Posted by hogstench on 2/18/2013 11:11:00 AM (view original):
100% Slightly behind message - "Coach, thanks again for the scholarship offer - I really like your program, but I have to tell you, I may still have some other options that I want to check out yet."
im not necessarily disagreeing, but what makes you say 100% slightly behind? my impression is that you can be 100% about a message meaning ahead, or 100% about a message meaning far behind, but that you can not be 100% on a message being slightly behind. i think the massive amount of confusion on this subject (including my end), comes because of a combination of 1) there being so god damn many messages, 2) the messages not being clear (those are both a given), but just as importantly, 3) because they are SO CLOSE in wording people figure out one and accidentally apply it to another (ive done it a number of times), and 4) people think they get 100% confirmation on a message but they didn't, even though its 90%, sometimes that 10% will hit and that leads to bad information.
so, im just looking out for #4 here. how can one know a message is 100% a slightly behind message? you can tell a ahead message, if the other guy signs after it and you are 100% sure the other coach didnt inform of redshirt or pull a scholarship (so, its not really 100%, but i think you can be at least 99%, and ill count that). i think you can 100% verify the far ahead AND far behind messages if they are the last message you got followed by a WOTS that is not even. you can also verify a far ahead, i think, if you are considered alone (not sure if you can get slightly ahead messages there if barely considered?). but i dont see how you can 100% verify anything else! at least, without asking the other coach for information, which i never count as 100%, but i suppose one could do so with reasonable safety, depending on the source. if you know the other coach's actions exactly, you can make *some* conclusions about the meaning of messages, but its highly subject to human error. in those cases i would recommend someone present their case for why something is 100% on this thread so others could try to vet it, or find any possible oversights.... however, if there are other ways to be sure of a message, or errors in my thinking here, id love to hear them - the theory on how you can be sure of a message is a pretty important thing to nail down, to get consistently quality results, IMO at least.
my personal opinion is that a complete scholarship list would be incredibly valuable and i would love to see it come together here. ill start paying more attention to my own scholarship messages, and contributing to this thread as they come up. i wish i realized there was someone (the OP) who was willing to keep track of this stuff, before tark recruiting (which just ended), so i would have had some to contribute... but now its too late. oh well, next time! it seems like it shouldn't be hard to get a complete list of scholarship messages WITHOUT meaning, i think that would be a valuable thing to get completed sooner than later, to help identify the scope of the problem. also, i think its worth trying to come up with a complete list of possible meanings - i think many people overlook that part - are there just far/slightly ahead/behind messages? what about tied? what about medium ahead/behind? are there other meanings outside of those? someone mentioned one scholarship message might mean someone is on the verge of signing, the other means they will sign in the next available cycle - not really sure what the distinction is there, honestly - but its a significant part of the problem, to nail down what meanings there are - otherwise how can we map messages to meanings? i never finished doing that myself. i think there are at least 5 tiers of messages (actually 4 would not blow me away, but i think its at least 5), and up to 7, but im not sure. any thoughts on how to prove the # of tiers of messages? i have some thoughts but would love to hear others, i think ive droned on way too long already :)
2/18/2013 11:35 AM (edited)