Who needs more hype?
July 21, 2008 @ 3:51 p.m. by Joannaby joanna
I’m sure we’ll hear from someone that no athlete needs hype — probably the reader who said that athletes and coaches shouldn’t talk after games. But coach made a good point on another post, saying
“joanna i do not think that it is your job to get kids exposure.i just think that it would be nice to hear about some other kids too,like a kid named dorian at heights who is a good prospect and i believe a 4 year starter.there is also rico huggins at east another D1 talent and 4 year starter.jeff page at andover central who is a college prospect and is ranked 4th in the nation in mens boxing in the heavyweight division at 17 years old.riley spencer of hesston who is definately a D1 talent.i understand that people are interested in the browns as am i.they are great boys and awesome football players and definately the best defensive and offensive players to ever come out of wichita,yes i do think bry! ce is better than barry sanders but only time will tell for sure.”
I love that coach actually responded to the question of — OK, you don’t like who we’re writing about, who do you want to hear about? And the names are good. I’ve got a Dorrian Roberts (Heights d-back) feature planned for early in the season. He and I have already talked. Good kid, extremely athletic. We did a Jeff Page “Getting to Know” last year, but he’s a good idea, too. I like the Rico Huggins and Riley Spencer ideas, as well.
So who else is out there? I’ve written about Demarcus Robinson, Colby Duranleau and Ian Knight on the blog, Bryce Brown, Jaydan Bird and Blake Bell have been hyped here as well (using readers’ word, not mine). I know we’ve got more studs in the area, so let me know who I’m missing.
July 21st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Mulvane Cross Country, 6 All-State runners that will all return.
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July 21st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Lets hear about Garrett Gould who just got back from the team USA tryouts where he was one of the top 34 players in the nation 18-U in the tryouts.
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July 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Marcus Woodside-Heit from Derby has been talking to kstate for a while. thats really all i know about that situation.
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July 21st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
In my opinion one of the best players you dont hear much about is Joe Brown from BC. If hes used to his fullest he is clearly a dominate player in the city league. I think he was underused in 2007 which may be part of the reason.
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July 21st, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Fballfn is right, Joe Brown is awesome.
One senior that was top 11 in the eagle last year that doesn’t get a ton of publicity is Forrest Stucky. I know that some folks don’t see him as D-1 due to him being 6′1″ 223 defensive lineman, but he was one of the most dominating players in high school football last season and will be again this year.
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July 21st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I’m with TFL and Fballfn
Joe Brown is very good. I thought he may have been underused a bit, but then again maybe he was used just right. Carroll didn’t exactly stink.
But, TFL, anybody who follows prep football in the state knows about Forrest Stucky. As you said, he was Top 11 in the Eagle (was he in the Cap-Journal?).
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July 21st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I was thinking Bryce Brown. I haven’t seen anything about him today.
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July 21st, 2008 at 9:02 pm
You know what I love about the readers of this blog? You always come through. Excellent conversation, excellent ideas.
And I’m blown away by the number of you that come in on the weekend or late night. You keep me busy! I love it.
OK, that was cheesy.
One thing I find interesting about the hype ideas is that you all seem to come up with the kids from your school or the ones you care most about. I have no problem with that; it was just a point. Or a comment. Or something.
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July 21st, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Just kidding about Bryce, but would i would also like to see something about joe brown or justin puthoff from goddard.
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July 21st, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Isn’t Joe on crutches?
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July 21st, 2008 at 11:13 pm
joanna it is so nice to see that u really do listen and respond when a reader has an idea.i will continue to read all your articles.thanks for listening.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 5:15 am
Rico Huggins,Garret Kraft,Jeff Poe,Bret Soft are all on rated on Rivals and Scout.com as well as ESPN sites and I have seen articles about all but soft on out of states feature sites, which means Schools such as Colorado,Missouri, Oklahoma State,Tulsa,East Carolina and Princeton.These kids are not the big names you hear about daily but them and the others mention above have good chances at D-1 or Mid-Major type schools but if they can’t get a mention in the local news schools figure they might not be that good. Bottom line exposure and if National media gives them ink you would think the local paper would do the same.Maybe you ask the coaches who is getting college attention or “HYPE”.Coaches know who is getting attention and also know who the players are and the ones on other teams too.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 7:54 am
what about the kids at west high or north high , who dont transfer and play for these schools that are not going to win many games.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 am
Dylan Knox from Kapaun should have a good year.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:10 am
Sokko,
Who is West High??? Are you talkin about somebody in the KC area?
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:41 am
im sure Joanna knows the players to watch at west and north,
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July 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 am
The water boy and cheerleaders?
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July 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 am
Brian Webb from West has showed up on a Recruiting webb site but no highlight or story .As for North and South I have not saw or heard about any of these kids recruiting wise.I’m sure there are kids that will have great seasons,I am just looking at some that have excelled in National spotlight as being recruited and showing good in nation wide combines ,camps and other events this summer.The plyers I have noticed are Seniors.Anyone can get on Rivals.com or Scout.com ,even ESPN and go to College Recruiting and see the players out of Kansas that are being noticed nationally.
If you go to Camp or Combine the recruiting Reporters don’t know what schools in Kansas are bad or good they just see who preforms well .I realize alot of kids can’t travel to these but we had several of the best in Rose Hill at a Nike workout Brian Butler held.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 am
Senior to be Kory Shroth from Goddard/Wichita Wolverines is one of the best middle infielders in the state. He & Logan Watkins teamed up for so many double plays last I lost count. He is a solid hitter also, just this last Sunday I saw him hit one over the 375 wall and onto 21st street at WSU.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 10:26 am
I also saw Kory’s shot. Too bad there wasn’t someone on. That was a blast. Should have been there Joanna, more talent than you could shake a stick at in that game.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
Gould also made the Area Code team and will be playing in the Under Armour All-America game.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Joanna, you better hop on that one. That doesn’t happen very often with a Kansas player.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 am
Did Gould make the next cut? Thats the Olympic team,right?Alot of rumors going around about him not playing his senior season which I think would affect Bret Soft a little as well.You need a QB that can get you the ball to keep on the pace that Soft is going.
Kory is awesome,great kid and your right about him making the ball fly.He is going to be one of the better hitters around next season.Goddard still has several players back.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:45 am
One of the players to watch this year will be Derby’s Marcus Woodside-Heit. 6′3 1/4. 240. He has put on nearly 60 pounds since his freshman year. He has finally grown into his shoes. His agility and speed will be a few of his best assets. As KU and KSU have already witnessed. At the OL DL camp when he went up against Kevin Young who has already signed with KU, it was sad. Marcus is unstoppable..not to mention very intelligent and coachable, willing to go the Distance to please Coach Clark. I feel that his recognition will begin on opening nite of the HS season. While Engwall, Snodgrass, Dunham, Wilson, Nichols and others will be recognized for their talent……Woodside-Heit’s position will be the one opposing Offenses will run away from……only to be ran down from Marcus coming from the opposite direction……Watch’em Joanna
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Marcus Woodside-Heit from Derby
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July 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
The Under Armour game is at Wrigley Field and will be on TV.
Under Armour and Baseball Factory announced that the 2008 Under Armour All-America Baseball game will be played at the historic Wrigley Field on Sunday, August 17. Previously called the Cape Cod High School Baseball Classic presented by Under Armour, this marks the first-year that Under Armour will serve as the game’s title sponsor. This is the first-ever high school All-America game to be played at Wrigley Field. The game is airing live nationally on ESPNU at 1:20 p.m. EDT.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Also Junior Devin Hedgepeth from Derby, getting national attention from colleges, all-league cornerback as a sophomore last year. Very wuick and speedy. He should be fun to watch this year.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Kraft, Huggins, Poppe and Soft are listed on Rivals.com but that basically just means they submitted information.
Poppe is the only one with a rating (two stars).
That can change, but having your name on one of those sites does not mean you are being recruited. Also, oftentimes, the school’s listed under the player’s name are schools the player submitted as being interested in, not vice versa.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Hey guys, thanks for chiming in about Kory. I know him personally and he is a class act all around. What I didn’t metion is that he is a great pither also but for some reason didn’t see the mound for Goddard last year. I watched him shut down Carrol (ranked #1 in the state at the time) when he was a Freshman. He’s been pretty dominate pitching for the Wolverines this summer. He’s got the tools, now let’s get him some hype. So you don’t think I’m all Goddard, I’m very impressed with the way Brett Soft plays football.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Marcus and Marcus’s mom, quit bragging about yourself
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July 22nd, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Hell, I could dominate pitching for the Wolverines
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July 22nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Rik: Actually, if a Kansas player is listed on Rivals.com main database, they have, or are very close to receiving an offer or at least have a D-1 school that the rivals office have talked to interested in them. OR they have attended a Nike or SPARQ camp and drew one of the scouts interest. It is very hard to talk them into listing any high school player from Kansas on their main database. There is one other exception, but I’ll get canned for mentioning that here.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Hovey: I’ll stand corrected, since you’d know better than I on that, but I swear I’ve seen a ton of names from all over that are just that, names, with nothing else listed with them.
Would I be safe in assuming it’s easier to get listed on Scout.com? Not to be confused with Scoutinc.com.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Hovpen, you’re cracking me up. The Wolverines 18 & under have 4 guys throwing 90 plus mph fastballs & unless your name is Gould, anyone that knows anything about baseball is not going to believe you could dominate on that team.
Seriously though, since you can’t share the exception, why is it so difficult to get Kansas players listed? I get the combines & camp thing but there are some pretty good atheletes coming out of Kansas High Schools that go unnoticed. Do they all need agents and non family promoters when they are still in High School?
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July 22nd, 2008 at 7:24 pm
And of coure you’ve tweaked our interest with “one other exception.”
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
LOL I said for the Wolverines, not against them. Have you seen their lineup? I used to throw a fairly mean fastball myself. Ask the kids who I threw batting practice to back, ah never mind.
It is all about being seen, and with Brian Butlers help, some of that problem is being erased. But in reality, who is going to fly to Wichita, then get in a car and drive another 3-4 hours to see an athlete in Kansas when they can just fly into Dallas or Ft. Worth and see several hundred in the same amount of time. There are more high schools in the Dallas area alone than in the whole state of Kansas and that is just one city down there. Thats why many of the athletes we do send D-1 come out of Butler, Coffeyville, Garden City JUCO after two years of development. More than 20 Kansas athletes signed out of those schools this past season. Many more in the past.
Now I know I”m going to get trashed for bringing up Brian Butler in this, but I have yet to see him do anything wrong in what he is doing, and he is getting results.
Rik…. Look me up when I do one of your games this fall and I’ll whisper it in your ear. I won’t be hard to find. AS for easier to get listed. Scout lists three players from Sedgwick, but then, how many do we list from Beloit St. John????? You will discover that I often disagree with the experts.
Man, I got to quit posting on here. Costing me hits.
Hey, Joanna, these guys are right on Gould. He is the real deal. He also might need an agent soon. LOL.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:17 pm
While there is nothing wrong with football and baseball, there are definitely other sports that are well worth mentioning- cross country for example, as Jimmy V. mentioned. The boys on that Mulvane team definitely could stand some attention. Or how about Robbie Martinez-Garcia of Wichita Northwest? 6A State 1600m champ as a sophomore, definitely has a chance of going D-I. Or how about Jake Wike and Neil Metler of Derby? Hard working, vastly improving duo. There are other boys that I am leaving out, but there are also some very decent girls out there. Michelle Babb of Clearwater, for one. Or Paige Miller of Valley Center. Both are only entering their junior years, and already they have plenty of State medals between the two of them. They are also not showing any signs of slowing down anytime soon. So, give the standouts in the less popular sports some attention, if you don’t mind. :) Thanks for reading my rant.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
A lot of bragging on here about Derby! Just think if they win more than 5 games next year!
I would keep my eye on probably the two best running backs in the state outside of Bryce Brown…Josh Smith and Deveon Dinwiddie of Hutchinson. Kind of a thunder and lightning combination. They combined for 33 TD’s as sophomores.
Hopefully they won’t get caught from behind by that Derby kid!
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July 22nd, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I watched Dinwiddie at the state game last year in Topeka. He’s quick i’ll give you that. He aint no Cotton or McKinnis though. As far as Smith is concerned dont know much about him. If he and Dinwiddie combined for 33 TD’s, then we will see what they can do all by themselves! And no i aint even related to the Woodside-Heit’s. I have known the family for 12 years. And one other thing, you’re right “Panther44″ Hedgepeth will be a delight to watch this fall, how could i forget about him……….my bad!
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July 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Being from Hutch, I’ve seen the duo of Cotton/McKinnis and Smith/Dinwiddie goes…Dinwiddie will be twice the back McKinnis was. That’s not to say that McKinnis wasn’t amazing, he’s one of the best in recent history at Hutch. BUT, I was able to see Dinwiddie at Pitt State camp this summer…and he’s the quickest back I’ve seen since Jake Sharp a couple years ago. Not saying he’s as good as Sharp was, but he’s certainly as quick. If anyone’s curious on Mckinnis’s speed, he was the 7th fastest member of the Salthawk football team last season. He just had tremendous vision and football instincts.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 6:34 am
Hovey: I probably wasn’t clear in my previous post, but by getting listed “easier” I meant that I’ve been under the impression that Scout.com pretty much adds anybody without doing any due diligence.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 7:04 am
Hovpen, thanks for the insight & don’t quit posting. Hopefully the scouts are seeing some of the Kansas kids at the national baseball tournaments when they can go and see 100-150 teams in a week.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
If you go to Midwestscout.com and under Prospects it will show you
the Kansas kids on scout.You are 1/2 way right that someone nominate you but they do evalutate film and have Scout.com / UnderArmour Combine plus come to events and games . If a kid is on the site with video, information and stories they are pretty legit.
Again because when these (Rivals and Scout) guys watch people from Kansas most have no idea who the kid is and how good the school is.Hovey does alot of stuff for the Kansas Kids but as he said Rivals head office picks who goes on or not.Rivals site Hovpen.com
does alot more stories for local athletes.Bottom line is these kids are going to the Rivals and Scout Combines and working tails off to be notice in Kansas ,If a player is on Rivals ,Scout or ESPN congradulations.If you are doing enough to get them to do a story and the more stories about same guy the more I think makes him Legit.Trust me over the years we have tried to nominate alot of players,so has Hovey and for some reason they reject alot of Kansas kids.So be Proud and thankful for the ones we get on.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 11:54 am
To “playoffexperience”. What’s your gut feeling on how your home town boys will do this year. I’ll be courteous this time! I know you are True to your team, as I am to my Green ( as if you didn’t know already) But honestly; do you feel that by dropping to 5A this year will give your Hawks an advantage, or does it matter? Are they going to continue to win this year, or do you think they may encounter better teams. What’s your take on Opening nite in Missouri?
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July 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
PanFan,
Thank you for the question, I appreciate it greatly. I guess I will start with opening night and work from there. It’s a very tough question really. To be honest, I don’t think we’re going to full know until the night is over just how we compare with a team who is much more widely recognized as a “football power” than Hutch is. However, when Hutch first started becoming a “football power” around here, and started meeting up with the KC area teams (obviously only in the championship game) feelings were much the same as they are now (from their perspective, by their I mean Rockhursts). They say that we haven’t seen speed, talent, studs like we will see when we play them. The outcome was that we were as good and better than the KC teams we met. So, how much different can Rockhurst really be? That, I really can’t say yet. I have seen some film on them and really, they remind me of Hutch. I just hope we represent ourselves well opening night. i.e. knock some blocks off, play our butts off and leave it all on the field.
Ok, after that extremely long winded opening night answer, I’ll move on. Dropping to 5A this year will NOT give Hutch an advantage! If it did, wouldn’t the biggest schools in 6A have the advantage? No one can argue that it has at least recently, as Hutch has been at or near the bottom of enrollment numbers and still manages to win. I think it is possible for it to be an advantage because of shear numbers, BUT, the difference is minute. Now, I still think Hutch will continue to win this year…but not because they’re dropping to 5A. I would still think it if they were still 6A. Will they encounter better teams? It’s sure possible. Who was the last better team for Hutch to encounter? 5A Salina Central. So to say that the absolute best teams reside in and only in 6A is preposterous.
Well, I hope I’ve answered or at least come close to answering your question! I’m certainly true to my hometown team, but I hope that I will always remain realistic. Thanks again for your question. Give me some time and I’ll shoot back some worthy questions for you!
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July 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Speaking of top football games, the last two JUCO champions will get it on in Wichita on Aug. 28 at 7p.m. Blinn Junior College and Butler in what could very well decide this season’s national championship game will be played in August.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
The question was who needs more hype. I know this will not be a popular opinion, but I think the kids who have outstanding grades and play multiple sports. The ones that will go to college, regardless if a sports scholarship pays their way or not. Those that go to every practice, every game, and complete the team, so that “star” gets to play and gets the recognition. They often play 3 different sports, keep honor roll grades, but are never seen. I also agree with more on the minor sports, these kids work just as hard as the kids in the major sport, but with very little recognition.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 6:06 pm
does anyone other than PANFAN know anything about marcus woodside-heit? i have never heard anything about him and i know some of the derby players and they have not mentioned him either.
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July 24th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Zinnball: along your lines, I just like to read about guys who have interesting stories, more than just “leads team in tackles,” “ran for 300 yards.”
Sometimes the best stories come from that senior who stuck out football for four years and never played. Why?
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July 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am
interesting stories,Hmm .I agree that would be nice.
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July 25th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
The Wichita Bulls , the Kansas Hoyas, and the Wichita T-Wolves all deserve some “hype”.
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July 25th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Chuck, are you making a point? Was it sarcasm? Hmmm. Interesting.
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July 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
No, I wasn’t making a point Zinnball and RikRok were the ones that made the point.I was just agreeing,No sarcasm .
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