PREP PROFILE: Versatile athletes help Linton emerge triumphant in football, basketball

Nov. 11—Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Or, to ask another hard-to-answer question, does Linton's high school football team have a lot of basketball players, as Joe Hart opined recently, or are there a lot of football players on the Linton basketball team?

As Billy Martin once said in a Miller Lite commercial, "I feel very strongly both ways." And so does coach Brian Oliver of the Miner football team.

"We have a family concept," Oliver said this week. "We welcome anybody. You win by numbers."

One of the key members of the Miners, who host Lapel at 7:30 p.m. Friday in a Class 2A regional football game, is senior lineman and captain Wrigley Franklin. He's played both sports for four years and is a returning starter in basketball too, although he admits he's a football player who also plays basketball.

"Football's my main sport, but I've been a basketball player," Franklin said this week. "It's a good dynamic: I'm a role guy in basketball, but a captain in football."

Recent converts to football are senior wide receiver Logan Webb and junior wingback/safety Braden Walters.

This is Webb's second season as a football player, thanks to a deal he made with his quarterback. "[Hunter Gennicks] said if I played football, he would play basketball," Webb said, so Gennicks is now also a two-sport athlete.

Walters is even newer. "Coach Ollie said, 'Come to the first practice [this fall] and see if you like it,'" Walters said this week.

Walters says he's a basketball player playing football, but he's come far enough in two months to be a key member of the offense and, as last week's Sullivan game demonstrated more than once, a fierce hitter on the Linton defense. That's going to help, the 6-foot-5 post player said, when basketball season starts too.

"[Playing football] got me to lift more," he said. "It's made me faster and given me more agility [and, he admitted, maybe a little bit meanness]."

Webb is a slightly different story. Although he was a basketball player playing football last year — Gennicks had no doubt noticed that a 6-3 target would help the Miners' passing game — Webb is now attracting recruiting interest in football.

"Last year was the first time I ever touched a football," Webb said this week. "I loved it. When [Gennicks] asked me this summer if I was coming back [to football], I said, 'Absolutely.' The experience of a football game is kind of unmatched, and so is the bond these guys have together."

Oliver, as already indicated, is happy to have all of them. Since the season started the football team has also added kicker Nathan Frady from the basketball team, and freshman Paul Oliver — the coach's son — is expected to be a key member of the basketball team in a few weeks.

There's no rivalry among the coaches at Linton. Coach Joey Hart of the basketball team occasionally practices late during the preseason to enable the football players to get some work on the court — the day after the Miners won the football state championship in 2016, for example, several football players were in uniform for a basketball tournament the following morning because they'd had the required number of practices.

"I have no problem being flexible," coach Oliver said this week. "My job is to get athletes to play."

The flexibility seems to be working. The Miners are ranked first in the state as the football playoffs continue, and when the basketball preseason poll comes out shortly, expect Linton to be very high in that poll as well.

"We want to win the state in football," Walters said, "and basketball will have a great year. We'll try to win in two sports."

"I think we have a good chance [to keep winning] in football if we study the game," Webb said. "Basketball? Same thing. We have the pieces, just have to put them together."

"We're playing [football] pretty well so far," added Franklin. "If we play well, we can go as far as we want to."

"Wrigley started as a sophomore [in football]," said coach Oliver, who uses the 6-2, 220-pounder at right guard and at outside linebacker or defensive end. "He's definitely a team player who always knows his role. We're lucky to have him as a captain."

Webb and Walters? "I thanked them for coming out," the coach said. "They've been a huge benefit on the field and off the field. Great competitors."

* About Lapel

* — The visiting Bulldogs come in with just a 7-5 record, compared to Linton's 12-0, but avenged a regular-season loss to a ranked Heritage Christian team to reach the regional and pose some challenges.

"They have really good size up front," Oliver said of the Bulldogs. "They have a senior running back, Tyler Dollar, who is very explosive — great speed and a power runner. Their defense is very aggressive; they like to bring a lot of pressure.

"We need to play our game like we typically have. Stay disciplined and use or speed to our advantage."