Calvin Clements will visit Kansas, recovering from injury

Calvin Clements is looking forward to getting back on the Kansas campus this weekend for the Kentucky basketball game.

Although Clements lives a short drive from KU he has not been on campus since the fall when he took an unofficial visit. Much of that has to do with the fact he is going through rehab on a late season injury.

“In the last game about third quarter, I broke my ankle,” Clements said. “I'm back walking again, so I'm up on two feet. Recovery's going great. I'm ready to get back into stuff.”

He went in for surgery shortly after the season ended and is seeing steady progress.

“It's been rough, but I haven't had a terrible problem with it,” he said. “The whole recovery process has gone well, and surgery went well. Surgery was about a week after I got hurt and it's been a little over two months now since surgery.

“Three months recovery in all, but also we're not really going by deadlines, more on physical therapy and how my range motion is. But I just started walking again, so that's been a positive, because crutches were annoying, but it's been good.”

He hopes to work out with his team this spring and has been focusing mainly on upper body training.

Clements, from Free State High, has been talking with Kansas offensive line coach Scott Fuchs since last summer.

“It's been good, and I definitely like developing relationships with him and Coach Leipold and the coaching staff since they've come to Lawrence,” Clements said. “KU Football has gone through a couple coaches over the past couple years and these coaches coming in, it's been really good to develop relationships with them and meet them. They're a really good coaching staff, seem like really, really good smart dudes. They know what they're talking about.”

There is a Free State connection with the KU football program. Both Leipold and Fuchs have sons that attend Free State (Landon Leipold-Hank Fuchs). Clements said he also attends the same church as the Fuchs family.

Living in Lawrence, Clements has followed the Jayhawks and saw some of the building blocks put in place during Leipold’s first year.

“It was really cool to see the successes they had,” Clements said. “I've lived in Lawrence for a while, and I've always grown up a KU fan. So being able to see them go through changes and this first year, they've had some high notes.

“And it looks like they're getting a couple of recruits in, so they're doing a good job overall recruiting, and it's fun to see the program that I've grown up a fan of start to do well.”

Clements has built a solid offer list from Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Nebraska, Baylor and Oklahoma State. The Huskers were the most recent with an offer this week.

He visited Iowa State last weekend and plans to see Baylor after Kansas.