KNOXVILLE - With the travel, long hours away from family and the necessity of constant communication, recruiting can be stressful and tiring for college football coaches.
The process also can be adventurous at times, as some of Tennessee's staff members were reminded recently.
From hitchhiking and ice cream cones to pet lizards and car accidents, they encountered some unusual situations along the way to compiling the top-15 class the Volunteers sealed Wednesday on national signing day.
Perhaps the best tale from the recruiting trail was running backs coach Robert Gillespie's journey to see Carlin Fils-aime play in Immokalee, Fla., in September. One of the two pilots of the private plane wanted to accompany Gillespie to see Fils-aime play, and Gillespie welcomed him to come along when they landed at the closed regional airport.
"There's no (rental) car," Gillespie recalled during a recruiting celebration with fans at the Tennessee Theatre on Wednesday night. "So he and I start to walk, and we're literally on the side of the street hitchhiking. We can see the stadium. We can see the lights, but it's to far too to walk."
The pilot had the idea to find a mechanic's shop.
"There are three guys in there working on a car that do not speak English," Gillespie said. "The (pilot) looks at me and says, 'Coach Gillespie, I've got this. Let me handle it.' He goes in there and says, 'Hey, I have Coach Gillespie with me from Tennessee.' Those guys look at him like, 'We don't give a care who Gillespie is.'"
Then Gillespie took matters into his own hands.
"I said, 'I've got 20 bucks for anybody who can get us to the football game,'" he recalled, "and they said, 'Si, señor.'"
Once Gillespie and the pilot got to the game - already in progress - the pilot asked him which one was Fils-aime. As he asked the question, the Naples High School running back caught a swing pass and took it for a long touchdown.
"That's Carlin,'" Gillespie told the pilot. "He looks at me and says, 'No one would ever believe the journey we got to get here and see that touchdown.'"
Arizona Western College defensive end Jonathan Kongbo was the biggest of Tennessee's late additions, and head coach Butch Jones' visit to the top junior college prospect produced a memorable picture Kongbo posted on Twitter.
In the photo, he posed with Jones, Gillespie, defensive line coach Steve Stripling and new defensive coordinator Bob Shoop. All were holding ice cream cones. Shoop dubbed it "ice cream on the border" on Wednesday.
"A home visit can last anywhere from an hour to four hours," Jones said. "I think we broke the record with Kongbo. That was about eight hours.
"Coach Gillespie was a warrior, was relentless," he added. "That was about an eight-to-nine-hour trip, from eating tacos in the desert to butter pecan ice cream in the desert."
During one round of in-home visits, Jones said he had three home-cooked meals from the recruit's families.
One member of Latrell Williams' family spooked Jones during the speedy wide receiver's official visit to Tennessee.
"This guy, he can scoot," receivers coach Zach Azzanni told fans as Williams' highlight tape played. "He's what you're looking for on the perimeter for speed. He can run. When (new tight ends coach Larry) Scott got the job, immediately he said, 'Hey, what about this kid down here in Florida?'
"We took a look at him, and instantly as a staff we jumped on him. Coach Scott built the relationship, along with Coach Jones and myself, and we were able to steal him away from that school down there in the south (Miami). He can do it all."
As Azzanni finished up his assessment of Williams, Jones interrupted.
"He brought his pet lizard to my house for Sunday's breakfast," the coach shared. "I was scared to death the lizard was going to get out."
Said Azzanni: "It's still in Coach's house, I believe. Somewhere."
The recruiting class took Tennessee's staff across the country - from Arizona to South Florida - in January, but offensive coordinator Mike DeBord drew the appealing trip to New York City to see Jarrett Guarantano.
Part of that visit included a visit to Times Square, where the touted quarterback committed to Tennessee last April.
"(Guarantano's) dad is an undercover New York City police officer," Jones said. "I guess he wanted to show him his driving, and they actually got in an accident in New York City.
"That's another interesting recruiting story."
Each class includes a few of them.
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.