Kyle Parker talks with the media for first time since signing with Rockies

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Aug 19 20:26:54 GMT-04:00 2010

CLEMSON – Clemson quarterback Kyle Parker walked off of the practice fields on Thursday and met with the Clemson media for the first time since signing his contract with the Colorado Rockies late Monday night, and he answered questions about the process and his future plans.

The following is a transcript:

TN: Does it feel good to this out of the way and concentrate solely on football now?

KP: This is a big relief. I am happy to put this behind me. I am tremendously blessed and happy. There are a lot of options open to me, but I am ready to focus on football and get into a routine here at Clemson.

TN: How late did it get before you finally signed? Did it go to midnight?

KP: It went all the way to the deadline, and it was really stressful. I don’t why it’s like that – going all the way to the end like that – but we did the best we could with it. I am blessed to be in this situation and happy to have it behind us. It went all the way to 11:55 and there was a lot of heavy language and indecision, though.

TN; Are you pleased with the way it turned out?

KP: I am definitely pleased. I am going to get paid a tremendous amount of money to do something I’ve been doing for free for so long, so I don’t see how you could take something like that for granted. I know I am blessed to have options a lot of people don’t have.

TN: What is the next step with the Rockies?

KP: I am not doing anything with them until spring training. I am going to do this until I show up at spring training in March.

TN: What obligations do you have to them until that time?

KP: Nothing, just show up in spring training. I have the opportunity to play a professional sport and I am looking forward to it.

TN: Are you going to be taking any swings or is it football only?

KP: I didn’t swing any last year. I am even more excited about doing it this way, because here we start playing baseball games in February. Now I have a legitimate amount of time after we stop playing here. This is a lot more time in between turnarounds.

TN: Do you have any guess on why the two sides were so far apart?

KP: They wanted to know that I wanted to play baseball, and that I wasn’t using this as an excuse to just get more money. Obviously, I wouldn’t have signed with them unless I wanted to play baseball. I am happy to have that path created for me, and I’m glad the organization values me and wants to get me to the highest level.

TN: Do you have any thoughts about playing football beyond Clemson?

KP: I wouldn’t be back here playing if I didn’t think I wasn’t any good or have a future. How this will weigh on baseball, I don’t know. At the end of the season, we’ll sit back and look and make an evaluation, and if there isn’t anything there I’ll go play baseball and have fun doing that. I have fun doing both.

TN: Do you think both sides are happy?

KP: I am sure both sides walked away not getting everything that they wanted. I don’t want to sit back and think about the negatives or what didn’t happen, because there is a lot of positive that happened, too. In the end, I hope they think they got a good player.

TN: Have the guys been teasing you or asking you to go buy dinner?

KP: I haven’t gotten paid yet. I am the same broke college student as anyone else on this campus right now.

TN: What about the process surprised you?

KP: The thickness of the contract. It is thick, and there is a lot of legal language, little phrases that you have to look out for. In my case, it made it more difficult, because there is a lot that could happen and neither side would want the short end of the stick. You have a 14-page contract, and there are two words that could really affect my future. I wanted everything to be right.