Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

This has been referenced by several of you, so here’s my take. Cowley College coach Steve Eck has loaded up on the City League. He’s got East’s Garrius Holloman and Jawanza Poland, Heights’ Kelton Marshall, Southeast’s Cortez Barnes and Adonis Gantt and former City Leaguers in Mike Atwater and Jack Crowder, Southeast grads.

Eck said he’s doing things a little differently this season, going heavy on in-state talent and filling in the holes with out-of-state recruits.

I mentioned to Bob Lutz that it will be tough to spread the ball around with such a group of prolific scorers and players. He said that’s never been a problem with a Steve Eck-coached team. Good point. If there’s anyone who can somehow mesh a City League All-Star team, it’s Eck (not that I’ve seen him coach. He out of the CL when I started).

As for Gantt signing with Cowley. Southeast coach Carl Taylor said his ACT test scores haven’t come back. In a previous conversation, Taylor had said that there was still time for Gantt to qualify. Taylor also noted that Georgia Southern, the Division I school where Gantt signed, lost assistant coach Elwyn McRoy, who recruited Gantt. McRoy is now at Arkansas State.

by joanna

I talked to Gary Loop this morning,  he’s the father of Circle volleyball player Meryl Loop, a three-time All-Metro player. He said that Meryl is signing with Akron on Thursday.

Well, Meryl had originally signed with Baylor, but Gary said that the school didn’t come through on the scholarship it offered her, so last month she found out she was out of luck. This scholarship to Akron is actually available, though.

I’m not sure what’s going on in recruiting, but I know the system is messed up when kids are promised scholarships, they commit, they tell every other coach that they’ve committed, then that school backs out. I saw it happen to Carroll football player Brayden Burris, who committed to Kansas State in the fall of his junior season, only to see himself relegated to a grayshirt, where he’d have to pay his way for a period of time.

It’s a crazy way to do business and frustrating for parents and athletes.

by joanna

Chris Harper played in the Oregon spring game last weekend and did pretty well. He was 14 of 67 rushing and 2 of 9 passing for 73 yards. He’s one of six quarterbacks that played.

I talked to him this morning — um, sorry Chris for calling at 8:15 a.m. your time! — and he’s enjoying his time in Oregon.

The biggest adjustment has been learning all the new plays, “but other than that, the speed is not too much different than I thought.”

He said he’s third on the depth chart right now, kind of. “They’re talking about me pushing for second. I’m third because I don’t really know the playbook. I have a while to learn all that stuff.”

Harper will be back May 19 for Northwest’s graduation. He said he did his course work ahead of time to finish out the semester. Oregon is on trimesters, so after moving out there in late March, he started up with a class schedule of writing, sociology, music and a billiards class. After laughing about playing pool for credit, I asked him if he was very good. Not so much, he said.

He’s handling the transition to being so far away from home, too.

“It’s really not too bad. I don’t think about it too much…. I was ready. And I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

Callie Kemmer, the two-time state girls golf champion in Class 4-3-2-1A from Wichita Independent, has been accepted at Yale University and will be a member of the Bulldog golf team.

Kemmer won two memorable duels with Andover’s Katy Nugent. She won the 2007 state title with a 75 at Hutchinson’s Cottonwood Hills, and won with a 73 in 2006 at Topeka’s Western Hills.

Kemmer also finished second in 2005 and fourth in 2004 as a freshman.

Maybe I’m the only one.

I woke up this morning expecting to see the results from the Bishop Carroll - Northwest game or as I called it game 1 of the best high school baseball week ever, 2008 edition. Yet, there was nothing.

Were the lenses in my D&G frames deceiving me?

Did I go to sleep and rain storm hit only Westurban?

Did our correspondent say forget it and not cover it? Then that trigger the home school to be upset and decide not to call in the game?

So then I find out that they only played three innings because of a copper wiring heist so there were no lights. The game will be continued tomorrow, Wednesday, before NW and Carroll play their second game of the two game series set.

Copper wiring being stolen is funny within itself. I mean I’ve heard of a lot of things being stolen, but copper wiring. Is that what’s hot in the streets?

But I digress. So we shall make today the official first day of the best high school baseball week ever, 2008 edition with North and BC today at McAdams starting at 4:30 p.m.

Unless they’ve been hit up for their copper wiring too.

Joanna: Coming from Tennessee, Jonathan has all kinds of different viewpoints on issues we take for granted. One such topic that I was especially intrigued by was his take on how boys soccer should be in the spring instead of the fall. As it is, soccer goes up against football in Kansas, which could mean that both sports are losing possible athletes.
It’s definitely an issue I haven’t considered, I guess because I look at football and soccer as completely separate, that athletes decided long ago that it was one or the other. That football players are not soccer players and vice versa.

J. Long: I can understand how Mrs. Chadwick has just accepted this type of thinking, but seriously.  I pretty sure that a lot of the smaller schools don’t have soccer teams because they barely can scrape together enough kids for football.
Soccer is extremely physical and therefore right up the alley for football players. Maybe I’m wrong, I doubt it, but if you asked some of the football players they’d probably say they’d play soccer if it was in the spring. However, then again maybe I’m underestimating how big baseball is here. But surely it’s not on the Friday night light’s level.

Joanna: I don’t even know if it’s because of baseball. Maybe it was because what else is in the fall besides football? Tennis and golf are both in the spring, so is baseball. So there’s cross country and football in the fall, and that’s it. I guess it makes sense to have it then. In the spring, you’ve got baseball, track, golf, tennis. That’s a lot of sports that could have lost athletes when soccer was first added back in the 1980s.
I do know some track coaches who probably wouldn’t mind having girls soccer in the fall. One less sport to take away its athletes.
On another note, I have heard a lot of football types rip soccer. I personally have never understood this, but soccer just can’t seem to be considered one of the major sports in college or professionally by a majority of people in this country. You make a good point, though, that soccer players and football players have toughness in common. Is there any athlete tougher than a soccer player, who’s only wearing shin guards?

J. Long: Well see in Tennessee golf is played in the fall along with cross country and football. Soccer is too technical of a sport. Soccer won’t really catch on because it lacks the “it” factor that football, basketball, and hockey have. Look at boxing. People always love a good fight, yet boxing hasn’t crossed over to this generation. Some say it’s because of the lack of heavyweight fighters, but I think it’s because people want to see movie fights. They grew up watching Rocky and Apollo or Mr. T or the Russian guy go hard on each other for 15 rounds. That’s what they want to see. Not the sweet science that boxing in its purest essence really is. I didn’t grow up playing soccer so I don’t marvel at beautiful crossing passes or side sweeps. I like straight to the point action. I’ll skip the regulation portion, just give me a shootout.

Joanna: So you like the shootout so can see someone like Brandi Chastain rip her shirt off?

J. Long: It’s been a month and you talk like you’ve known me forever.

by joanna

Chatted with East basketball coach Ron Allen and he said three of his players have committed.

Jawanza Poland is going to Cowley, Eric Hardyway to Coffeyville and Garrius Holloman to Cowley.

Holloman had a shot at going to Florida Atlantic, but when coach Rex Walters left for San Francisco, Holloman decided that he didn’t want to go through the whole recruiting process again with yet another coach. He looked at Utah State, but decided it was too far from home.

SMU was an option, but Allen said Holloman decided that instead of doing all this real quick and rushing through the process, he’d take a year at Cowley, improve his game and then decide.

“He’ll be in good hands,” Allen said of Cowley coach Steve Eck. “And I can  go watch him.”

by joanna

All righty, here’s my question of the day. What I want to know is who are the best athletes — from the school you graduated from in high school and in college.

I don’t care if you are from Podunk, Iowa, tell me who the best athlete you saw or is from there. And your college — no matter how many different ones you went to — name a top athlete.

I’ll get it started.

I graduated from Lourdes High in Rochester, Minn., and the best athlete I saw actually graduated shortly before I got there — Laurie Decker. She was a stud basketball player and was the first girl that I had seen who could hold her own with the guys.  When I was at Missouri, I watched Brock Olivo, a running back. He wasn’t the most amazing football player ever, but he was tough and fun to watch.

So now fill me in on yours.

It’s a big week in City League baseball. It’s a three team race for the 2008 City League title between North, Northwest, and Bishop Carroll.

The week was already going to be big, but we can thank Kapaun Mount Carmel for making it gigantic by defeating Northwest on Friday. So now we’ve got North with one CL loss in first place and BC and NW tied for second with a CL loss. I just love league races that come down to the final week, week-and-a-half.

Seriously, how can you not be excited about this schedule.

Today

NW vs. BC at Westurban 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, April 29

North vs. BC at McAdams 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 30

NW vs. BC at Westurban 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, May6

NW vs. North at McAdams 4:30 p.m.

This is how it is supposed to be. The final games are suppose to mean something.

I was at BC and Heights on Friday and despite playing sloppy BC had an aire about them. They had a quite confidence that they knew they couldn’t afford to lose the game so they weren’t going to lose the game. The Golden Eagles are on a roll and if they can pick up a win tonight they’ll be flying higher than astronauts.

Northwest is in a bit of a slump. First coach Travis Stockham had to deal with certain comments about the one thing NO high school coach feels comfortable talking about - recruiting. Then the fire that destroyed several items at the school’s baseball field. Add the losses to North and KMC and it’s been a pretty restless week for Stockham I’m pretty sure.

North well they are in the driver’s seat. Target on its back like Omar, from HBO’s the Wire. The Redskins can run the table by simply winning all of their games, but if they have a slip-up here or there then they’ll be cheering for a both Northwest and BC, like those people that have the split KU-KState license plates on the front of their cars.

As I’ve typed this I just now thought about the possibility of a spoiler, but honestly outside of Heights or KMC I don’t see another team really posing a problem. No disrespect, but seriously.

So here we go. The title is up for grabs now lets see who wants it more.

Who you got?

by joanna

This is not about Independent softball. HA! But you looked, didn’t you? I figured with all those people commenting on Independent, why not put it in a header. It’s a shameless way for me to make the top 10 in blog items for the day. But hey, you all can’t seem to get enough of that program….

Well, Bishop Carroll has now won seven straight games after beating Heights on Friday night and the Eagles will play Northwest tonight. We’ll have a writer there, and it should be interesting. Especially since Kapaun beat Northwest on Friday. Craziness.

Also interesting is that Carroll plays North on Tuesday and then Northwest on Wednesday, again. Yep, a makeup date makes this tough week even more hellish for Carroll. Should be interesting to see how the Eagles handle it.

Speaking of Carroll, the biggest softball game in the City League is  Thursday with Carroll playing Northwest. I’ll be there (please, no rain, please, no rain). Tennis regionals are on Saturday, and then Goddard and North baseball play on Friday. Now that should be a good game. Kapaun soccer plays at Heights on Friday, as well. That’s a good matchup in the City League.

I was interested by a couple comments about Logan Watkins, the Goddard QB, on the best athlete you’ve seen. I certainly am a fan of Watkins — he’s very skilled and athletic and he’s one of those kids who’s a winner. And everyone has their opinion on the best athletes, so go easy on an opinion. (Oh My Goddard, I sounded like a mom there!) Also, Goddard has a solid contingent of posters on this blog, so I’m not surprised that a Lion athlete was mentioned.

As for any Independent folks out there irked with the tone of posts, my suggestion? Quit posting in defense. Seriously, people move on and go to other topics, but when you keep writing about it, they keep responding. Just a suggestion. Don’t believe me? Check out the whole Northwest recruits thing — haven’t heard about it in about a week.