Sunflower Slate

Got a couple of phone calls from parents this afternoon — parents who would prefer to remain unnamed, for now — telling me their side of the story about what’s going on in the aftermath of Steve Eck’s defection from Cowley College to Hutchinson Community College.

So here’s the skinny: Six kids want out, I won’t put their names out there yet, but they’re high profile kids with Division I talent. In-staters and out-of-staters alike. And some, if not all, want to join Eck at Hutch.

One problem. The parents are telling me that Cowley is not going to grant their releases/transfer exemptions, which means they would have to sit out for a year. The two parents I talked to said they had meetings with Cowley AD Tom Saia and new head coach Tommy DeSalme to let them know their kids wanted out and that was when they got denied. According to KJCCC commish Bryce Roderick, the only guaranteed out you have as a transfer within the Jayhawk is if you transfer to a junior college in your home county. Ex.: If you go to Garden City High School then go play for Hutch, then you can transfer to Garden City C.C. and you don’t have to sit out. That won’t help in most of the cases here.

My take? It is well within Cowley’s right not to let them out. But should they? I don’t know enough about it yet to say. There’s a lot of gray area in this bad boy. I’ll be on the horn with the respective parties this weekend.

But I know this: This one is going to get ugly before it’s all said and done.

I’m out.

-TA