The Recruit Postcard

Norman Rockwell, The Recruit Look Magazine September 20, 1966. In 1966, Look sports editor Gerald Astor reported on the competition among colleges to recruit student athletes. The specter of recruiting talented high school athletes who might not meet or maintain academic standards emerged in the mid 1960s, and the temptation by colleges to lure talent through extravagant inducements was already rumored. To illustrate Astor's piece, Rockwell chose a football coach, trainer, and student from nearby Williams College to pose for his painting. He based the football player on Michelangelo's sculpture of Giuliano de'Medici, showing his model a photo of the sculpture to help him assume the pose.