2008 National Letter of Intent Signing Day
National Letter of Intent (NLI)
Signing Day is the first day that a high school football player can accept an
athletic scholarship to play for the college or university of his choice.
Schools receive the athlete’s Signed Letter of Intent by fax during the morning
and early afternoon. Once the faxed signed NLI is received, the school adds the
students’ name and bio to their press release.
Athletic Directors and Head Football Coaches schedule Press Conferences and Alumni
& Fan events to celebrate the signings of their future college football
star players. Many local sports talk
radio stations sponsor these local booster events in their cities.
College Football Fans take the NLI Signing Day very seriously. Many take a
vacation day or even call in sick to attend the events of the day! The comment
most heard is "This is better than Christmas" and "Why don’t
they just make NLI Signing Day a National Holiday, so I don’t have to use a
vacation day"?
Before the Internet, college football fans relied on their local newspapers,
radio and television stations for all their recruiting news. After the Internet
became a popular source of information, ambitious fans could scour the online
newspapers and sports websites to accumulate their own lists of recruits. Over
the last few years, recruiting websites have evolved and have become so
popular, that all Division 1 schools have sports fan websites that have very
detailed recruiting information including a list of verbal commitments. The
diehard fan prints off his own list of verbal commitments to compare with the
actual press releases from his school at the NLI Day press conferences and fan
events.
Watch the visitor counts rise on the recruiting sports forums on NLI day. All
die-hard college football fans want to know which players committed to their
school and which local high school stars went to other schools. There are very
sophisticated rating systems that rank each school in their own conferences and
on a national basis. Five Star recruits and One Star recruits show up on the
commit lists. Who will be the next major football star at your school? It gives
all the fans a lot to talk about for the following weeks until football season
actually begins again.
This will be the 11th anniversary of the KTIK NLI Signing show and
fourth year at the Big Easy for the NLI Signing Day Show. Boise State football fans will start lining up hours before the doors
open at the Big Easy, and then scramble to find strategic locations to view the
show. The show will feature Boise State Football coaches discussing the players
that they will be coaching the next four to five years. Video Highlights of
each player will be shown as the BSU coaches talk about each recruit. The show
will also have press releases from the University
of Idaho, and other WAC members.
The Doors open at Noon or 1:00 (Exact
Time to TBD). The show will be broadcast
by KTIK 1350 AM from 3:00 to 6:00. Jeff Caves, the founder of the show will continue his hosting duties
along with Statesman’s Sports Editor, Mike Prater. The KTIK Ticket Chicks will
also be there to liven up the show.
Many NLI Signing Day Events are
not free to the general public. The KTIK
NLI Signing Day Show remains free for all Bronco fans.
Links:
http://www.national-letter.org/
http://www.ktik.com/
http://www.bigeasyconcerts.com
