Jenny Eckhart, a starting guard on the Syracuse women’s basketball team last year, told The Daily Orange Tuesday night she requested a release from her scholarship Aug. 25 to leave the Orange.

Eckhart has not been at SU since classes started and is living at home in Libertyville, Ill. She surprised interim head coach Quinton Hillsman with her intent to transfer.

‘Shocked,’ Hillsman said Tuesday. ‘Jenny and I talk. We communicated throughout the summer and it came as a big shock. Like I told Jenny, we definitely wish her the best. I want what’s best for her. But it was totally shocking.’

Eckhart’s request has not been approved yet. Both Eckhart and Michael Wasylenko, the chairman of the faculty oversight committee for athletics, said she still needs to submit a document explaining her decision on why she wants to leave Syracuse — a routine process for athletes seeking to leave a program.

‘Clearly if a student is being recruited by another institution and would want to go there she will be denied (until she receives a waiver),’ Wasylenko said. ‘That school would be written up. This is probably not the case.’

Since Eckhart is at home right now, she mentioned there is a possibility she will talk to the board via video conference. Wasylenko said in these procedures the board interviews the head coach and the respective player separately.

Eckhart is the first player to request to leave the Orange program since Hillsman took over as interim head coach on June 6 after former head coach Keith Cieplicki resigned. During Cieplicki’s three-year tenure, six players, two assistant coaches and one director of operations left the team.

Now Syracuse will be without one of their premier guards. Cintia Johnson played alongside Eckhart at point and shooting guard, interchangeably. While Hillsman acknowledged Eckhart’s strong work ethic and shooting abilities, he downplayed any major transition given Johnson’s experience.

Mary Jo Riley, Ashley McMillen, Fantasia Goodwin and top 50 prospect Nicole Michael will fill Syracuse’s backcourt. But Hillsman acknowledged Riley is the only player with point guard experience, dating back to her high school years at Robichaud High School in Inkster, Mich.

As close as Hillsman and her teammates are to Eckhart, some may not have known the frustration building up inside her. Eckhart said some of her close friends saw the signals but she admits she didn’t express too much of her frustrations. The unsuccessful 2-14 campaign in the Big East in 2006 bothered her, but that was one of the least of her worries.

Eckhart felt disappointment before she even stepped on campus when assistant coaches Morgan Hall and Mandy Ronay left the program in December 2004 and in the spring of 2005, respectively. Both of those coaches recruited Eckhart when she played for Carmel High School in Libertyville, Ill., where she finished as the team’s all-time leader in points and assists.

After Eckhart started all 27 games for the Orange and averaged 9.9 points a game last year, Cieplicki abruptly resigned this summer. Throughout Eckhart’s whole experience at Syracuse, she had to study and play at a place that wasn’t within close proximity of her family. As Eckhart is quite close to her family, it became too much for her to bear.

But she didn’t make a decision until after attending summer school and working out on her own at Syracuse.

‘A lot of people asked me, ‘Why didn’t you leave right then when (Cieplicki) resigned?” said Eckhart, who labeled Cieplicki’s departure as a significant factor given her close relationship with him. ‘It would’ve been a knee-jerk reaction. Coach (Hillsman) is a great coach and a great person. He will be very successful with our program. It’s not a slap on him at all asking for my release. But the reason I committed to Syracuse was no longer present.’

Eckhart admitted that even with Cieplicki coaching the team, she lost a love for the game at some point last year. After what she hopes to be a successful appeals process, Eckhart plans to look at schools in Illinois with a strong exercise science program. If the chance is there, Eckhart wouldn’t rule out another stint playing basketball for a new school.

‘I was not as thrilled as returning to Syracuse because of the distance,’ Eckhart said. ‘When Cieplicki resigned, it was disappointing to me because I had no idea it was coming. The bottom line was I was not happy there being away from home. There were so many little things. A large part of me wanted to return, stay close with my teammates, give it another shot and take my chances. But it didn’t work out.’

Published on September 4, 2006 at 12:00 pm