Dodge High standout prepares for football at KU

     Most Dodge City sports fans know the name Kale Pick.
    From his breakout junior season to the finger injury that sidelined the NCAA Division 1 prospect in the first game of his senior season, Pick was always a big fish in the southwest Kansas football pond.
    As it does for any athlete gifted enough to move onto the next level, the Pick Tributary has emptied into an ocean — the Big XII Ocean, to be exact. Pick made the decision to help himself out by graduating from Dodge City High School a semester early to take part in spring practice with the Jayhawk football team.
    “Actually, I decided about two weeks before the deadline on coming in early or not,” Pick said Tuesday during KU football media day at the new Anderson Family Football Complex. “I really wasn't for sure. I just made a choice and went with it.”
    Any early misgivings Pick may have had about his decision to miss his last semester of high school, and all that includes, have been assuaged by his progress so far on the football field, in the film room during spring practice sessions and during the first four practices of the summer.
    “As a quarterback coming into the Division 1 level, I recommend all quarterbacks to come in early just to learn the playbook and get to know it before two-a-days,” Pick said. “It'll run so much smoother for them.”
    He added that the playbook the coaching staff handed him upon his arrival was about two inches thick. A text like that can make an incoming freshman's 12-hour course load seem like 15 or even 18 pretty quick.
    Pick said the learning curve jumping from a high school mentality to a college program was a steep one. But he said he has been able to manage thus far, with the help of the quarterbacks in front of him.
     “It's nice to have a quarterback in front of you that's as good as Todd [Reesing],” Pick said. “If you have a question, you just ask Todd or Tyler [Lawrence] or Kerry [Meier], any one of them.”
    Meier is listed as second on the depth chart at quarterback and as part of the first string at the wide receiver position, so just how many quarterbacks are in front of Pick in his first season remains unclear.
    The fresh-faced first-year Jayhawk said he has added five pounds to his 6-foot, 2-inch frame since arriving in Lawrence in the spring semester and now sits at 205 pounds.
    Pick's biggest goal for his development thus far, though, has been grasping the Jayhawks' complex offensive schemes.
    “I think I'm doing good,” Pick said. “A big part of why I came here was the offense. I think it fits me perfect, the no-huddle: It's just kind of on the move all the time. It's a quick offensive setup and go.”
    Pick showed he could move the ball up and down the field in a hurry in high school by setting career records for passing attempts (291), completions (154), yards (2,625) and touchdowns (28).
    Even though the Red Demon offensive attack had traditionally been run-based before Pick played under head coach Justin Burke's schemes, he set the career marks in spite of an injury-shortened senior year. 
    But high school records don't translate to automatic success at the next level, and Pick realizes that he is at the stage of his collegiate experience when he must pay his dues. It is his charge to prepare and improve.
    His early development on the field has fallen under the direct supervision of KU offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Ed Warinner.
    “We (the quarterbacks) have meetings with him every day during two-a-days,” Pick said. “He's by our side all practice, making us learn, seeing what we're doing wrong and correcting us.”
    Having a coach take apart Pick's game in the spring was something the quarterback had never experienced, as there is no spring football practice for Kansas public high school football programs.
    However, Pick said that adjustment was easy to make when he arrived in Lawrence for his first spring practices.
    “Every time you have 11 defenders looking at you and they're all in full pads, it gets you pretty jacked up,” he said.