Sydney Jaynes may sign many autographs before her basketball career is over, but the ones she wrote out Wednesday afternoon will be among the most important.
After school and before Trinity Lutheran’s practice, surrounded by friends and family in the gym inside the Bollinger Athletic Complex decorated for the occasion, she signed a letter of intent to commit to playing college ball for Butler.
The moment, in a logical place where Jaynes spent so much time playing volleyball as well as basketball, culminated a year-and-a-half recruitment adventure that left her with souvenir piles of mail from coaches and took her on a 12-school tour of the region.
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Jaynes leaned toward NCAA Division I Butler early, made a verbal commitment last spring and put her name to the critical pieces of paper Wednesday.
“At first, I wanted to go far away. In the end, I had to figure out what I truly wanted,” Jaynes said. “The people there (at Butler) are amazing.”
Butler is a member of the Big East Conference, and the 2020-21 team is coming off a 19-11 record.
The Bulldogs are getting a 6-foot-3 player who can handle the ball and who averaged 15.8 points per game last winter for a 24-4 Class A Indiana team located 71 miles to the south.
“In terms of basketball, Sydney is the most unselfish player I’ve ever coached,” said longtime Cougars coach Mike Lang. “She’s just an amazing passer. She just sees the floor so well. She has a high basketball IQ.”
Although Trinity is a smaller school, Lang said it is not as difficult for a player from such a place to be found by scouts if they compete in AAU ball.
“They’re getting noticed,” Lang said. “That’s where it’s at. It’s not about the size of the school anymore.”
Lang said he recalls there being as many as 12 Division I coaches in the stands at one time watching the Cougars.
“We never sent highlight tapes,” he said. “They get the whole game film on her.”
Despite Jaynes’ grand sweep through the region checking out schools — all within a four-hour driving radius — Lang said he thinks Butler was always near the front of the pack.
“It was always about where you’re comfortable with,” Lang said. “She came back around to Butler. Her heart was always with Butler.”
Jaynes sat at a long table with her father Doug, mother Mary Ellen and sister Grace when she signed her official paperwork. There was a Trinity Lutheran curtain hanging behind them and a stand of balloons, one of which read, “Congratulations.” A table of cold drinks and baked goods, including Butler cookies, were available for guests.
Doug played football, defensive back, at Hanover College. Mary Ellen played basketball for Seymour High School.
“We’re feeling pretty blessed,” Doug Jaynes said. “There’s been a lot of hard work. We’re overjoyed.”
Mary Ellen Jaynes said recruiting from start to finish involved many facets.
“There were 10 to 15 letters a week,” she said. “Texts. Emails. It was exhilarating and overwhelming at the same time.”
The family has boxes of mail addressed to Sydney from interested basketball coaches and plans to save it all.
“Oh yes,” Mary Ellen said. “Those are memories. It’s like we won the lottery. It’s once in a lifetime. You want to enjoy it a little bit.”
After signing the papers that will send her to school in Indianapolis for the next four years, Sydney briefly addressed the crowd that included teammates from the recently concluded volleyball season and the just-starting high school basketball season.
“It means the world,” she said of having so many people close to her in the building. “I’m just so glad I had such great friends and family to help me along the way.”
Jaynes and her immediate family members have already invested heavily in Butler wardrobe items and mom, dad and sis as well as Sydney all wore Butler T-shirts or sweatshirts.
Sydney said she already owns several of each, plus a jacket. Asked if she still has room in her closet with the Bulldog additions, she said, “I don’t know.”
Even though Jaynes’ Butler decision was made in the spring she said the whole recruiting process has been crazy.
“These past few days, it’s felt so real,” she said.
And Wednesday it became officially real that Sydney Jaynes is off to Butler.