Olathe Northwest&#x2019;s Nick Bandy and his family were enjoying a spring break trip to Florida in mid-March when the bizarre call came from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where Bandy had signed a football letter of intent a month earlier.</p><p>The school was dropping football, effective immediately.</p><p>Just like that, Nebraska-Omaha pulled the rug out from scores of returning players, sending a class of 20 signed recruits that included seven from the Kansas City area back on the trail.</p><p>&#x201C;Deciding on a school was such a hard decision to make, then to have it taken away, it&#x2019;s definitely been frustrating,&#x201D; said Bandy&#x2019;s mother, Bridget.</p><p>The timing left recruits, parents, coaches and everybody else scratching their heads. Signing day was Feb. 2. The announcement to drop football and wrestling, part of the school&#x2019;s transition from Division II to Division I, happened March 13.</p><p>&#x201C;The athletic director had to know it was happening in February,&#x201D; Bandy said. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s unconscionable what he did to these athletes.&#x201D;</p><p>Nebraska-Omaha athletic director Trev Alberts didn&#x2019;t respond to an interview request by The Star. He said when the school dropped the sports that the school could no longer to afford to support football and that the athletic department would have been out of business in five years at its current funding pace.</p><p>The Mavericks, who have been members of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association since 2007, have been accepted into the Summit League, which includes UMKC. They&#x2019;ll become a full-time member in 2012-13.</p><p>But the changes left many scrambling. Some have found satisfying alternatives. Others, like Bandy, are still weighing options &#x2014; and the same is true for the players who have eligibility remaining, a dozen or so from the Kansas City area.</p><p>Recruiting routes take different twists and turns, and so have the re-recruiting paths, which started after schools had exhausted most of their scholarship funding.</p><p>The football recruits began receiving calls the day of the announcement from the coaching staff, including head coach Pat Behrns, and the work began immediately to find alternatives, with many working with their high school coaches.</p><p>At least two who signed with Nebraska-Omaha, Liberty offensive tackle Kyle Starke and Lee&#x2019;s Summit West linebacker Ben Poeschl, are walking on &#x2014; receiving no athletic scholarship assistance &#x2014; at Missouri and Arkansas, respectively.</p><p>Lee&#x2019;s Summit linebacker Montrae Strickland thought he had found the ideal school, signing with Nebraska-Omaha after turning down an offer from Central Missouri.</p><p>&#x201C;But this placed him in a nightmare situation,&#x201D; Lee&#x2019;s Summit coach Eric Thomas said. &#x201C;If a school had money left, they were going to give it to proven players, not necessarily an incoming freshman.&#x201D;</p><p>Meaning some Mavericks recruits were competing with Nebraska-Omaha transfers for funding.</p><p>Strickland plans to accept Nebraska-Omaha&#x2019;s scholarship. The school will follow through with scholarship offers, honoring grants for four years. No team, but a free education.</p><p>&#x201C;He can work with the strength and conditioning coaches and see where it stands after a year,&#x201D; Thomas said.</p><p>The MIAA received a waiver from the NCAA that allowed re-recruiting of athletes during a quiet recruiting period, and the conference waived its rule that required athletes to sit out a year when transferring within the conference, which paves the way for at least two Olathe North players to suit up for Pittsburg State next season.</p><p>Linebacker Kyle Swartz, who signed with the Mavericks, will join freshman safety Jason Peete at Pittsburg.</p><p>James Franklin, the Mavericks&#x2019; second-leading rusher last season, is looking at Pittsburg and Northwest Missouri, said Olathe North coach Pete Flood.</p><p>&#x201C;Hopefully, everybody will land on their feet,&#x201D; Flood said. &#x201C;The (Nebraska-Omaha) coaches have been working to help the kids. They&#x2019;ve opened their film room, made phone calls. It just caught everybody off guard.&#x201D;</p><p>Including the MIAA, which had just worked out the scheduling logistics of conference expansion. The league was to be at 12 members next season and 16 for 2012-13.</p><p>But schedules can be fixed. MIAA commissioner Bob Boerigter said his heart goes out the athletes whose lives are affected by the decision.</p><p>&#x201C;You get a player who has put three or four years of growth into a program with one or two years left, and now he&#x2019;s at another school, didn&#x2019;t to go through spring practice,&#x201D; Boerigter said. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s going to be a challenge for them.&#x201D;

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