Monmouth fan

What’s that saying? Kids do the darndest things? That happened again this week.

11-year-old Erica Schaeffer is a big Monmouth fan. Her favorite player is senior Justin Robinson, who leads the MAAC with 19.7 PPG, and she really wants him to be drafted into the NBA.

Erica and her family have season tickets to Monmouth men’s basketball and her dad, Eric, recently told her some sad news – it’s more likely Robinson plays overseas as a professional than in the United States in the NBA.

After Eric told Erica that, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“My dad was telling me that Justin may go overseas,’’ she said, “so that made me think that I would try to help Justin stay here because I want to see him play again. And just meeting him and how he’s so nice, I wanted to see him play here and become an NBA player.

“I just wanted to tell the teams how nice he is as a person and how good he is as a player and how he can change their team.’’

And she did by writing a letter to all 30 NBA teams to tell them how much Robinson means to her and how good of a player he is.

What makes the story even better is Erica heard back from multiple teams! The Hawks and Rockets emailed her back, while Pistons General Manager Jeff Bower wrote her back a handwritten note.

Monmouth note

Maybe Erica’s letter will end up working and maybe it won’t. But if it does, she won’t be the first young fan to successfully write to a team about a player and have that team acquire that player. This offseason, a San Francisco Giants fan wrote a letter to Giants’ GM Bobby Evans asking him to sign Mark Melancon. That young fan’s wish was ultimately granted.

[Asbury Park Press]

About David Lauterbach

David is a writer for The Comeback. He enjoyed two Men's Basketball Final Four trips for Syracuse before graduating in 2016. If The Office or Game of Thrones is on TV, David will be watching.