She could have written her ticket to join Tauja at Illinois, but then came the recruiting letters from Summitt.

The latest chapter is a recruiting letter that has stayed with Bob Davie through move after move in a 19-year career as a college assistant coach.

In September 1996, when he was 14, his boarding school received a recruiting letter for winter sports athletes.

The recruiting letter also went out to the army and the India-Tibet border police, so Palankandy figured he was going to a training camp for skiing.

A new N.C.A.A. rule this year bans colleges from sending recruiting letters to a student until he is at least a junior in high school.

By the next season, Russell had grown to six-foot-three and 185 pounds, had received his first recruiting letters and was becoming more adept with the playbook.

At least not until he received a recruiting letter from the school before his senior year in high school.

Laettner received his first recruiting letter, from nearby St. Bonaventure University, as a freshman.

At Illinois, Roberts remembers Gillispie having 50 or 60 handwritten recruiting letters stacked behind his desk every day.

His bedroom was filled with more than 2,500 recruiting letters.