A few years ago, a young man named Decoldest Crawford became a favorite of college football fans when he started to emerge on the recruiting circuit because of his objectively incredible name.
The wide receiver out of Shreveport, Louisiana is now a member of Scott Frost’s Nebraska Cornhuskers squad, signing earlier this year as a 3-star, and is entering his freshman season with the team. In the new and exciting world of Name, Image, and Likeness deals in college athletics, Decoldest’s name provided him a unique lane to find some sponsorship deals in the Nebraska area. The best of those is with SOS Heating and Cooling in Omaha, where Decoldest is now telling Huskers fans where they can find the coldest HVAC company in Nebraska.
Some things are just meant to be, and a man named Decoldest doing local TV and print ads for an air conditioning company is written in the stars. For starters, good for Decoldest for capitalizing on the ability to ink an NIL deal, but also good on SOS for recognizing an opportunity to get their name out there and make a buzz with one of the best NIL deals we’ve seen so far in the first year-plus of college athletes finding endorsement deals.
I also am excited for what could be a new golden age of low-budget local television commercials, now featuring college athletes. I’m particularly a fan of Decoldest’s red t-shirt that just has the number 1 on it, because it’s way too much for actual Nebraska licensing, but you get the idea here. As someone who grew up in Wolfman and Donna country, I’m thrilled that we might get back to our roots of semi-awkward commercials that end with “and tell them [insert college athlete] sent you.”
