Jabari Parker is the #2 basketball recruit and a one of a kind recruit for any university, the fact that BYU has made it to his final 5, has inspired 2 Brigham Young fans to go all out for Saturday’s home basketball game in which Parker will be in attendance.
Yahoo Sports is reporting that 2 Cougar fans, Greg Welsh and Tony Brown, created 6,300 t-shirts with the phrase “Chicago To Provo” on them in anticipation of Parker’s official visit for tonight’s game against Cal.
Welsh spoke about the idea for the shirt phenomenon.
The shirts were created with the help of donations from thousand of BYU supporters.
“At Jabari’s official visit to Duke, the students did some chants for him, so that sort of set the bar for us to try to do better,” Welch said. “I just sort of threw this idea out there, ‘Hey wouldn’t it be cool if the crowd was wearing shirt to have a little energy?’ Apparently, a lot of other people liked it.”
“I have a Twitter account, a few blogs like any crazy fan has these days, and the community I’m involved with thought, ‘What can we do to roll out the red carpet for him?’ ” said Welch, who attended BYU and now lives in Iowa. ” ‘What can we do to add to the excitement when he is here?’ Our goal is for there to be electricity in the building and (Saturday) night is a special environment.”
“I thought we would have a hundred of the shirts,” said Welch, who will be handing out T-shirts from a U-Haul truck on private property across from BYU’s Marriott Center. “The way the Internet and social media works these days, if something catches fire, you don’t know where it’s going.”
BYU has made it to Parker’s official final five schools that includes Duke, Michigan State, Florida and Stanford.
BYU has a slight edge if any due to the fact that Parker is a devout Mormon, and likes the school and coaching staff.
Parker’s father Sonny recently hinted at BYU being a favorite in a conversation with ESPN Chicago.
“Remember he belongs to the Church of Latter-Day Saints,” Sonny said. “They got one of the winningest programs in the last 4-5 years if you look at their record. They average 25 wins a year. They don’t get the recognition of others. Their conference isn’t that bad. Remember they had the player of the year in Jimmer Fredette. They have a real good program.”
Parker is definitely the business, and we’ll be interesting to see who lands him.
I’d be shocked completely if he’s not in Durham, NC next season though.
Video Of Jabari Parker included for those who’ve been under a rock.