Two-sport standouts are alive and well
In this age of youngsters specializing more and more in one sport, it’s often said that the number of football-basketball standouts have dwindled greatly in the past few decades. But in Western Pennsylvania this school year, a number of high school athletes are doing special things in the two sports.
From small schools to big schools, from schools close to Pittsburgh to those on the outer limits of the WPIAL, you can find athletes doing a double take on sports success. For sure, the days of the football-basketball stars aren’t dead. At least in Western Pa.
“For me, I think I see it turning back a little the other way,” Upper St. Clair senior David Pantelis said. “I think I know more kids wanting to play multiple sports.”
Pantelis is one of those football basketball athletes who don’t just play both sports. He excels. He was one of the best receivers-defensive backs in the WPIAL and signed to play football at Yale. But in basketball, Pantelis is averaging 14 points a game for the No. 1-ranked team in WPIAL Class 6A. And get this: He had a triple-double recently with 24 points, 12 rebounds, 10 steals — and 7 assists.
“We don’t pad stats, either. I went back and watched the film and those stats are real,” Upper St. Clair coach Danny Holzer said. “In all my years of coaching, I don’t think I ever remember a kid having a stat line like that. That was one of the best performances from a high school kid you’ll ever see. It was spectacular.”
And it was from a kid who is known more as a football player. But Pantelis isn’t the only Upper St. Clair football player doing impactful things in basketball. Point guard Ethan Dahlem, a football quarterback who was a Post-Gazette Fabulous 22 pick this past season, is averaging 10 points and 5 assists a game.
“I would recommend to any young kid if you like another sport, play them both,” Pantelis said. “There are so many benefits for a football player playing basketball, like lateral quickness. Plus, just the physical aspect of it and it keeps you from sitting on your rear end and makes you move forward. But maybe the most important thing is the more relationships you can build with your friends — and the more memories you can make.”
Some of the football-basketball athletes have already made some good memories this season — in both sports. Consider:
• Laurel Highlands sophomore Rodney Gallagher is being billed as the next two-sport big-timer in both sports. He already has scholarship offers from Power Five conference colleges in both sports, including Pitt. He has been first-team all-conference in football as a freshman and sophomore and made the PostGazette Fabulous 5 in basketball last year as a freshman. This season, he is the 11th-leading scorer in the WPIAL at 22.3 points a game.
• Belle Vernon junior Devin Whitlock made the Post-Gazette Fabulous 22 football team as a quarterback-defensive back. In basketball, he is averaging 19.4 points a game for the No. 1-ranked team in WPIAL Class 4A.
• New Castle has had some topnotch football stars over the past decade who also were terrific basketball players. The Hurricanes’ next two-sport star could be junior Mike Wells, who is an impressive looking 6-foot-3, 225-pound quarterback in football who is averaging 17 points for the No. 1-ranked WPIAL Class 5A basketball team.
• South Allegheny senior Antonio Epps is a Duquesne football recruit, but he recently scored his 1,000th point in basketball and is averaging 15 points for the No. 1 3A team.
• Dakari Bradford, a 6-4 senior, averages 18 points a game for Lincoln Park’s basketball team. He played football for Western Beaver under a cooperative sponsorship and made all-conference.
• In his first season as the starting quarterback at Thomas Jefferson, Jake Pugh had a big season for the WPIAL and PIAA champions. Now he is the leading scorer for the Jaguars’ basketball team that started 9-1.
• North Allegheny senior Khalil Dinkins is a 6-foot-4, 220-pound Penn State football recruit who had 25 points and 11 rebounds in an overtime win against North Hills Tuesday.
• Apollo-Ridge senior Jake Fello, who was a productive quarterback in football, is the fifth-leading scorer in WPIAL basketball with a 26.0 average. Teammate Klay Fitzroy, the team’s leading receiver, is averaging 17.2.
• Armstrong sophomore Cadin Olsen, who led the WPIAL in passing yardage during the regular season, is averaging 15 points in basketball.
• City League basketball hasn’t started yet, but Brashear’s Ta’Mere Robinson is expected to be one of the top players in the City. He is a sophomore who already has major-college football scholarship offers.
Other standout football players are also having an impact in basketball.
“Those are all really good athletes, and you know what? They should all be playing basketball,” New Castle basketball coach Ralph Blundo said. “Look at our state championship team (in 2014). We had four Division I football players among our five starters. Kids can still play both.”
New Castle has been blessed with some of the best football-basketball players in the past decade. Malik Hooker and Geno Stone are both in the NFL and won WPIAL titles as basketball players. Hooker was on the state championship team and made the Post-Gazette Fabulous 5. His brother, Marcus, a defensive back at Ohio State, also was a talented basketball player.
According to Blundo, you’d see more football -basketball standouts if more coaches worked together. Blundo says he and football coach Joe Cowart have a great relationship and work around each other’s offseason schedules. That’s not the case at many schools, where some coaches want kids devoted to their sport.
“I encourage our guys to play football,” Blundo said. “As coaches, it’s pretty simple to make it work together. Just don’t put kids in a position to make a choice. If Joe Cowart is going in the morning with a summer football workout, we’ll go at night.
“We have a great relationship, but it’s a big problem at a lot of schools. A lot of coaches get territorial with athletes. Well, they’re not your athletes. They’re the school’s athletes.”
At Upper St. Clair, three of the basketball starters are football players. Besides Pantelis and Dahlem, the other is Luke Banbury. Holzer believes his good relationship with football coach Mike Junko is extremely beneficial.
“I think we’re pretty unique. We both want both programs to succeed and I think that adds to our uniqueness,” Holzer said. “During football season, coach Junko would let those three football players come into the gym on a Saturday and Sunday, get on a shooting machine and just shoot. During basketball season, I let those guys lift weights any time they want — and if they want to go somewhere at night and work on pass patterns or something, that’s fine by me.
“It’s not like that at a lot of schools.”
Football-basketball standouts have been in WPIAL and City League sports for ages. This isn’t something new. The Post-Gazette picked a 40-year Fabulous 22 all-star football team in 2020 and four of the players also made the P-G Fabulous 5 in basketball when they were in high school. They were Aliquippa’s Darrelle Revis, Upper St. Clair’s Sean Lee, Brashear’s Major Harris and Jeannette’s Terrelle Pryor.
Four other players on the alltime team won either WPIAL or PIAA basketball titles.
But it seems the pool of big-time football-basketball players has gotten more shallow in the past three decades or so. This year’s twosport standouts, though, are bucking that trend.
While many of the twosport standouts have a future in football, athletes such as Laurel Highlands’ Gallagher and Belle Vernon’s Whitlock aren’t quite sure what sport they will play in college.
“It’s never even come in my mind to not play one of the sports because I love both,” said Whitlock. “What makes it hard is switching back and forth, just because of the physicality of football. I’ve always been told that football players always can play basketball, but not all basketball players can play football.”
Maybe Pantelis put it best about trying to be impactful in both sports.
“I wouldn’t say it’s hard to play both sports, but you have to want to do it,” Pantelis said. “You can’t just say you want to. If you put your mind to it, you can do whatever you want. A lot of people say that, but it’s true.”