Grant Hurst saw he had gained a new Twitter follower but didn’t think much of it.
He initially thought the new follower, University of Tennessee men’s basketball assistant coach Rod Clark, was a UT women’s basketball assistant attempting to recruit his sister, Cleveland High School forward Lauren Hurst, who is one of the state’s top college prospects in basketball and volleyball going into her junior year.
But then the social media activity was followed by a phone call from Clark, who had seen footage of the 6-foot-2 former Cleveland and UT Martin guard, to offer him an opportunity to join the Volunteers as a preferred walk-on.
Clark had done his homework, contacting not only high school and AAU coaches but high school teachers. The message was always the same: Good kid. Good leader. Always looking out for others.
And for Grant, the opportunity was obviously going to be too good to pass up.