Kenton Thornton

[50's PONY]

Thornton Still Undecided About College Plans

By Greg Ford Sports Editor

St. Mark’s senior expects to make final decision before the end of the month

Will Kenton Thornton of St. Mark’s follow the route of his brothers and head south to Austin, or will the star football and basketball player take his talents elsewhere.

That, as it has been said in the past, is the $64,000 question.

“Basically, I’m waiting,” said Thornton. “The basketball signing is a little bit later (this year). Maybe I'll choose basketball. I'm not sure I'll take the football route.”

Thornton has made an oral commitment to University of Texas for football. The first day to officially sign a national letter-of-intent was Feb. 4. As for basketball, Thornton said he’s looking at such schools as Davidson and SMU.

“I’ll probably make my decision in a couple of weeks,” Thornton said following a season-ending win Friday over Greenhill.

His two brothers, Kalen and Kyle, both play football with the Longhorns.

Kalen just completed his senior season with the team, while Kyle is a freshman at the school.










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[LA_Mustang]

WOW! He is a helluva football player, not sure about basketball. Get him to the hilltop and let him play both sports.

I looked at St Marks schedule and they have won 15 in a row and 27-6 overall. They played a very good Irving MacArhtur team close 64-61 with Thornton scoring 15pts. He was their leading score in most games this year.

50s, what paper was that reported in?

[50's PONY]

North Dallas People!

[Stallion]

something sounds fishy! SMU doesn't have any BB scholarships availiable to give this year- do they? Me thinks UT tried to convince Thorton to greyshirt and he's thinking it over.

[Mustangs35SMU]

WOW! He is a helluva football player, not sure about basketball. Get him to the hilltop and let him play both sports.

Amen to that!

[LA_Mustang]

But couldn't he be on scholarship as a football and play as a walk-on in bball? That is assuming he would want to play both sports. I cant imagine he would give up football all together?? Wouldn't he be our highest ranked football recruit....3 star/5.5 on rivals?

[Mike Damone]

We could give him a football scholarship and he could play both. But then he wouldn't join the basketball team until December at the earliest. Bennett and Dement would have to work it out.

[PonyFan]

I've seen him play both sports. Trust me, he could play for SMU in either sport ... especially football. If there's any way we could pull him to SMU, it would be quite a coup.

[PonyFan]

OK, how come some people's Avatar images appear and others' don't?

[PK]

Operator error???

[PonyFan]

Possibly. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Think about it: Coach Bennett has said he wants to get bigger and more athletic at the WR spot. Reynaldo Pellerin is 6-3 and athletic, albeit a little raw. Bobby Chase is 6-4 and athletic. Kenton Thornton is probably closer to 6-6 than 6-5, and a terrific all-around athlete. That sounds like a monstrous upgrade in the size and athleticism areas. Granted, none of these guys is a 4.3 burner -- otherwise, you'd have everyone from OU to UT to Florida State at their doors. But all three can run. We saw a little bit of what Pellerin can do at the end of the season last year. Throw Jay'Mond Cleveland and Devin Lowery in the mix and you have a WR crew with good size and athleticism. Adding Thornton would be huge (no pun intended).

[Charleston Pony]

we can always hope this is one of those surprises some people have hinted at. We could use another 2 sport guy at SMU...assuming that's what he wants to do.

[LA_Mustang]

I have two questions:

1) Did he not sign with UT on National Signing Day?
2) Is any recruiting service reporting this? Not that I dont trust the North Dallas People, but......

[Mike Damone]

Personally I think this is a long shot considering we've never been mentioned by jhim publicly. But to answer your question, he never signed his letter of intent with UT. I find that strange due to his family situation and because he supposedly was waiting for the UT offer for a while and finally got it. Unless he didn't really get one like Stallion said and was asked to greyshirt.

Also, I had heard UT was going to allow him to walk-on in basketball after football season. This is all we could offer to him as well. The only difference would be PT in both sports.

[giacfsp]

we can always hope this is one of those surprises some people have hinted at. We could use another 2 sport guy at SMU...assuming that's what he wants to do.

Absolutely he wants to play both sports. That's why he didn't sign with Texas. He's been a UT fan/supporter since Kalen went there four or five (?) years ago, and now that Kyle is there, it was seen by many as a lock. But from what I understand, Rick Barnes showed no interest in him. If he's allowed to walk on at UT in basketball, it's probably only being done so the Mayor of Austin (Mack Brown) can add another player. I read (on PonyFans.com) that his interest in Colorado State and Cal during the season stemmed in large part from the fact that both schools agreed to let him play both sports. Why he didn't sign with one of them, I don't know.

And of course, I also don't know what arrangement Coach Bennett and Coach Dement might work out about it, but given all of Coach Bennett's comments about wanting bigger WRs, you'd think he'd have serious interest. This kid is big and could still add a ton of strength/muscle. If there's any way to pull this off, we should.