FGCU's Pruett hopes to star not just off, but on field
His coach has joked that the team would have "Brian Pruett Nights," raffling off a dinner with Pruett or offering pictures with the hunky baseball player for a little cash to the program.
Teammates have teased him about his massive online following of teenage girls, or gasp, feared that he might cut into some of their, ahem, playing time.
At times, because of his combination of good looks and avowed religious faith, the FGCU junior middle infielder and sometimes model has heard the inevitable: "The Tim Tebow of baseball."
"It comes with it, I guess," Pruett said with a laugh of his high-profile public persona, most notably through a Twitter account that has approached a staggering 90,000 followers.
That's more than almost any entity based primarily in Southwest Florida, including area businesses Hertz and Chico's, Gov. Rick Scott of Naples, former South Fort Myers High School football star Sammy Watkins and Billboard top-100 singer Casey Weston of Naples.
"It's not who I am. I could delete it today and be the same person," Pruett said. "It's just something I've got to deal with and use it to my advantage, really. That's what I'm trying to do."
REAL TALENT
Pruett, a Sarasota-Riverview High School graduate who transferred to FGCU last summer after two seasons at Coastal Carolina, has amassed his vast following through a combination of faith, baseball and good looks, starting with shirtless modeling photos widely circulated online.
His Twitter audience, which social media experts said consists of real users and not short-lived shell accounts that can be purchased to try to boost numbers, dwarfs anything else on FGCU's campus, from the main school account to the FGCU athletics account.
That includes even the Dunk City basketball team's Twitter account — which has some 9,000 followers, one of the 50 most-followed college basketball accounts in the country — and all of its current and former players combined.
"We call him '90,000 Strong.' We call him 'Hashtag,'" said teammate and Barron Collier High School graduate Zack Tillery, who has hit 95 mph on the radar gun … and has all of 231 followers.
"We're all kind of on the same page about it. 'Hey Brian, let us get a couple of those followers.' He puts your name in a tweet, you automatically get two or three followers right there. It's all in good fun."
Pruett — who is dating FGCU volleyball player Gigi Meyer, the daughter of Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer — is endlessly tabbed a "Man Crush Monday" by Twitter users, and he's even the face of several unseemly "teenage girl- (and) hormone-driven" Twitter accounts, one website wrote.
"It's pretty funny. We all give him crap about it," Tillery said.
FGCU coach Dave Tollett — whose two teenage cousins turned into giggly, giddy messes while getting their pictures taken next to Pruett's locker and with his jersey on a recent visit from Alabama — recognizes Pruett's appeal is not for being an all-American ballplayer.
"I think people are following him because he's an all-American kid," Tollett said.
Still, the FGCU coach said the 6-foot, 175-pound shortstop, who is an ineligible redshirt this year because of his transfer, will be a real asset next season, contributing speed, defense and some batting pop.
"I think he's going to be a good player for us," said Tollett, whose team took a 24-14 record into this weekend's three-game home series with North Florida. "I wish we had him this year."
REAL VALUE
Pruett, who is majoring in communications and minoring in business, said baseball is his passion and professional baseball a real goal.
But his modeling background and business interests also provide real avenues once he's free of NCAA prohibitions on college athletes doing promotional work, he said.
"Right now (I'm) just focused on getting better, being with the team, working out, all that stuff," Pruett said. "If I have the athletic ability, I want to make sure I get the most out of that. Same with image."
Rick Thomas, a social media consultant in Fort Myers, said Pruett's online following, which also includes some 79,000 followers on photo-driven social media site Instagram and another 5,300 followers on Facebook, provides significant promotional value.
Potential beneficiaries include FGCU, if Pruett so chooses.
"To market FGCU, FGCU sports or anything else he wanted, he can reach people all day long, if his content is good and it engages them," Thomas said. "There are people who have been in social media for a decade who don't even come close to (90,000 followers). That's a really significant number."
Ben Bajarin, a technology industry and market research analyst in Silicon Valley, said Twitter users trying to boost visibility can reach 25,000-30,000 followers by purchasing giant packages of empty accounts. But such gains are quickly ferreted out and deleted.
Those who reach about 50,000 followers tend to have real, sustainable influence, Bajarin said.
"It's not like Justin Bieber, who's got (51 million)," he said. "But having a captive audience is certainly valuable. It comes down to what you want to use it for."
REAL WORK
In building his fan base, Pruett said reaching 10,000 Twitter followers was the biggest challenge.
A blog he wrote in September 2012 for the site "What God is Doing" boosted his profile and connection with other Christian-themed web sites, as did online interactions with other Christian athletes.
"I never thought I'd get to 10,000," he said. "When you get to a certain number, say, (10,000), getting to (20,000) is kind of easy. It's easier."
On his Twitter account, Pruett mixes Bible verses, inspirational quotes, chatter with fellow athletes and even proclamations of his love for Meyer, no stranger herself to a public life with nearly 10,000 Twitter followers and as the daughter of a highly scrutinized football coach.
"She's great. She knows that kind of comes with it," said Pruett, who said their public images weren't part of the couple's initial spark. "We didn't talk about it much. I had a class with her. I knew she was an athlete. I asked to read her book. I wanted to get to know her. 'So let's be friends.'"
Tollett said he worries sometimes about detractors trying to use Pruett's visibility against him. But representing his school well is a principal concern, Pruett said.
"I like to give positive messages out there, to have that amount of people that I can influence," he said. "I'm not a big guy just to mess around with it and throw jokes out. I take it seriously."
Through his own connections and those of Meyer and her family, Pruett has met LeBron James and introduced his girlfriend to quarterback Johnny Manziel, also at Miami Heat game.
Of Urban Meyer, Pruett said the football coach never played the role of over-protective father.
"That was kind of implied, I guess," he said.
Of Tebow — once coached by Meyer at Florida and still a close friend to the family — Pruett said he has great respect but no aspirations to follow in his footsteps, comparisons to the high-profile Christian athlete notwithstanding.
"I'm not trying to be Tim Tebow," he said. "I think he's a great person. But we're definitely not the same. I think it's all about knowing who I am personally. That's a big lesson to learn for everybody."
While not, perhaps, the most-visible person in old-fashioned face-to-face encounters at FGCU or in Southwest Florida, Pruett arguably is as much online.
Given the endless assault on our senses and demands on our time in the growing digital age, that appeal could mean a public and profitable journey for the player and perhaps his school.
"I understand these kids because of technology think they can get instant gratification in just about everything," said Tollett, who has sent exactly zero tweets from the Twitter account he felt compelled to get given the modern world.
"It just doesn't work that way on the field," he said. "You've still got to put in the hours, and put them in the right way."
Follow Seth Soffian on Twitter @NewsPressSeth.
Twitter fabulous
Algernod Lanier Washington, a 37-year-old Fort Myers native and rapper better known by his stage name Plies, operates in bona fide celebrity territory on Twitter with 533,000 followers. But discounting transient or short-term area entities Deion Sanders and the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins, FGCU baseball player Brian Pruett otherwise is believed to have the second-most-followed Twitter account of all those based primarily in Southwest Florida.
A look at the biggest:
ENTERTAINMENT
• Plies (rapper): 533,000
• Vonzell "Baby V" Solomon ("American Idol"): 54,600
• Casey Weston ("The Voice"): 21,700
POLITICS
• Rick Scott: 46,100
BUSINESS/TOURISM/EDUCATION
• Hertz: 30,200
• The News-Press: 11,000
• Chico's: 6,584
• FGCU: 3,605
• Pink Shell Resort: 2,461
• Norman Love: 2,055
• Edison Ford Estates: 1,627
SPORTS
• Sammy Watkins (NFL prospect): 71,000
• Bert Blyleven (Baseball Hall of Fame): 28,400
• Earnest Graham (former NFL): 16,200
• Florida Everblades: 5,089
• George McNeill (PGA Tour winner): N/A
FGCU ATHLETICS
• Brian Pruett (baseball): 85,500
• Sam Boggs (soccer signee): 37,500
• Gigi Meyer (volleyball): 9,849
• FGCU men's basketball: 9,092
• FGCU Eagles: 7,792
• Brett Comer (basketball): 7,061
• Chase Fieler (basketball): 4,578
• Tessa Berger (soccer): 4,110
• Sherwood Brown (basketball): 3,749
• FGCU baseball: 2,613
• Chris Sale: N/A