a ball into a goal, is just part of the modern American way.
“Honestly, we are just so proud of how far he’s come already. We have lots of time for him to learn how to play the game. Whichever one it is. There are so many other important things in life, you know? Like working out sponsorship contracts and trademarking.”
Sports Analytics
As to which sport Champion will end up playing at the collegiate level, the Winners have left that to a third party.
“We hired Lil’ Playerz Consulting early on. They’ve been crunching the numbers and trying to figure out the sport that will best compliment Champion’s brand.”
What sport is their analysis pointing towards?
“Hockey,” says Ray Schmidt, director of accounts at Lil’ Playerz. “I mean, first of all the sport is a complete mess of eastern European and French names—just his name alone would put Champion ahead of the pack . We believe if he puts in the effort to learn how to skate without falling down every time, he could make the NHL the second or third most popular professional sport in America.”
The Winners have bought into the idea. “At first we were like, wait, hockey? Is that even a professional sport anymore? But the more we think about it, the more it makes sense.”
Charles admits that what really sold the family was a presentation they attended by the advertising firm McCann. In McCann’s Manhattan office, the Winners were pitched a possible promo for the NHL’s Winter Classic, held annually on New Year’s Day.
Once we saw the promo, we were convinced too.
Time will tell what sport Champion will choose and how successful he will be. But there’s no denying that he has a really catchy name and his dad’s Twitter game is 🔥🔥🔥.
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