Look at this Texas A&M recruiting letter from 1919 (Photo)
If you thought elaborate sales pitches to recruits was a college football development of the past 50 years, think again.
Look at this great recruiting letter sent to Dr. Richard Henry Harrison Jr. before the 1919 season. His great-grandson, Harrison Allen Jr., shared it with ESPN.
This 1919 Texas A&M recruiting letter discovered recently by a relative is awesome. http://t.co/6tD1iMTatD pic.twitter.com/9yqP38WUka
— Dave Wilson (@dwil) March 12, 2015
Harrison's nickname was "Chicken," hence the "Dear" line in the letter. His great-grandson believes it was written to him in an attempt to convince him to return to the football team in 1919 after a year of military service. From ESPN:
Written Aug. 20, 1919, Bible wrote to Harrison in hopes he would return to the A&M football team for the 1919 season. Allen said Harrison played for the Aggies in 1917 but not in 1918 as many members of the team served the United States in World War I. Harrison served in both World War I and World War II, and Allen said it is his understanding, though he's not 100 percent certain, that 1918 was one of his years of service.
The 1919 Texas A&M team is famous for going undefeated and not allowing any of its opponents to score. Harrison later graduated from the university with a doctorate in veterinary medicine and also served as the team's doctor.
How great would it be if teams went away from photoshopping recruits' pictures on magazine covers and instead recruited with typewriters and language like this? OK, maybe it would need some tweaking. Typewriters are inefficient and outdated and any recruiting letter with the word "profitable" would need to clearly be defined that the word isn't referencing under-the-table compensation.
For more Texas A&M news, visit AggieYell.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
