Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

The most frequently asked question via e-mail and phone the past two weeks? When is all-state softball coming out?

It’s coming. I talked with Olathe East coach Jeff Hulse and all but Class 4A has reported. Some coaches have released the lists already, but he wants to wait until he gets 4A to send it to the media. Feel free to post your class if you have it, but we won’t run it in the paper until we get all the classes.

But take heart, we will run it, we do care about softball, we’ll get it.

by joanna

I wrote about Mulvane’s Huldon Tharp and his injury in today’s paper. I talked to him last night — after a nice conversation with his very cute-sounding little sister.

I was impressed with his take on the injury. While admitting that he struggled with the initial news that he won’t play his senior season — he said that on one level it’s still tough to take — he is dealing with it.

I also was impressed as he talked about his future — the kid is a good interview. Coaches have assured him that the offers still stand and he’s intent on taking his visits. Where, he doesn’t know just yet (I told him I’d be keeping up with him on that).

He’s in a really tough situation. He’s obviously a person who feels strongly about his team and their relationship and their hopes and dreams. Will Mulvane accomplish them this season? Maybe the Wildcats still will, but it will be a lot tougher without one of the area’s best players. Tharp also loses out on the individual honors that were likely to come his way. But he’s got a good grip on reality and he’s pushing through with his rehab, already ahead of schedule.

As for college, any recruiter that wasn’t paying attention to him last year was blind. Even I was predicting a D-I future for him, something I’ll only do for the most obvious ones.

by joanna

My weekly installment of summer softball: The Jags and the Twisted Sisters.

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By: J. Long
(Figured I’d put my name in bold so it won’t be confused as one of Joanna’s posts)

This will surely be something interesting to watch. Brandon Jennings, an Arizona basketball signee, Compton, CA native said that he is looking into the option of going overseas to play professionally if he can’t get into school. If he does, he would be the first high-level player to bypass college for the European market. Jennings is the top point guard prospect in this year’s recruiting class and the Parade Magazine Player of the Year.

Jennings who had a B average his senior year at Virgina basketball powerhouse Oak Hill Academy is awaiting the results from his third SAT test. He told ESPN that he scored too low on his first test because he didn’t really try, but passed the second time around. However, he was red-flagged because of the jump in test scores.

The second set of “re-do” test results should be back by July. Jennings has also indicated that he wants to go to Arizona first-and-foremost, but he’s just weighing his options.

This is intriguing to me because the responses to this are varied. There is no questioning the talent that the kid has. Plus he has swag and will be marketable. I don’t know too many people that can rock the old-school semi high-top box haircut that he has.

His body is the biggest question mark. At 6′2 he has the height, but his 170 pound frame won’t cut it in the league.

So why not go overseas to bulk up, improve his game, and in the process get this paper? Because if we’re going to be honest isn’t all of this about this paper?

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for college and definitely see the value in higher education, but one of the reasons you go to school is to find a career. If he already knows what he wants that career to be while not go straight into it? He’s already the number one pg prospect. What can he prove by dominating in the college game, that he hasn’t already proven? Its pretty much a given that he’s going to make himself eligible for the 2009 draft anyway.

I’m actually surprised that it’s taken this long for a high school player to think about this or at least publicly say he’s thinking about it. The NBA implemented the rule that players must be at least one year removed from high school in 2006. Since then countless players have been one and done including this year’s potential top pick B-Easy (Michael Beasley).

People don’t seem to have a problem with kids getting drafted out of high school in baseball, why in basketball is it such a problem ? I have no clue. But that’s a totally different issue.

So what do you think? Will this be a growing trend? Will this be the next free spirited choice that gets banned?

by joanna

Jonathan and I have been taking a weekly look at one class in football — he’s done 6A and 4A, I’ve done 5A. Now I’m into my second installment, which is, drumroll, please — 3A. I guess there was no suspense considering I had it in the title.

Anyway.

Garden Plain finally got its 3A title last year, rolling through the playoffs with wins of 54-7, 42-0 (Hesston), 55-7, 42-0, 48-7 (Silver Lake in the title game). Logan Dold was a stud, earning Top 11, All-Class 3A, All-Metro (again), All-league (again).

What happens this year?

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by joanna

It’s been nearly a week since Mulvane running back/linebacker Huldon Tharp had season-ending knee surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee. According to coach Dave Fennewald, the rehab already is going well and Tharp will be fully recovered for next season.

I’m curious to see what colleges will do_ He’s been offered scholarships from Stanford, Kansas, Miami, Iowa State, Colorado, Boise State, Colorado State, Texas Christian and Illinois. Will they back off their offers? If they did, it would be pretty silly, if you ask me. So many athletes come back from ACL injuries, and Tharp is obviously in excellent shape, he’s young and there’s no way to overlook the skill he possesses.

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by joanna

A few of us were talking over the weekend about athletes and what we call them. This conversation stemmed from a co-worker calling former WNBA Cynthia Cooper just “Cooper.” I laughed at him ( he admitted that he couldn’t remember her first name. I backed off).

But can you name me a female athlete who we call by their last name?

OK, I’ll give you Wecker (Kendra Wecker) and Koehn (Laurie Koehn) and Ohlde (Nicole Ohlde). They’re Kansans who were excellent college basketball players who went onto the WNBA.

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by joanna

I was surfing the net — while I’m supposed to be editing copy tonight — and found this story and this column on the Georgia baseball players who allegedly conspired to have a pitch hit an umpire in the face.

I was blown away reading this story because it’s so unbelievable. I mean, is this really what this world is coming to? It’s bad enough that parents are attacking coaches and umps and referees — physically as well as verbally — but now the kids obviously think it’s OK to do this? I truly makes me sick to my stomach.

We all get angry. It’s a part of life. But when does the breakdown occur when you pass from — I’m pissed and I’m yelling, maybe even throwing something — to trying to hurt someone? It boggles my mind.

by joanna

Matt Byers finished second in the javelin at the USA Junior Track and Field Championships today in Columbus, Ohio, throwing 218-2. He had the lead until Arkansas’ Luke Laird threw 219-8. Byers and Laird qualified for the World Junior championships in Poland.

I talked to Byers tonight and we talked a bit about state. That’s when he broke the 6A javelin record with a throw of 219-8, only to see Shawnee Mission South sophomore Johannes Swanepoel go 221-2. Byers said he sat there tonight and told an official that he did not want to see that happen again. But it did.

“I was just sitting there, kind of praying, and I told one of the officials, ‘I hope he doesn’t beat me. I’m not about to let this happen again.’ I was happy, though. I was the youngest one there, I’m pretty sure. The rest, pretty much, were college kids.”

Byers’ showing was especially gratifying because he’d strained ligaments around his ribs at state and didn’t throw hard until Sunday at WSU.

“I threw maybe two hard ones and I threw 200 both times. I told my dad that I’d be good to go. Then yesterday I threw one hard one and went 213, so I told him I’d be ready.”

Byers won’t be going to Poland, though. Since he didn’t even know until this week that he’d be going to Ohio, he didn’t get a passport, which he needed by today.  He wants to compete in the Junior Olympics next month in Nebraska.

by joanna

Garden Plain’s Markus Hilger won the Kansas Golf Association Junior Amateur title on Thursday at Manhattan’s Stagg Hill Golf Club. Hilger won on the second hole of the playoff with a birdie to beat Paola’s Brad Pfaltzgraff. Hilger now has an exemption for the Kansas Amateur, which is in July at the Wichita Country Club.

Katy Nugent, a recent Andover grad, won Wichita’s women’s city championship, also on Thursday. She beat Alex Beury 1-up. She’s going to play golf at Arkansas.