Rusty Thomas couldn’t believe what she was reading.

“I’m amazed and stunned,” Thomas said. “I don’t understand why there is a such a lack of trust.”

Thomas, a Lawrence businesswoman, helped resurrect the Kansas University Quarterback Club four years ago after the athletic department had dropped it.

Now, the athletic department again has taken over the KU QB Club, but with one notable change: Everyone who joins the club must agree in writing that everything said during the meetings cannot be repeated.

“Does that mean I can’t tell my husband when I go home?” Thomas said. “That’s a little strange. I’m just surprised they’re asking us to do that.”

Included in that off-the-record requirement is the posting of any KU QB Club commentary or occurrences on Web message boards.

“I don’t see how they can prevent that,” Thomas said. “I have a Web name and nobody would guess it was me, so I could post anything I wanted.”

Thomas stressed, however, that she wouldn’t do such a thing.

“In the Quarterback Club and in the Roundball Club,” she said, “the press isn’t there, and there has been an unwritten policy that what was said there stayed there.”

Thomas, a longtime KU booster, also has attended Roundball Club meetings over the years and she concedes not everyone followed that unwritten rule because former coach Roy Williams often complained about the message boards.

Thomas had been planning, as usual, to join the new KU Quarterback Club this fall even though she would have to miss three or four meetings because they will occur on nights she is scheduled to work in her part-time job as a volleyball official.

Now, however, she is having second thoughts because of the cloak-of-silence provision.

“I’m not sure I’ll sign it,” she said. “I’ll have to talk to my legal counsel about the ramifications. I don’t sign anything without advice of counsel.”