K-State fans taking bad news in stride

By Staff     Aug 16, 2006

Some Kansas State fans in the Aggieville business district near campus said Tuesday the dismissal of center Tyler Hughes from the Wildcat basketball team seems to be par for the course in a year when the athletic department has seen tremendous turnover.

Roger Allerheiligen, who runs a barber shop in Aggieville, said news of Hughes’ dismissal after turning up on the state’s sexual offender registry had been a constant source of conversation Tuesday.

“It’s unfortunate we’re losing some people,” Allerheiligen said. “You question the losses a little bit, to a point. But the coaches have to set a precedent and run a program.”

There’s plenty of excitement on campus as fall approaches, with new football coach Ron Prince taking over for Bill Snyder and Bob Huggins beginning his resurrection of the men’s basketball program.

Still, those high hopes have been tempered by a rash of unwanted publicity – including the loss of major players in Kansas State’s three most visible sports.

But school officials are not alarmed at what some see as problems in football and men’s and women’s basketball. They insist that the unusually high number of defections and suspensions are merely an unfortunate coincidence.

“It just seems like we’ve had our annual quota all within a two-week period,” associate athletic director Jim Epps said.

In men’s basketball, Huggins’ introduction to Manhattan included suspending forward Cartier Martin indefinitely and kicking point guard Mario Taybron off the team for violating its substance-abuse policy.

Then on Monday, athletic director Tim Weiser announced Hughes had been dismissed after his name appeared in the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s database of registered sex offenders.

The 21-year-old senior was registered May 5 for aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison said Hughes was under 18 at the time of the offense, but authorities did not find out about it until recently.

“It’s been a tough start, but he’s a veteran and he seems unfazed,” Epps said of Huggins. “It has given him pause, but he’ll be fine.”

Dismissals haven’t been relegated solely to the men’s basketball program, though.

The transition to Prince’s regime has included the defections of quarterbacks Allen Webb and Allan Evridge, who combined to start every game last year, as well as offensive lineman Ryan Schmidt and wide receiver Ro Grigsby.

Evridge’s departure came within a week of starting fall camp, leaving Kansas State with only two scholarship quarterbacks. Evridge said that despite starting six games and breaking several freshman passing records in 2005, he thought he was not given a fair chance at winning the starting job.

Coach Deb Patterson’s women’s basketball team has not been exempt of controversy, either.

Coming off a postseason WNIT title, the Wildcats had expected to return their top six scorers from a team that finished 24-10. But in June, center JoAnn Hamlin and guard Twiggy McIntyre suddenly announced they were transferring, taking with them nearly 20 points per game.

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