P.J. Hairston is a pretty easy name to spell and remember. It’s two initials and a simple last name — P.J. Hairston. Pretty easy, right? You would think so, but apparently that was not the case for Duke.
Hairston is a 6’4″ guard from Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia who signed to play basketball for North Carolina. He says he was considering Florida, Georgetown, Wake Forest, and Duke in addition to Carolina, but he ultimately decided he wanted to stay close to home. So how did he choose between Carolina and Duke? A recurring error by the Blue Devils certainly helped sway his decision.
“The thing about Duke was, every time they sent me a letter, they wouldn’t spell my name right,” Hairston told the Greensboro News & Record. “They would have ‘T.J. Harrison’ or something like that. And I’m like, ‘OK. How can I go here? You can’t even spell my name right.’ It’s only two letters and HAIR and STON. I’m trying to figure out how that’s so hard.”
Yeesh, that’s a pretty bad mistake. I understand that Duke probably is following hundreds of recruits and sending out a thousand letters, but you have to pay closer attention to details. If there’s any school that can afford to make a mistake in recruiting, it may be Duke which can practically pick the players they want, but that’s still pretty embarrassing. The good news is Hairston at least took matters into his own hands compared to Kendrys Morales who waited five years before correcting people.
Chest bump to Eye on College Basketball
