The Pittsburg without the “h” is not on the way to anything. Kansas City is two hours to the north. St. Louis is four-plus hours to the east. Fayetteville, Ark., is more than 100 miles south, and driving west merely gets you to Wichita, Kan.
“It’s a small town with nice, Midwestern people,” Trevor Kent said. “Kind of in the middle of nowhere.”
So when a Michigan coach informed Kent that Jim Harbaugh and staff members would be visiting Pittsburg State for a satellite camp, he was floored.
It did make sense in at least one respect: Kent is the highest-ranked prospect in Kansas, a 6-foot-5, 255-pound defensive end who drew offers from Nebraska, Oklahoma, Penn State and, yes, Michigan.
“(Michigan) was pretty hot on Trevor,” said his high school coach, Tom Nickelson.
Kent pledged to Northwestern in March, telling the Pittsburg Morning Sun: “I’m 100 percent committed to Northwestern.”
But that did not stop the Michigan coaches from visiting June 15, sandwiching it between a June 14 stop in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and a June 15 evening visit to Kansas City.
“They messaged me out of the blue and said, ‘We want you to attend,'” Kent recalled. “I thought it was weird because there are not any cities or towns close to us. But the community got excited and it was awesome having them here.”
Kent did not participate in drills but had a group lunch with Harbaugh and chatted with several coaches.
“They were pushing really hard for me to take a visit (to Ann Arbor),” Kent said. “They said, ‘It won’t hurt at all.’ But Coach Fitz (Pat Fitzgerald) doesn’t want us to take visits once we’ve committed. He looks at it as once you’re dating, you don’t go on dates with other people.”
Bottom line: Kent viewed the visit from Michigan as flattering and harmless.
In an interview with the Tribune, Harbaugh was asked if Kent was the inspiration for the satellite camp.
Harbaugh said the main goal was to huddle with coaches from Pitt State, the winningest program in Division II history. On top of that, wife Sarah Harbaugh is from Kansas City. Her sister’s husband coaches basketball at Blue Springs South High School, where the Michigan brigade visited hours after the morning visit to Pittsburg.
“We made calls to a lot of people (to set up the camps),” Harbaugh said, “and a lot of people made calls to us.”
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Kent had no connection to Northwestern when NU coaches began calling him and his high school coach.
“They are straight shooters, no B.S.,” Nickelson said. “That relates well to Trevor. He is a guy who sticks to his word.”
Kent is the third-ranked player in the Wildcats’ 19-man recruiting class, which is 44th nationally in the 247Sports.com composite rankings. The top three are all defensive linemen; Texans Earnest Brown and Sam Miller are the other two.
“He has always been big and athletic,” Nickelson said. “He has good genetics, a good work ethic, plays with a motor and plays angry. But if he ever got a 15-yard (penalty), it was for a facemask. He’s what you want — a nice guy in the hallways and an aggressive kid on the line.”
Kent’s father and uncle played football at Pitt State, and his mother was on the dance team. Trevor considered attending Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma and, briefly, Michigan.
But Northwestern won out. And as a side bonus, Kent won’t even have to change colors. Pittsburg High School’s nickname is the Purple Dragons.
Twitter @TeddyGreenstein