It’s been more than a year since the ISU athletic department sent shock waves through the university with the announcement that the baseball program’s 109th year of existence would be its last.

Several former players have found new homes at schools around the country, including Lincoln Mincks, who enrolled at the University of Central Florida.

Mincks said he doesn’t hold any grudges toward Iowa State for cutting the program.

“At first, I was upset,” he said. “After a couple of days, the calls came in.”

Mincks said it was then that he realized his abundance of options.

“I don’t look down at ISU at all,” he said. “They helped me out. I was kind of thankful; I looked forward to the opportunities ahead.”

The former pitcher said he chose UCF over Arizona State, Hawaii, Nebraska and Illinois, because the school was losing their top two pitchers and had a tradition as a winning program. Mincks said he doesn’t regret his decision and enjoys being with a program that’s expected to win, rather than the “dogfight” he experienced in nearly every game last season at Iowa State.

The Golden Knights are 28-19 this season, and Mincks is 6-4 with a 3.67 ERA in the games he’s pitched.

Unlike Mincks, former Cyclone infielder Jake Brown chose to stay in Big 12 territory.

The senior said he wasn’t in a hurry to decide on his future plans after he heard the announcement because he wanted to stay focused on the season at hand.

Brown landed at Texas Tech after the school’s coaches noticed his play in last year’s Big 12 Tournament.

He said the quality of the league helped him make his choice.

“I really wanted to stay in the Big 12 because it’s a good conference,” Brown said. “It definitely had an impact on my decision.”

Brown has enjoyed his time at his new home because “the baseball scene at Tech is a lot bigger,” he said.

He has started in 33 of the 50 games for the Red Raiders and sports a 94 percent fielding percentage as an infielder.

Like Mincks, Brown was not bitter toward Iowa State or the athletic department.

“I have no hard feelings,” he said. “We all hated to lose the program, but I don’t feel like it’s anybody’s fault. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

Former Cyclone hurler Aaron Paterson – originally from Cedar Rapids – said he misses Iowa State sometimes.

The senior went to the University of Northern Iowa after last season, but it didn’t work out.

He enrolled at Missouri in January and now competes against some of his former Cyclone teammates.

Paterson said his family still resides in Iowa and were involved in his decision to play for the Tigers.

“They were a little nervous at first about being down in Missouri,” he said. “They thought it would be too far to see my senior year. In fact, they’ve been fortunate to have seen quite a few games this year, pretty good supporters, I’d say.”

Paterson added that he’ll never forget his last season at Iowa State.

“That was my favorite and most memorable year of baseball ever,” he said.

In addition to Mincks, Brown and Paterson, at least 12 otherstudent-athletes transferred to other schools to continue their baseball careers.

In all, eight former Cyclones went to Division I universities. Except for Brian Furlong and Brent Jackson, who both transferred to Triton College near Chicago, no two players went to the same school after leaving Iowa State.

Three players – Brown, Paterson and Alan Bomer – remained inside the Big 12.

Bomer may be having the best season of any former ISU hardballers. After being drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the amateur draft following last season, he has a 7-2 record with the fifth-ranked Texas Longhorns. The junior from Altoona is second on the team with 59 strikeouts.

The Cyclone tradition is now scattered from Florida to Nevada, from Wisconsin to Texas. Just three players transferred to a school inside the state of Iowa.

Gian Longo, a former catcher for Iowa State, is one of the exceptions to the rash of transfers.

Longo, Pete Stavenger and Bobby Mestas all chose to stay at Iowa State instead of packing up and moving to another school.

Longo wasn’t on scholarship, so it was going to be a financial hurdle to transfer.

“It was going to be my senior year, and I decided not to deal with the hassle of going to another school,” the Iowa City native said. “I just decided to hang it up.”

Stavenger, a former pitcher, said academics won the battle over athletics for him. He has been on an academic scholarship the past three years and is still on an athletic scholarship. ISU Athletic Director Bruce Van De Velde announced last year that the university would honor the baseball scholarships if former players decided to stay at Iowa State.

“It’s a great university; it’s a great education,” Stavenger said. “Money didn’t play a huge part in it, but the academic benefits and the athletic benefits… [transferring] just wasn’t worth it.”

Stavenger said he was contacted by some smaller schools after the news got out, but he felt it would be a “step down” academically if he had decided to transfer to one of those schools. He also stuck around to stay with his friends despite his continuing love for baseball.

Not only did the players have to find new schools, some of the coaches did too.

Lyle Smith, who was the head baseball coach at Iowa State for six years, was unavailable for comment, but former ISU assistant Nick Zumsande said Smith recently took a job as the commissioner of the American Legion in South Dakota and is in the process of moving.

Zumsande, who is also an Iowa State alumnus, only worked for the Cyclones for one year as a pitching coach. He now resides at another ISU – Indiana State University – where he is an assistant.

Zumsande said that in addition to all of the players that left Iowa State, there were 16 players that had verbal or official commitments to the university for the 2001-02 season.

After the news that the program would be axed, those players had to make new plans as well.

Zumsande said he’s been keeping an eye on those players, and several true freshmen are making an impact at Division I programs around the country.

“Is there any talk of bringing the program back?” Zumsande asked during the interview.

We’ll have to wait and see.