What's up with the Wichita Eagle?

As good a job as I did all spring covering the track and field team, it's kind of inexcusable that I would miss such big news for so long. K-State high jumper Scott Sellers was named the Big 12 Performer of the Year, as well as the Midwest District track athlete of the year. Congratulations Scott!

This weekend, Sellers and fellow high jumper Kyle Lancaster are representing the Purple and White in Sacramento at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The two advanced to Friday's finals in the high jump (and are joined there by women's high jumper Kaylene Wagner. What's up with all these Cats who have ups?). Updates to come this weekend on how they finish.

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Jeffrey Martin from the Wichita Eagle recently wrote an article in which an "advisor and trainer" (Hey Jeffrey, in j-school, they taught me it's "adviser") to two Wichita East football players who are highly recruited. Apparently, Brian Butler (the "advisor and trainer") has a bone to pick with K-State and KU fans who think he's not doing enough to funnel top-notch Wichita talent to the in-state schools, while he thinks K-State and KU don't recruit Kansas heavily enough.

Huh?

First of all, this whole thing is really stupid on a lot of levels. Can we please move past the idea that one or a few men have almighty power over the lives of 17-year-old high school students? College football fans need to realize this guy isn't going to make up Arthur and Bryce Brown's mind for them. He might advise them that one path is better than another, but the ultimate decision is up to the kid and his family.

Second, I'm trying to figure out what cut of grass this guy is smoking, because it must be good. K-State and KU don't recruit Kansas heavily enough? Did I really read that right? I must have, here's the direct language of the article...

According to Butler, the logic in the past was why take a chance on a second-tier prospect from Kansas when a passed-over, fourth-tier kid from Texas was available? Send the Kansan to a junior college --"the farm system," Butler said -- and take the Texan, if for no other reason than perception.

I don't have the time, patience, or stomach to look up the beaks' football roster for the last few years to determine how many Kansas players it contained. But here's a look at the last few K-State rosters:

2007: 41 players from Kansas high schools, 39.8% of the roster.
2006: 50 players from Kansas high schools, 46.8% of the roster.
Those are the two rosters from Ron Prince's first two squads. Butler indicated in the story the attitude of disfavoring Kansas players "still exists under Ron Prince" but he thought it was worse under Bill Snyder. So just for comparison sake, here's the roster of the 2003 team that won the Big 12 Championship.

2003: 60 players from Kansas high schools, 46.5% of the roster.

Things have clearly gone downhill from the Bill Snyder era as far as recruiting Kansas players.

Butler is particularly irked that the in-state BCS conference programs pass over Kansas kids for some fourth-rate Texas kid that A&M and UT (and presumably Tech, Baylor and Houston) don't want. In particular, Butler is mad that both K-State and KU didn't offer Frank Delarue, a running back from Wichita.

Well, for one thing, the level of play in Texas is so much higher than it is in Kansas that these Texas kids will have played against better opposition than the average Kansas kid. Also, as to Delarue, never mind the fact that he only had offers from two MAC schools. Never mind the fact we signed James Johnson (beat Texas A&M out for him) and Leon Patton (a freshman) last year. Our squad is not hurting for running backs, so why the hell would we compete with a couple MAC schools for a kid from Wichita?

As the title of the article says, sometimes in-state players are too good to stay home. Right now K-State is not on a level with USC and the other elite programs from whom the Browns have offers. I can't fault them for wanting to go out of state. But if that's the case, Brian Butler (and his mouthpiece, Jeffrey Martin) need to stop bitching about K-State not being loyal to in-state players, especially when I just empirically demonstrated that they are. We've offered the Browns scholarships. We want them in Manhattan. But in-state players leave. I understand that. Scott Frost left Nebraska to go to Stanford (for a while). Barry Sanders left Wichita to go to Oklahoma State. That's fine, I don't have a problem with it.

But let's leave the irresponsible, non-fact-based journalism to the tabloids. If you're going to say K-State and KU aren't loyal to in-state players, come up with more than one example, and admit that K-State and (I assume) KU have an overwhelming number of Kansas kids on their roster. We do what we can for Kansas kids.

Does Brian Butler?