Varsity Kansas - The Blog

Tuesday is the day.

NCAA 09 is set to release tomorrow and I can’t wait. Though most of my video game brethren list Madden as their football video game of choice, I ride with NCAA.

An interesting twist- that has nothing to do with gameplay -is that depending on what system you have you’ll get a different player on the cover.

Xbox 360 - Darren McFadden

PS 3 - Matt Ryan

PS 2 - DeSean Jackson

PSP - Owen Schmitt

Wii - Sparty (Mascot of Michigan State who was picked in a contest by fans to be on the cover)

What’s funny is that obviously McFadden is on the 360 cover because he’s the premiere name and more people who play this title will do so on 360. But looking at the other systems the higher the prestige the better the athlete. I mean no disrespect to Schmitt who was a good player at West Virginia but nobody outside of “real” college football fans know who he is. I play with WV on the 08 game and I’ll gladly take him out to run a two back offense (three backs if you want to count Pat White). I say that to say that on the game I don’t think he makes that big of an impact. On the game that is

But anyway.

I shall pose this question. Who is the SECOND most unstoppable video game athlete of all-time. Yes I said SECOND.

Bo Jackson on Super Tecmo Bowl is easily the greatest. There shouldn’t even be a debate there.

But coming up with a number two is pretty hard. Some that stick out to me are:

Mike Tyson (Punch Out)

Randy Moss (Madden 2004)

Mike Singletary (Tecmo Bowl)

Lawrence Taylor (Tecmo Bowl)

Glenn Rice (NBA Live 95)

Your Created Player (Live 95)

I wasn’t big on baseball games or hockey games so that’s just my list. So give me yours.

by joanna

I got this e-mail from Jen about Twisted Sisters.

Twisted Sisters win the Wellington Red, White & Blue Blast!!!!  This 18u fast pitch team consisting of players from Wichita, Derby, Wellington, Goddard and Haysville competed this weekend with an amazing 5 games played and won, to claim first place!

(In the championship game versus Emporia Energy) — “The score remained zero/zero for the first two innings, then in the 3rd innings, TS score 3 runs. By the 6th inning, TS easily held the energy and took the win at 3-0, beating the team that placed 2nd in their state tournament, putting Twisted Sister record now at 21 wins and 3 losses!!”

The team plays next weekend in the state tournament in Topeka.

If you have a softball, baseball, basketball team or whatever you want to tell us about, feel free to e-mail me at joanna@varsitykansas.com.

by joanna

I’m really not trying to out any of the faithful posters on this blog, but we are building relationships here, right? And I love finding out information about people — it’s an inherent nosiness.

So I want to know — when were you interviewed? For a newspaper? On TV? On the radio?

Here’s what got me thinking about this:

(more…)

By J. Long

Tonganoxie senior Roxi Grizzle was named the 2007-08 Gatorade Kansas Girls Track & Field Athlete of the year.

No disrespect to Grizzle who won the Class 4A javelin event setting a meet record at 165 feet, 5 inches which was the fourth best throw in the nation at that time. However, when I think track athlete of the year I think of someone who dominated in more than one event. Maybe someone who competed in several events to help her team compete for a team title.

But that’s just me. So who do you think should have got it?

By J. Long

So a press release was sent out today by the Kansas State High School Activities Association with this statement in bold letters at the top:

Kansas High School Championship Games to be Broadcast on Television

The document was sent out to spread the word about the agreement between local television stations KWCH/KSCW (Wichita), KCTV/KSMO (Kansas City), KTKA (Topeka), and KOAM/KFJK (Pittsburg) and the KSHSAA. What the agreement was exactly didn’t quite jump out at me from the 8.5 x 11, so I gave the numero uno at the KSHSAA, executive director Gary Musselman, a call.

Since this deal was made recently, Musselman didn’t know a lot of specifics, but he did shut down the one part that I “thought” I knew for sure. The part that was boldly labeled in the top of the release.

“Right now we don’t know if or when we will be able to televise the championship games,” Musselman said. “We’d like to be able to broadcast two of the championship games in football and in basketball this year, but I don’t know if that will happen and if it does, we don’t know which ones.”

Musselman and I had a very candid conversation and though I’m not confident that we will see televised state championship contests this year, I do think this was a smart business move for the KSHSAA.

What people often forget is that the KSHSAA isn’t just a governing body for Kansas high school sports. They are in charge of lots of other things and many of those things have nothing to do with sports. Of course you, me and probably everybody but the parents of those non-athletes care more about the sports side, but Musselman and KSHSAA can’t. Musselman told me that the first step in this agreement will probably be having public service announcements appear on TV and online for various KSHSAA items.

If this agreement is done right, and from the convo with Musselman it seems to be headed this way, the students in many of the broadcast/media classes will be putting this and other things together to appear on television or the web. Doing this gives these kids a chance to have a real-world experience in what it takes in this field. I’m a big believer in gaining work experience when you can, so I applaud the association for taking advantage of this opportunity. Will games eventually be aired live? I would think so. The proposal is for three years, so I hope the entities involved would be able to figure out a way to do that at some point.

So maybe we sports fans will have to wait a minute for our needs to be served, but in doing so it seems that these kids will have a great opportunity.

So my partner in crime Joanna hipped me to comment made about Carroll junior QB Blake Bell possibly being one of the top rated QB’s in the 2010 class.

Seeing as how I needed to get up with Coach Alan Schuckman anyway I figured now would be as good a time as any to check in with him. So not knowing about Bell I start to ask the usual “gauge how good a high school player is” questions. You know the ones: So what schools are looking at him, how much will he contribute, etc. Then I find out that though Bell is a phenominal athlete with great size (6 foot 6 inches) he’s yet to be a proven quarterback. This will be the junior’s first season as the team’s signal caller after starting last year as a wide receiver.

Schuckman and Carroll are anticipating a lot of good things from Bell this season. A lot of those things coming from the knowledge he learned last season.

“Him playing wide receiver was good for him,” Schuckman said. “He really understands the game and playing receiver gives him that perspective. He understands what they do - puts them on the same page.”

This is the first of many busy weeks this summer for South coach Tony Johnson.

South starts its team camp Wednesday, taking a slight break on Saturday so that 20 team members can travel to Lee’s Summit, Mo., to participate in a one-day 7-on-7 camp.

Then Johnson will host one of his assembly line camps for linemen and in mid-July hold his youth camp.

By J. Long

After showcasing his talents with his AAU team Speice Mo-Kan (WK) at Kansas State for the Manhattan Classic, Perry Ellis took his solo act to Lawrence this past weekend for Bill Self’s Elite Camp.

And after I talked with his AAU coach Steve Young this morning it seems that the high school freshman-to-be left a pretty lasting impression.

“They told him he had more potential than any of the other recruits there,” said Young.

PE will definitely be getting plenty of other exposure this summer as Speice Mo-Kan has a full plate this summer with a camp in Virginia this week and planned trips to Chicago, Denton (TX), Las Vegas, and Orlando.

By Jonathan Long

In the big business, media circus atmosphere that has become professional sports, it’s easy to forget that all of the pro athletes you see today started out as youngsters. There’s a special feeling about seeing young people grow up as players before your eyes — not as in you watched them mature from their rookie year superstardom three or four years later. I’m talking about seeing them before the world really knew who they were.

One of the biggest regrets that I have is not going to see LeBron James play in person in high school. James, of course,was already a national star in his senior year at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s in Akron, Ohio, but I hate that I missed seeing him before he was crowned. I would have loved to see him when $40 million (his earnings per Sports Illustrated’s Fortunate 50 List) wasn’t riding with every move he made. When he was able to go out there and just have fun. When he was just Bron, playing for himself.

I was reminded of this regret when doing research on a couple of upcoming baseball stories I’m working on and saw the list of the players that played in the National Baseball Congress World Series. It’s amazing just how many future stars come around as youngsters, and the moment to take in the beauty of unbridled talent is missed. Seriously, if you’re a sports fan, I urge you to take a couple of days in your life and check out Bryce Brown before he heads down to the “U.” To see one of the area Jayhawk League baseball teams. To see Joanna McFarland or Lindsey Keller before they head down to the state of Oklahoma. To witness Perry Ellis.

By no means am I saying that these kids are on the caliber of what King James was, but, in it’s purest essence, it’s a chance to see what the combination of gifted talent and love for the game looks like.

So since I’m still new to this territory, I’m starting to do my football research now so I can better serve you guys come football season. And if possible I’d like to get a little help. Working with players who are strictly in Class 6A who are some of the better players I should start to get to know.

I already know about Bryce at East. That shows just how big he is. I’ve been here a little over a month and I think I’ve only heard one person mention his first and last name.

But who besides him should I know about?

Who is getting some pretty high praise from college recruiters? Who isn’t, but should be?

Remember this is strictly for 6A we will do 5A and so on later in the summer.