I’m headed up to El Dorado tomorrow morning (Monday) to put together the Jayhawk Conference feature for our College Football Preview — and of course it is going to be on the two-time defending national champion Butler Grizzlies. I always enjoy my trips to ED before the season, mainly because it’s usually the one time I get to really get a glimpse into the inner-workings of the program. You get to see the players interacting with each other, coaches trying to keep the whole ship on course and, you know, hopefully pump out some pretty good stories when it all disseminates.

My only complaint? No Starbucks in El Dorado.

I’m out. TA

IS THIS THE BEST SHOW ON TV? MAYBE …

DESHAWN SMITH

Butler offensive lineman DeShawn Smith is a preseason first-team All-American for a good reason.

Butler coach Troy Morrell told a great story about Smith recently, talking about how he moved the then-freshman to tackle in last year’s national championship game, where Smith would be going head-to-head with Snow College’s James Aiono — a five-star recruit and the top-ranked junior college defensive lineman in the country. In Butler’s double-overtime win, Smith put Aiono, who will play for the University of Utah this fall, on absolute lockdown. That ain’t easy, folks. Basically a street fight between two 6-foot-2, 290-pound high Division I prospects for the whole shebang, last man standing wins. And Smith won. But he’s not alone as a first-team preseason All-American for the two-time defending national champs — kicker Logan Ortiz and linebacker Forlando Johnson are, too.

I’ll be trying to figure out who the favorites are in the race for Smith’s service for his final two years this week … but I’m thinking Bill Snyder wouldn’t mind the Hutch native making pancakes in Manhattan.

Out. TA

MIKE GARRISON

Fort Hays State quarterback and Shawnee Mission Northwest product Mike Garrison was nice enough to chat with Sunflower Slate for a few minutes Thursday evening about a wide range of topics — from trying to get the Tigers into the MIAA discussion (might happen), getting his jaw broken (not fun) and winning a national football title at Butler Community College (where he also played basketball). Oh, and he let us take a peek into his IPod, where he’s rocking Disturbed.

SUNFLOWER SLATE: How’s summer going? Where are you living?

GARRISON: Summer’s going really well. I’m staying in Hays and working out, running, doing a little 7 on 7 and 1 on 1s. There’s a lot of us staying here this summer. I’ve got a house I share with two guys, one who used to play football here and one who still is.

SS: How do you feel after last year?

MG: It was a little struggle at first getting used to new coaches, a new style of coaching and new play calls … but I’m real comfortable now, real confident this year, ready to get out there. I think we’re looking a lot better for this season, we’ve implemented a new offense where we’re spreading it out more and our receivers are a lot better. Teams won’t be able to pack the box with nine and just focus on the run. We’ve got deep threats.

SS: You suffered a pretty gruesome injury last year when you broke your jaw against Truman State. Can you tell us what that was like?

MG: Yeah, it was horrible. I broke my right mandible. I was looking left for Anthony Smith, threw it, and the guy came from the right and hit me underneath my helmet and was leading with the top of his head. I didn’t even see him coming.

SS: Man. Did you know your jaw was broken right away?

MG: Oh yeah. I got up and my jaw was obviously out of place and I was bleeding out of my mouth pretty good. It was the middle of the second quarter and I finished the game. After we went to an oral surgeon and it was pretty obvious it was broken because when I closed my mouth the teeth on the right side touched and there was about an inch-and-a-half gap between my teeth on the left side. They wired it shut for two weeks and it was probably the worst two weeks of my life because I love eating so much. I could kind of drink some stuff but it was hard because I didn’t have any energy and it was like all I could was sleep. They gave me some liquid Lortab for the pain, which helped, but it was terrible.

MIKE GARRISON

SS: You had quite an odyssey at Butler, coming out of nowhere to lead the team to the national title in 2007.

MG: That was an experience that made me a lot tougher, being there. I came to Butler in fall 2005, redshirted on the football team and played basketball that year. The next year I got cut from the football team, but they said they wanted to keep me around so I played another year of basketball and got to start. The next year, the third year I was there, I made the football team then I took over as the starter early in the year and we won the national championship. Getting cut made me work a lot harder than I ever had.

SS: And now you’re at Hays and all is well in the world.

MG: (laughs) Yeah, I guess you could say that.

SS: Speaking of Hays, what’s it like living there?

MG: I like it. There’s a driving range we go to a lot, and we play a lot of golf. We swim, we barbeque, we play cards. Sometimes we play a little putt-putt or ladder golf.

FLYLEAF

SS: That doesn’t sound too bad. What’s on your IPod nowadays? What are you going to be listening to before games.

MG: I’m into classic rock, a little heavy metal. I like Disturbed, they get me going, and Black Label Society. In the locker room we have music we all listen to. Some rap, a little heavy rock thrown in. Flyleaf is somebody else we listen to. She’s a girl who … rocks. She’s pretty good.

SS: Thanks for your time. Good luck this season.

MG: Thanks. No problem.

ZAC CLARK

The Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission banquet is June 26 and there are  a couple of Sunflower Slate-ians up for the men’s and women’s college athlete of the year awards, including Former Wichita North and Butler defensive end Zac Clark, who is battling for a starting spot at Oregon this fall. Cowley has two nominees in men’s tennis player Boomer Saia — son of CC athletic director Tom Saia — and all-everything softball standout Jacey Juden, who is headed to Northwestern Oklahoma State. Butler trackster Leah Thompson is also up for the women’s award.

-TA

Here’s how it breaks down — an anonymous bowl committee set up a game, the Mid-America Bowl — that was supposed to be played at Wichita State’s Cessna Stadium on Dec. 6, 2009. The NJCAA said that the powers-that-be behind this game called them and said it wasn’t going to go off, and the national office didn’t get much more than that.

But, that leaves two bowl games left in Kansas. The Citizens Bank Bowl in Pittsburg (Dec. 9) that will be played at PSU’s Carnie Smith Stadium, and the Salt City Bowl in Hutchinson. Presumably, these are bowls set up to facilitate the local schools — Fort Scott for the game in Pittsburg and Hutchinson for the game in Hutch. Under that same presumption, I’m assuming the Wichita bowl game would have been a vehicle for Butler. And, of course, there’s a chance that one of these game could end up the national championship game featuring the Region VI champion, because hey, that’s where the champ has come from the last two years.

One thing to ponder: Who was behind the Wichita game and why did it fall apart? Were three games just too much for one state? Anyways … more on this later. But having these bowl games can only help. Gotta think Hutch’s new digs are set up perfectly for an event like this.

OUT. TA

ZAC CLARK

University of Oregon defensive end Zac Clark had a nice day at the UO spring game Saturday in Eugene — he had a sack for the Green team (which was the first-team defense and second-team offense) in its 21-14 win over the White team. Clark, who prepped at Wichita North then won two national titles at Butler Community College, transferred to UO in December.

Clark — who is going to be No. 99 for the Ducks — is an impact guy right off the bat. And my homeboy Eric Linerud rejoices as another Wichita product decides to grace football fields in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s the link to the game summary. And here’s the link to the article on how many times ZC and the Ducks are going to be on TV this year.

I guess Zac’s kinda like a big deal.

-I’M OUT … TA

STEVE JOHNSON

Funny story about Butler Community College men’s coach Steve Johnson — who was nice enough to do an interview with me on Sunday for a story in Monday’s Eagle. He did this all after dropping off his wife, Gina, somewhere and then balancing a 4-year old and a 2-year old, who alternately screamed and learned to count during the interview, which, during the course of , he also got his kids some drinks, asked them to be quiet maybe 10 times (including one where he went “okay, yes, someone is learning to count”) and set up an interview for pitcher Connor Sinclair, a Goddard product who is 7-0 for the first-place Grizzlies.

Funny to me because I don’t have kids. And impressive because he did a pretty good interview while playing Mr. Mom.

I’m out.

ANDREA LEIKER

Here’s a heartbreaker out of Canyon, Texas: the Emporia State women fell to West Texas A&M 86-83 at the NCAA Division II South Central Regional, and that was after coming from 10 points down with 1:47 left and without MIAA player of the year Ida Edwards for the last 14:21 after Edwards went down with a knee injury. Hope she’s ok. Andrea Leiker led the Hornets with 22 points in her final game for ESU. Also in the South Central Region, Washburn fell 72-63 to Central Oklahoma after the Bronchos rallied from a halftime deficit and sustained a game-opening 11-2 run by the Lady Blues. Tough exit for the MIAA, who I’m sure wanted to get one of their two teams out of the region. Here’s a link to the tourney bracket.

And as I’m sure you know by now, the NAIA Division II Tournament is going on, too, and we saw the Sterling men lose in the first round while the Ottawa men upset No. 4 Walsh (Ohio) before losing in the Sweet 16, and the Sterling women and Kansas Wesleyan women both bowed out in the Sweet 16, too.

Next week is the NJCAA national tournament, with the Hutch C.C. women headed to Salina and the Garden City men headed to Hutchinson. Should be fun and I’ll make sure to give you updates and as much behind-the-scenes stuff as possible, which leads me to …

DANIEL HOWARD

A DANIEL HOWARD SIGHTING

The Texas Tech defensive end/linebacker and Butler Community College product (he’s also a City Leaguer, hailing from Bishop Carroll) was out in Old Town last night. He’s on spring break from Lubbock, and I asked him why in the world he wasn’t in Acapulco, Lake Havasu, Cozumel or any number of off-the-chain spring break destinations he could wreck shop at and he laughed then gave me some lame excuse like spring ball or making sure he stayed in shape or something. We had a nice conversation over Christmas break, too, where he gave me some inside scoop on what it was like after they beat UT in Lubbock and he was nice enough to hit me with his number again (after I broke my phone and lost it the first time) for a possible feature this fall when football season starts. He was taking it pretty easy last night, but from what I can tell, here are a few benefits of being a Division I football player, even in the Air Capitol … or is that especially in the Air Capitol?

1. A lot of pretty, pretty blonde girls will come up and talk to you at random times (which means pretty much constantly) even if sometimes it’s just to ask you about Graham Harrell. And they like to talk really, really close to your face.

2. You travel with an entourage (including one guy, drunkenly, who thought he was Ari Gold and was trying to get DH to not talk to the press … come on, idiot, I’m not trying to do an interview in a bar) and they pretty much just follow you lockstep. Besides drunk handler guy the other guys seemed like they were pretty cool. Think Turtle, E and Johnny Drama style.

3. If you walk into a bar you don’t really pay too much … and there aren’t a whole lot of rules about where you can and can’t go. Dude walked behind the bar and grabbed his buddy a beer at one point. Nice. And everybody laughed. You try it and see what happens.

4. In Kansas, especially after you turn down offers from KU and KSU, expect to catch a little hell when you come home. But not too much, because you’re 6-foot-3 and about 230 pounds.

5. Did I mention the blondes?

I was impressed with DH — hopefully I can use my magic story-pitching powers to convince Kirk Seminoff to let me write an article about him this fall. Dude’s numbers have gotten better every year and he’s due for a breakout season. And he’s from Wichita.

Besides that … I’m out.

-TA

NO RICE FOR YOU!!!!

STEPHEN WILLIAMS

Take a couple of days off to go skiing at the west side Palace resort and everybody forgets you exist…

Bob Lutz wrote a nice column today on the Newman-Friends basketball rivalry, which has ceased to exist in no small part because of Newman’s move to a full-fledged NCAA Division II school. So here’s a question: If Newman can play Bethel, Tabor and Sterling, then why not Friends? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Mr. Williams

And yet more Newman men’s hoop news. Six-foot-1 guard Stephen Williams was named the Heartland Conference player of the week, the first Jet to grab league honors since Newman joined the Heartland. Williams, a transfer from Mid-Continent University, earned the kudos after racking up 16 points, nine assists and five steals — with just one turnover — in a 119-68 win over York College last Saturday. It does seem like the Jets are starting to get the hang of this whole D2 thing as of late … but conference play will show if they’re really ready. I think they are.

ZAC CLARK

Zac’s a Duck

Butler defensive end Zac Clark is going to Oregon … I’m not totally sure about this , but I don’t think he even made it to his Texas A&M visit. So what happened? Was it the Ducks Xbox heavy, Futurama-inspired locker room? The incredible game-day atmosphere? Or … maybe it was this. Chris Harper has no clue. They’re gonna love this Wichita kid in Eugene.

MIKE BARGEN

Mike Bargen is doing pretty good

I’m not old … but I’m getting there. I got an e-mail from Erik Nott, an old high school basketball teammate of mine who went on to be an all-KCAC guy at Friends, and he told me he remembered playing with Butler men’s coach Mike Bargen at a summer camp when he was in high school. Excuse me, when I was also in high school. Now Erik’s a doctor. That takes a long time, people.

But on to Bargen. He played at Marquette in the mid-90s (yes, I have some Hoop Dreams questions when I talk to him next) and now he’s the head coach at Butler and they’re 11-3 after falling off the map the last couple of years. His dad was the coach at Hutch back in the day, so there’s a connection to the Jayhawk Conference there. Nice to see the Grizzlies getting back on track. My Grizzly sources tell me plans are in the works to make Hutchinson’s Jan. 14 visit to El Dorado … very unpleasant.

I’m out.

-TA