Petey needs a place to play

Having your college close its doors for the remainder of the school year is enough of a headache on its own.

The same university closing permanently presents another host of issues.

Those are compounded for athletes, and Payton Jutte suddenly finds himself scrambling to figure out the next step in his basketball journey.

“Petey” Jutte, a 2019 Fort Recovery High School graduate, was one of more than 1,000 students who will have to find a new academic — for Jutte especially, also an athletic — home next year as Urbana University announced Tuesday it would cease operation at the end of the spring semester as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Honestly, it’s heartbreaking,” said Jutte, who was first alerted of the closure through a text message from his assistant coach. “I was ready to have an impact year. I was ready to finally play this year, make the jump to the next level like I was hoping to do last year.

“It’s heartbreaking. That’s honestly the word I would describe it as. I would have never expected something like this to happen.”

Located in Urbana, Ohio, the school is a branch campus of Franklin University in Columbus. It is a private liberal arts school with slightly more than 1,200 students.

A month ago, Urbana shifted to online coursework in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday, Urbana students were alerted via email of the university’s plans to cease enrollment at the end of the semester.

“As time goes by and the impact of the current situation grows, we continue to re-evaluate and adjust,” Dr. Christopher Washington, the campus’s executive vice president, said in the email to students obtained by The Commercial Review. “After exhausting all alternatives, we’ve made the very difficult decision to close Urbana University Branch Campus at the end of the Spring 2020 term. Despite the progress we’ve made over the last six years, we were still short of where we needed to be when the global coronavirus pandemic added a layer of difficulty that made our growth efforts impossible to achieve.

“I know that this news on top of all the uncertainty that has enveloped your life over the past month is a lot to process. A decision of this magnitude is never easy, but in light of the current circumstances it is the right decision.”

Urbana had been in operation since 1850.

Now, Jutte is left with not only finding a new place to pursue his business degree, but also where to play the three remaining years of his basketball career.

After graduating from Fort Recovery, Jutte attended Thomas More University, an NAIA Division I institution — it was NCAA Division III until 2019 — in Crestview Hills, Kentucky.

Jutte was acquainted with the Saints’ assistant coach since his freshman year as an Indian, and that connection was a main driving force in getting the 6-foot, 4-inch, 170-pound guard to go south. But that coach took a job as a high school athletics director in Michigan prior to Jutte’s arrival, and he didn’t hear of the news until he got to TMU.

Jutte wasn’t able to establish a relationship with the coaching staff and was granted his release from the program. He transferred to Urbana at the end of the fall semester and had to sit out the remainder of his freshman season.

Now he’s had to re-open his recruitment in an effort to land somewhere else to continue playing basketball. He had entered the NCAA transfer portal, which according to the NCAA is a compliance tool to help athletes manage the transfer process. The portal, which makes other coaches aware of Jutte’s intention to transfer, has his contact information should other programs show interest.

“It’s up to relationships,” Jutte said of what he has to rely on to find a new home. “It’s who you know, the people you know and the people they know.”

So it’s back to marketing himself as an athlete again. Jutte’s biggest hurdle, however, is the fact he has no recent film because he didn’t play as a freshman. All he has is what he was able to compile at Fort Recovery.

“People don’t care about that because that’s two years ago,” he said. “It’ll be tough.”

Jutte, 19, said the thing he is looking for most in a potential landing spot is having a good relationship with the coaching staff like he did in high school. He credits his relationship with Michael Bashore, his coach as a junior and senior, as something he’d like to replicate in whomever becomes his new coach.

“He got literally everything out of me,” said Jutte, who is 11th in career scoring at Fort Recovery with 1,084 points, and is tied for the single season record for 3-pointers with 74. “I was not only playing for myself but playing for him and the team.”

At this point in an academic year, most basketball programs have their recruiting classes all but set, which is another thing that may complicate Jutte’s intention of finding a new place to play. At Fort Recovery, he was also being recruited by IU-East in Richmond, Indiana, as well as Mount Vernon Nazarene in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He has since reached out to them — the MVNU coach called him Tuesday night during an interview with The CR — in hopes of wearing a uniform someplace next season.

“I’m hoping to get lucky (and) find the right fit again,” he said. “Not sure what’s going to happen but obviously I hope to be playing again next year.”