A MASTER RECRUITER COMES TO CANADA
Brandon Collier’s tireless search for undiscovered football talent, which has taken him to Senegal, Gambia, Australia and 25 European countries, is apparently coming to Canada as early as this year.
He said his company, Premier Prospects International (PPI) Recruits, plans to stage skills camps in Vancouver, Winnipeg and other CFL cities, hoping to attract athletes with the potential and desire to play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the U.S.
Collier, a former defensive lineman, launched the recruiting company eight years ago after a knee injury ended his playing career. He starred at the University of Massachusetts, got a cup of coffee with the Philadelphia Eagles, played 10 games in 2012 with the Blue Bombers, and finished up with stops in Austria and Germany.
With time on his hands and a wealth of knowledge gleaned from playing professionally on two continents, he jumped into recruitment and said his company has helped 110 players land NCAA scholarships. In addition to hosting talent identification camps, PPI Recruits takes elite prospects on tours of Division 1 schools each summer. This year, 200 kids from 21 countries paid PPI Recruits to visit with NCAA programs.
“We are strictly about giving kids an opportunity, wherever you may be,” Collier said in early January. “We’re going to try to do something in Canada this year as well, do some camps, try to find some guys who are getting slept on, overlooked, because there are a lot of them out there. They just need somebody they can trust to put their name on the line for them.”
In just eight years at the helm of PPI Recruits, Collier has built a sterling reputation for finding world-class athletes and delivering on his promises to get them jobs. The company celebrated on national signing day in December as 13 of their players — nine from Germany and one each from Senegal, the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.S. — committed to NCAA schools.
Their international player pipeline should get a boost from the recent launch of a non-profit organization, PPI Dreamchasers Foundation. Collier said donations to the organization will fund recruitment and scouting trips to Africa, which has become the main focus of his efforts.
“That’s where I hope the foundation helps out, that we get the funding to travel the world and go to some of these villages and find some of these top athletes to grow the game of football. I’m excited about the level of talent that’s out there. If we get the right people to donate, the game of football will never be the same.”