KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
—
Whether it’s the House settlement, NIL deals or the transfer portal, the language we use around college sports has changed a lot in recent years.
But change hasn’t been as seismic at the Division II level.
“That's not really why I'm here to play,” Central Missouri freshman guard Jolie Bonderer, a Chillicothe graduate, said. “I'm here to play because I love the sport.”
Dave Slifer, who is in his 21st season as the Jennies’ women’s basketball coach and 36th overall in the college coaching ranks, acknowledged that the job isn’t what it used to be.
“It's a different deal right now,” he said, “and as you see a lot of the older coaches are getting out of it. The portal’s made a lot of difference. Kids can transfer anywhere, so right now we're looking kind of at a year-to-year deal for everybody. ... The power has definitely shifted from the coaches to the players — and that's a tough thing to navigate, but that's what we're doing.”
Slifer doesn’t begrudge the shifting landscape, because he sees the investment — in time, energy and passion — his players, including recent UCM Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Paige Redmond, make.
“She won the Elite Eight Most Valuable Player Award in 2018 when we won the national championship,” Slifer said. “This is a young lady that, every morning at our gym, she would be in at 7 a.m. putting up shots. She knew every game she went into, ‘Hey, I'm more prepared than everybody that I play against. That's why I'm good.’”
Playing college athletics is basically a part-time job in addition to being a full-time student, according to UCM junior guard and Grandview graduate Cierra Smith.
Smith said the Jennies practice for two to three hours six days a week — unless they are traveling to games, which sometimes involves hours-long bus trips. She also comes in for an extra 30 minutes to an hour most days to get some extra work.
The payoff for D-II athletes isn’t as great — at least financially — as it is for their major-college peers.
“That's a big part of being D-II — you don't get as much, but, you know, it's something,” Smith said.
Bonderer said the money involved in the game might be different, but the glory that comes with winning is transcendent.
“It's the same adrenaline you get out on the court,” she said. “A game-winning three is the same on a D-II court. ... They're putting in the same work. Everyone's striving to go get a ‘dub’ every night. It's a grind, like you got to show up every day to put in that work.”
UCM plays in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, or MIAA — an NCAA Division II conference, which is staging its men’s and women’s postseason basketball tournaments this week at Municipal Auditorium.
RELATED | Let Madness begin: Few cities do March basketball like Kansas City
“We do have some student-athletes that will be playing in this tournament that are receiving name, image, likeness, money,” MIAA Commissioner Mike Racy said.
It’s not quite the same level many athletes earn in the Big 12, which is staging its women’s basketball tournament at the T-Mobile Center this week with the men’s tourney set for next week, but every little bit helps.
“In Division II, almost every one of our student-athletes that will be playing in this tournament, if they're on scholarship, it's a partial scholarship,” Racy said.
MIAA kids aren’t getting go-buy-a-new-car money, but “it's helping them figure out how to pay for books or pay for their housing, those unmet expenses that they need to meet to be able to continue to be a student on campus,” according to Racy.
Meanwhile, the grind is no different — save the end goal for most D-II athletes.
“These kids are skilled, they're passionate, and they're great students,” Slifer said.
Racy added, “They realize that college sports is probably it, so the degree, the reason they're there is to graduate, to get a degree, to figure out what's next after sports.”
But they’re in no rush to race through their playing careers.
Bonderer said her mom played college basketball, so she grew up dreaming of playing college basketball — at any level.
For me, it's definitely the chance to keep going for a little longer,” she said. “I couldn't imagine — me and my roommate, the other freshman, Taylor (Weishaar), we've talked about, ‘What would we be doing right now if not playing basketball? ... I don't think I'd join a sorority, so I'm thankful to continue to be able to play.”
The MIAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships tipped off Wednesday and continue through Sunday at Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City.
The championship games can be seen on KSHB’s sister station, 38 the Spot.
—
