Day One Mailbox List Set

In an effort to avoid sending more than one request to the same school on the same day, I went through my complete list of 105 college football autograph requests for this fall and have determined which ones I'll send on each of four days next week, beginning on July 5th. The following is the list of letters I'll put in the mailbox that first morning:

Adrian Peterson (RB, Oklahoma) ... Albert Young (RB, Iowa) ... Alley Broussard (RB, LSU) ... Amir Pinnix (RB, Minnesota) ... **Antonio Pittman (RB, Ohio State) ... Arian Foster (RB, Tennessee) ... Brady Quinn (QB, Notre Dame) ... Brandon Cox (QB, Auburn) ... Brandon Siler (LB, Florida) ... Brian Brohm (QB, Louisville) ... Brian Johnson (QB, Utah) ... Brian Leonard (RB, Rutgers) ... Calvin Johnson (WR, Georgia Tech) ... Chad Henne (QB, Michigan) ... Chansi Stuckey (WR, Clemson) ... Darren McFadden (RB, Arkansas) ... Drew Stanton (QB, Michigan State) ... Drew Weatherford (QB, Florida State) ... Dwayne Jarrett (WR, Southern Cal) ... Greg Olsen (TE, Miami) ... Jarrett Hicks (WR, Texas Tech) ... Jason Berryman (DE, Iowa State) ... Jason Hill (WR, Washington State) ... Joe Ayoob (QB, California) ... Quinn Sypniewski (TE, Colorado) ... Rudy Carpenter (QB, Arizona State)

(**) indicates that the request will be sent to the player's home address

The CFB Send-To List: Even More Late Additions

It's less than 10 days until I will send out the first of this fall's 2006 college football autograph requests, and yet I still haven't finished the complete send-to list. Over the past few days, I've added several more names to the list, as shown below.

Coming in the next few days, I'll update you on which requests I will send out on which days. With more than 100 going out, I will probably divide them up and send them out on three or four separate days.

Until then, here's a further glance at some late additions:

Brandon Meriweather (DB, Miami) ... Sam Olajubutu (LB, Arkansas) ... Joel Filani (WR, Texas Tech) ... Courtney Lewis (RB, Texas A&M) ... Mario Urrutia (WR, Louisville) ... Curtis Brown (RB, BYU) ... Kyle Bell (RB, Colorado State) ... Paul Smith (QB, Tulsa)

The CFB Send-To List: Even More Late Additions

I splurged on a couple of those always-intriguing college football preview magazines over the weekend, and in the process, I came across a small list of players whom I had overlooked on previous lists. They will be added, and those requests will be sent out at the same time as the rest.

That send-off date is rapidly approaching; I'm tentatively shooting for July 5th as the target date for sending out the first batch. Most schools' second summer session has started by then, so I feel most players will be back on campus at that time.

Dorien Bryant (WR, Purdue) ... Kyle Wright (QB, Miami) ... Steve Smith (WR, USC) ... Mike Hart (RB, Michigan) ... Todd Blythe (WR, Iowa State) ... Marcus Monk (WR, Arkansas) ... Erik Ainge (QB, Tennessee) ... Darrell Blackman (WR, NC State)

The College Hoops Send-To List: Part II

The day I'll mail out the 2006 college football requests is inching ever closer, but in the mean time, it's never too early to continue planning ahead. For college hoops, that is.

I posted Part I of the roundball send-to list earlier this week and will follow that up with Part II today. As mentioned before, this list will expand greatly once a number of college hoops' biggest stars make their future decisions known in the coming weeks.

Part II
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Ekene Ibekwe (Maryland), Jamont Gordon (Mississippi State), Nick Fazekas (Nevada), Reyshawn Terry (North Carolina), Reginald Delk (Mississippi State), Roy Hibbert (Georgetown), Ryan Appleby (Washington), Taurean Green (Florida), Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina)

The College Hoops Send-To List: Part I

Well I mentioned last week that it might be time to start thinking about the college hoops guys to contact this fall, and with a little help from the readers, I've been able to do just that.

I've only come up with around 15 to 20 names thus far, mainly because (as I mentioned last week) the NBA Draft is still a few weeks away and many of the stars haven't officially made their intentions known. Once that passes, and we know who's headed where this fall, I'll be able to work on a more complete list.

As the Draft nears, I expect several players to one-by-one beginning pulling their names out of the hat, just as Nevada's Nick Fazekas did this past week, and as that happens, I'll be noting that fact and adding them to the list.

Here's a look at part I of what I've got for now:

PART I
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Brandon Rush (Kansas), Corey Brewer (Florida), Curtis Sumpter (Villanova), Dominic James (Marquette), Eric Devendorf (Syracuse), Glen Davis (LSU), Greg Paulus (Duke), Jeff Adrien (Connecticut), Joakim Noah (Florida), Josh McRoberts (Duke), Julian Wright (Kansas), Mario Chalmers (Kansas)

Time to Start Thinking Hoops?

It's never too early to start looking ahead at a prospect send-to list, so I've begun thinking a bit about the candidates for the 2006-2007 college basketball season. The problem is, many of the top players have declared for the upcoming NBA Draft, which is set for Wednesday, June 28 at 6:00 PM central on ESPN.

The good news is that many of these guys have yet to sign with an agent, which means if they aren't happy with where they're selected later this month, they can return to college. So with that thought in mind, I'm going to hold off for now on putting together a list of hoops stars I'm planning to contact.

Once the Draft gets closer and then passes, we'll have a better idea who will and won't be on campus this fall. Until then, though, if you've got any names you think should be on the list, contact me, and I'll be sure to consider them for my hoops list to be published later this summer.

The (Updated, Again) Expense Report

It's getting closer and closer to the time when I'll be sending out the 2006 college football autograph requests, and with that in mind, I went ahead and purchased the necessary stamps - plus a few extra - just yesterday. With 90 athletes currently on the send-to list and probably a few extra to be added before I ship them out, I went ahead and purchased two rolls of 100 stamps, as well as a pack of 20 additional stamps.

Now, you may ask, why 200+ stamps for just 100 requests? The reason is I'll be including a self-addressed stamped envelope with each request, so each actually requires two stamps instead of just one.

The USPS recently raised the price of a stamp to $0.39, meaning 220 go for exactly $85.80. Now that sounds like a lot, but as the chart below shows, the total expenses for this round of requests is still under $100.

Right before I actually send out the requests, I'll come back and add a few extra dollars for printer ink and a few other miscellaneous items, though that won't amount to a whole lot. For now, here's a run-down of the total expenses thus far:

2006 EXPENSE REPORT (TO DATE)

Paper:	$3.04
Index Cards:	$0.98
Envelopes:	$2.05
Stamps:	$85.80
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TOTAL:	$91.87

"So how do you make those cool looking....

....index cards?" That is probably the question I'm asked the most. Everyone seems to like the idea, but most aren't quite sure how to go about it. The good news is that it's relatively simple.

The first thing you'll want to do is open up Microsft Word or whatever word processor you normally use. Go to Page Setup and either choose the page layout option for a 3"x5" index card, or customize the page dimensions yourself. You'll want to format the document landscape with a 3" height and 5" width.

Once you've got the card ready, format it into two columns. One will be for the picture, while the other will include the player's name, school, position, or whatever other info you want it to have. Also leave room in this column for the player to actually sign the card.

The next question becomes, "where do you get those pictures?" Again, simple! I simply do a Google image search for that particular player's name. In most cases, it brings up several pages of options, so I look for what I think is a good, fairly large picture so that it doesn't look blurry when you print it out.

You'll want to copy and paste that picture into your word document in the left column, and that's it! You've got a nice looking, home-made index card that will impress the player who receives it and make a nice collector's item if and when you get it back.