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.

JACIE HOYT

Here’s this from today’s Eagle, compliments of WSU beat writer Paul Suellentrop:

Hoyt to Fort Hays State – Guard Jacie Hoyt, who started all 31 games for Wichita State last season, will transfer to Fort Hays State.

Hoyt will be eligible immediately at the NCAA Division II school. She averaged 7.2 points and 3.7 assists for the Shockers as a sophomore.

What’s it mean? It means that the Tigers, who already had the best returning post player in Erica Biel — a 6-foot-1 DI transfer from Missouri State — now also have arguably the best guard in the conference along with Emporia State’s Cassondra Boston. Biel was a first-team all-MIAA pick this season, one of two players who also made the all-defensive team. EB averaged 16.4 points — third in the MIAA — and led the league with 11.3 rebounds per game. She also led FHSU to its first MIAA tourney berth. With Hoyt … fugheddaboutit. They’ll be one of the best teams in the MIAA next year, if not the region. Pretty amazing she left WSU after starting 31 games there last year, though. But I guess if you can’t take it no more …

Enjoy:

MIAA

JULIAN DOZIER

Emporia State

Two players from this class really stick out to me — Julian Dozier, a three-star cornerback out of Texas, and former Miami of Ohio and Coffeyville C.C. offensive lineman John Buckman, who runs about 6-foot-8, 335 pounds but hasn’t played football since 2006. Dozier is a player.

Fort Hays State

Butler Community College offensive lineman Matt Bruner — also an Andover product — will get a chance to reteam with Mike Garrison, the QB from Bruner’s first national championship team (yeah, dude won two). The 6-foot-3, 285-pound Bruner was a first-team all-Jayhawk pick, and is going to help the Tigers a lot. But in the MIAA, this team needs more than just help to become competitive. It’s almost an impossible task.

FORREST STUCKY

Pittsburg State

Wow, they cleaned up. They grabbed Nate Dreiling and Forrest Stucky out of Hutchinson High, two guys I think can come in and contribute at PSU, maybe right away, although I was under the impression that one if not both of these guys had DI offers. And it never hurts to recruit kids from programs that win as much as the one at HHS. Just ask Hutch C.C. coach Rion Rhoades what he thinks about Gage McKinnis.

Washburn

This is a team that seemed like it was on the brink of breaking into the upper MIAA echelon last season, but fell just short. They’ve got one of the smaller classes, maybe because they just don’t need much. I’m interested to see how Dane Simoneau develops at QB for them. He could be pretty good, but I’m wondering what head coach Craig Schurig thinks of him missing spring football to play baseball. But hey, he’s pretty good at that, too. Can’t knock the hustle.

EMPORIA — Emporia State scored on four of its five possessions in the first half and used ball control and a stingy defense on its way to 24-13 victory over Fort Hays State at Jones Field on Saturday.

Looks like Emporia quarterback Andre Sloan El ran for 72 yards and a touchdown and threw for 90 yards and a touchdown. Like I’ve said before, he’s hard to handle.

Andre Sloan El, ESU (ESU Image)