{"id":8080,"date":"2015-10-09T04:30:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T09:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/?p=8080"},"modified":"2015-10-08T15:34:38","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T20:34:38","slug":"surprise-call-from-parents-about-daughters-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/surprise-call-from-parents-about-daughters-success\/","title":{"rendered":"NSR’s calling: Changing the lives of high school athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The call from the Thomases served to validate how NSR scouts impact the lives of our athletes and families.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a really hot, August day in Birmingham, Ala.\u00a0 During a mid-afternoon break of the National Scouting Report national meeting, I was chatting with a fellow high school scout when the phone rang.<\/p>\n

“Alan?” a woman’s voice asked.<\/p>\n

“Yes, how can I help you?”<\/p>\n

“This is Sonja Thomas,” she said.<\/p>\n

Her voice was emotional and happy, which was odd and concerned me.<\/p>\n

“Hi, Sonja.\u00a0 How are you?\u00a0 And the girls, how are they?” I asked.<\/p>\n

She went on, “That’s what I’m calling you about.\u00a0 Joe and I are just driving away from Western Carolina (University), and we wanted to call you and let you know how much we appreciate everything you did for Sam and Melissa.”<\/p>\n

“Well, that’s awfully nice of you.\u00a0 You’re welcome.\u00a0 It was a real pleasure working with them and you,” I replied.<\/p>\n

“Really, what we want you to know is what happened over the past two days.\u00a0 Yesterday we took Melissa to Pfeiffer (University) to drop her off there.\u00a0 When we went in to settle up with Admissions, what they handed us as our bill for her first semester blew us away.\u00a0 That’s not an inexpensive school and the invoice we were looking at said that we owed $1,300.\u00a0 We were shocked.”<\/p>\n

“Wow, that is really good,”\u00a0 I responded.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a>
Sam Keppel played D-I softball at Western Carolina and now lives in Charlotte.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“And that’s not all,” she continued.\u00a0 “Today, when we took Sam to Western, same thing.\u00a0 We stopped by Admissions, but this time the bill was only $600 for Sam’s first semester.\u00a0 Joe and I looked at one another and almost at the same time said, “We need to call Alan.”\u00a0 So we’re calling to say that when we invested with you and NSR, we had no idea what would happen, but we trusted you.\u00a0 There was something in your attitude, voice and confidence that told us that we had to enroll her with you.\u00a0 And here we are driving away from our second school in two days having paid less than two thousand dollars for them to go to college.\u00a0 We know that this would have been impossible without you helping them and helping us to go through the recruiting and the process.\u00a0 What you’ve done for us is simply amazing and we cannot thank you enough.”<\/p>\n

By this time, I was the emotional one. It was hard to speak. Finally, I was able to say something.<\/p>\n

“Sonja, it’s families like yours that make working in the business rewarding and so satisfying,” said.<\/p>\n

Sam Keppel went on to start at second base for Western Carolina’s inaugural softball season.\u00a0 She helped to lead the team to 18 wins, shocking everyone in the Southern Conference.\u00a0 The 5’9″ slap hitter was known for her scrappy play.\u00a0 By the end of her sophomore year, Sam was forced to give up the game due to lingering injuries.\u00a0\u00a0Today she\u00a0has the title of\u00a0Risk Management Coordinator for Enterprise Holdings in Charlotte, NC.<\/p>\n

Her older sister, Melissa, a 5’10” third baseman for Pfeiffer’s softball squad chose to leave\u00a0the team after her freshman year\u00a0to focus full time\u00a0on her studies.\u00a0 She graduated with honors in three years.\u00a0 Melissa also lives in Charlotte with her husband, Raymond, and their son.<\/p>\n

“Sonja, it’s families like you that make what I do worth the calls, the college visits and the time needed to make your girls’ dreams come true,” I confessed.<\/p>\n

Sonja and I\u00a0hung up after saying good-bye.\u00a0 I have gotten similar calls over the years.\u00a0 When they come, these parents validate what I do and what NSR does for these young athletes.\u00a0 We really do change lives every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a really hot, August day in Birmingham, Ala.\u00a0 During a mid-afternoon break of the National Scouting Report national meeting, I was chatting with a fellow high school scout when the phone rang. “Alan?” a woman’s voice asked. “Yes, how can I help you?” “This is Sonja Thomas,” she said. Her voice was emotional … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[172,31,222,238,257],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8080"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8093,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions\/8093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}