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Saturday, September 1, 2007
Laying It on the Line
Central Kansas, KS
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HSSTM profiles 10 area linemen who are college prospects
Brayden Burris
Senior, Bishop Carroll; Height: 6-6; Weight: 250; Bench Press: 285; Position: OT; Honors: Second-Team All-City
As a Bishop Carroll lineman, Brayden Burris can see beyond the fanfare, stats and publicity of high-profile positions. “Everyone wants to be the quarterback,” he said. “But someone’s got to block for him.”
Burris finds pride as a team player. He can’t imagine the sport without his teammates. “I like the whole team aspect,” he said. “We’re hard on each other, but we also pick each other up.”
He got his first start in football in the seventh grade and has never played anywhere but on the line. It’s just something that has appealed to him since day one.
Burris won’t let any other team question his pride, especially his rivals, Wichita Northwest and Kapaun Mt. Carmel. Those are the games Burris and Bishop Carroll have to win as a matter of pride.
Colby Duranleau
Junior, Wichita Northwest; Weight: 255; Height: 6-6; Bench Press: 280; Position: OT/DT
Colby Duranleau had one long off-season after he tore his MCL in the Bishop Carroll game last fall. His recovery was long and extensive, including a month on crutches and two months of physical therapy. But the injury won’t keep him off the field in 2007. “I don’t know what it is about football,” he said. “I just love it. There’s no way I would stop playing it.”
What keeps him coming back for more? “The first moment when you walk into the stadium – you can’t get enough of that,” he said.
Duranleau wants to see Bishop Carroll and his personal rival Wichita East knocked down a peg this year. “I want to get out there and show them what I can do,” he said.
Blaize Foltz
Senior, Rose Hill; Weight: 270; Height: 6-4; Bench Press: 350; Position: T/DE; Honors: First-Team All-State, League Defensive MVP
Blaize Foltz has a lot riding on his shoulders this year as the only returning defensive starter at Rose Hill. “I’m just hoping we do really well this year,” he said. “I hope we get to the playoffs.”
Foltz had a good year with 44 pancakes on offense and 73 tackles and five sacks. He’s looking to improve on that this year. “I made really big plays once in a while last year,” he said. “I’d like to make that every play this year.”
What keeps him going on the field? Adrenaline, like the rush he got playing Andale the first time last year. “It was probably the most physical game I’ve ever played in. That was the most adrenaline I’ve ever had pumping in my system.”
Spencer Hilley
Senior, Clearwater; Weight: 260; Height: 6-3; Bench Press: 305; Position: Guard; Honors: First-Team All-League
Spencer Hilley would like to see Clearwater win every game this year. But if he had to pick one, he wants to beat Andale. “Andale’s offensive line is amazing,” he said. “At first (last season), we did ok, but they just kept coming at us.”
Taking on one of the hardest teams in the area may be a challenge, but it’s one he loves. “(Football) is just a physical game. That’s why I love it,” he said. Despite popping some ribs out of place, some back spasms and a pulled hamstring last fall, Spencer just can’t imagine life without it. “I just love the competition,” he said.
Rico Huggins
Junior, Wichita East; Height: 6-5; Weight: 270; Bench Press: 275; Position: OT/DT; Honors: First-Team All-City, Second-Team All-6A
Rico Huggins can’t get enough of the impact and crash of Wichita East’s offensive line. The physicality of the line is what brought him to the sport in the fourth grade. “I was always aggressive,” Huggins said. “I played basketball before that and I was always fouling out of the game. In football, that helped keep me going.”
Huggins pushes through his opponents for the lineman’s quintessential personal victory: the sack. Last year he landed six. He hopes to build on that this year – for his team. “I find my glory when our team scores.”
Levi Lawson
Senior, Goddard; Height: 6-0; Weight: 265; Press: 320; Position: Guard; Honors: First-Team All-League
Goddard’s Levi Lawson just wanted to do something physical. Who knew in his first year of football in the seventh grade that it would fill up his free time for the next five years?
“I just liked it. It was a real physical sport and I was just a big kid,” he said. Lawson was pushed to the limit physically at Homecoming last fall. The team was playing against Maize with more than 8,000 people in the stands. “It went into overtime tied 14-14. In overtime, our defense was there and stopped them four straight downs. Our offense was stopped for three plays. On the fourth, we went for it and scored a touchdown,” Lawson said.
Jeff Nulik
Senior, Caldwell; Weight: 280; Height: 6-3; Bench Press: 315; Position: G/DL
Jeff Nulik feels lucky that Caldwell can take the field. He loves football, but, as small as Caldwell High School is, it stretches the limits of players. “The fact is that we don’t have a lot of kids – barely enough to scrimmage. We have to work extra hard,” he said.
Nulik first began playing in seventh grade and put his large frame to work. The thrill of the competition has kept him in the sport, as well as in basketball and track.
At small schools like Caldwell, there may not be as many top athletes as at bigger schools, but the fact remains that quality year-round athletes are everywhere. And football, especially, appeals to Nulik. “Everybody contributes something,” he said.
Darius Parish
Senior, Wichita North; Weight: 325; Height: 6-3; Bench Press: 390; Position: DT; Honors: Second-Team All-City
Wichita North’s Darius Parish loves football. He enjoys the drive for success that the sport has brought him since the second grade. “My size and age brought me into the line,” he said. In the fall of 2008, Nebraska will bring Parish into their line; Parish committed to the Cornhuskers on August 1.
Parish had a dozen sacks last year, and, though the team wasn’t at its best all season, one game from 2006 still sticks out – against Southeast. “I think I played more smoothly then,” he said. “I was more comfortable in that game.”
This year, Parish has his eyes on Wichita East. “We’re going to shake down East. They are taking us lightly. We’re going to shock them this year.” Parish and North open the season against East on August 31.
Riley Spencer
Junior, Hesston; Weight: 240; Height: 6-6; Bench Press: 270; Position: Right Tackle
Year-round athlete Riley Spencer has a chip set squarely on his shoulder by Garden Plain. The last two seasons, the Owls ousted the Swathers from the playoffs. Spencer and Hesston are ready to change that. “We won’t see them until the playoffs, if at all,” Spencer said. “But we’ve been working year-round.”
At a Class 3A school, there’s always going to be a challenge – since the first time football is offered is in seventh grade. Hesston makes up for it in the weight room. “It’s pretty full in the summer,” he said. Outside of football, Spencer keeps himself busy with basketball in the winter and summer seasons.
William Thacker
Senior, Hutchinson; Height: 6-2; Weight: 270; Bench Press: 225; Position: Right Guard; Honors: First-Team All-Class 6A
William Thacker looks out at the stands at Hutchinson’s Gowans Stadium and remembers what it was like when he was a kid. His first taste was in fourth grade with the Gridiron Gladiator football program. “I remember watching a lot of high school football then and have seen a lot of change since,” he said. “It’s changed vastly since we’ve gotten the stadium.”
With three consecutive state championships in their pocket, Hutchinson has a lot of expectations. But Thacker will never forget last year’s title. “It’s the greatest thing I’ve been in because of the number of people there (at the game),” he said.
Valley Center, K-State Star Sets Roots at Derby
In the summer of 2004 at the Cleveland Browns mini camp, former Kansas State wide receiver Brandon Clark blew out a calf muscle. After five years at Kansas State from 1997-2001, an added 25 pounds in the weight room (so he could move to tight end), and his fourth serious injury since high school, Clark called it quits. He decided a spot in the League wasn’t meant to be. But, in the Kansas City Airport on his way back from the Cleveland camp, Clark received a call from the Derby High principal.
“I was offered the job at Derby that day.”
That fall, Clark assisted first-year head football coach Lucas Aslin. But after one season at the helm, Aslin left for Garden City Community College, vacating the Derby job for Mark Bliss. In 2005, Derby didn’t win a game under Bliss, who had spent the previous season coaching in Florida after his legendary run of four straight state titles at Conway Springs. Bliss then left for a job in Missouri, and Clark, who had assisted Bliss after Aslin left, took over the Panther program.
Probably the top football program in the western half of the state from the 1990’s through the early part of this decade, Derby is now on the bottom looking up. They could start climbing the ladder this season.
The junior football and middle school teams in Derby now follow one game plan on offense and defense. And the weight room has been packed. During the season last fall and all of the following winter and spring, 70 players met for lifting sessions an hour before school started. With the addition of incoming freshmen to the program this summer, the number of participants grew to over 130.
Organization, stability and high participation are back in full force at Derby. The Panthers are putting in the work, and Clark’s football pedigree would seem to guarantee they’re doing the right work, the right way. Legendary K-State coach Bill Snyder taught him the game. “With Coach Snyder, we probably spent more time in the film room than on the field.”
Of course, Clark’s football IQ was a moot point for most of his first season as head coach in 2006. Most of the season was spent on instituting discipline in his players. With its third new coach in just as many years since Tom Young’s departure to Leavenworth, Derby football lacked a guiding hand. With expectations clearly defined entering his second season as head coach, Clark sees his team taking strides in 2007. “The coaches have been here for awhile now, and the kids have stability again. They’re getting the hunger back.”
Clark’s tutelage under Snyder was preceded by a sparkling playing career under Mike Smith at Valley Center. Clark says Smith is the one who taught him to love football, and the two still foster a close relationship. Clark coached his first game last fall against Garden City, where Smith now coaches.
The young coach is the figurehead of one of the better football traditions in Kansas, but he doesn’t seem the least bit overwhelmed. He’s taking on more responsibility (he’ll take over as head track coach at Derby this spring) and appreciates the Monday morning quarterbacks of which Derby has no shortage. The town is about as close as you can get to Texas high school football in Kansas.
“Right after the season, I have parents in my office talking about the next season,” Clark said good-naturedly. “This town is very involved and supportive.”
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