GBJayhawk (anonymous) says...

Way to go Matt! Thanks so much for all your great work!

Like many of Jayhawk Nation, I've always had a HUGE soft spot for the walk-on players that fill out the end of the bench. You guys are the true spirit of living the dream, as so many thousands of us would KILL to get a chance to step on the floor of AFH with the team.

As a grad student in journalism, I wrote a piece on one of KU's walk-on players, TJ Whatley, for the Kansan. It was a lot of fun, and they ran the story on Senior Day when Whatley started.

What was even more impressive, to me, was earlier that season, on Valentine's Day. The team was struggling in the first half. Roy was getting steamed at the starters, and with about 2 minutes left in the first half, he called Whatley's
number.

Whatley leaped up, and the crowd roared. He calmly went in, got a defensive stop, and came back maybe even scored...

Talk about some noise!!! Allen Field House was just rocking!!! He was living the dream to the max, and everybody knew it!

And he got a degree in engineering, too. Great kid!

Rock Chalk!

March 5, 2009 at 1:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )