Honor Huff recently recalled Dan Earl sending him a handwritten letter, mapping out everything that the latter believed the now-University of Tennessee at Chattanooga guard was going to achieve under Earl’s system in college.
“Everything he said in his mind and his vision, that’s what you always want as a player,” Huff said. “You want that confidence from your coach.”
Did Earl truly believe that Huff was going to be an All-Southern Conference player and All-SoCon freshman team member? Probably not, and Earl jokingly admitted as much.
“It’s all part of recruiting, obviously,” Earl said.
But Huff did, and made the decision to join Earl and then-rising sophomore guard Trey Bonham at Virginia Military Institute. It helped sweeten the pot that for both Huff and Bonham, VMI was their only Division I offer, but it seems that the pair would have bought into Earl had he been coaching Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA, or at a local gym.