Double-Duty Players No Longer a Singular Sensation : Football: More teams are using two-way athletes because of economics and smaller rosters. The practice is taking a toll, however.

It was three days before Mater Dei High School’s football team was to play Rialto Eisenhower last season for the Southern Section Division I championship.

The Monarchs had swept past three opponents in postseason play and were riding a wave of momentum when, suddenly, linebacker/tight end David Knuff went down with a knee injury in practice.

Suddenly, everything came to a stop.

“We couldn’t practice certain defenses because David was out,” Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson said. “So I said, ‘OK, let’s go to offense.’ Well, we can’t run certain pass routes because David’s backup isn’t capable of running them.

“Now, I say, ‘Well, we can always go to special teams,’ but we can’t practice punts because David is the punter and we can’t practice PATs because he’s the holder. Fortunately, we got him healthy for the game.”

Knuff’s injury magnifies the importance of two-way players in high school programs. They are the throwbacks to an era when players wore leather helmets. But they have continued to strive and survive in a time when prep programs, because of simple numbers and economics, dictate that they play on both sides of the line.

“Let’s face it, the days when public schools in Orange County routinely had 60 to 65 players on their rosters are over,” Sunny Hills Coach Tim Devaney said. “Most schools are lucky if they have 40 players. It seems like every school has five or six players going both ways.

“You also no longer have the luxury of having five or six assistant coaches teaching at your school. Most schools don’t have as many coaches, so you can’t break down in specific groups every day.”

Instead, most programs split time between offensive and defensive drills. You’re a wide receiver for one hour and a defensive back the next hour. Or you’re an offensive tackle and then move to defensive tackle.

“The most compatible positions are wide receivers and defensive backs,” Rollinson said. “You’ll also see quarterbacks or running backs who play in the defensive secondary. And a lot of linemen go both ways because they’re the strongest guys on the team. They can take the pounding for 48 minutes.”

Last season, Rollinson’s team finished No. 1 in the state, according to Cal-Hi Sports. The Monarchs had a 65-man roster, but only eight positions were available to 57 members of the team because seven players went both ways.

“My philosophy has always been to put the best athletes on the field,” Rollinson said. “We work through the spring and summer evaluating players to see if they have the potential to go both ways.”

Asked how he answers critics of two-way football, Rollinson said, “It’s a 48-minute game played by 16- and 17-year-old kids. If they are conditioned properly, they should be able to hold up.”

But sometimes, double duty causes problems, both physically and mentally.

Ocean View linebacker/center/punter/kicker Mark Wersching suffered a second-degree shoulder separation last week in a 24-0 loss to Huntington Beach. It was the third major injury this season for a Seahawk player who goes both ways, and ninth in the last two seasons.

“In our last three games, Mark hasn’t been off the field once,” Ocean View Coach Howard Isom said. “He’s a tough kid who plays hard and keeps coming at you on every play. But eventually, the body finally gives out.”

Esperanza has been a factory for major college linemen the last 10 years, but seldom have they played on both sides of the line under Coach Gary Meek. Travis Kirschke, the county lineman of the year as a junior last season, is an exception.

“Linemen are big people playing against other big people,” Meek said. “They’re constantly pounding on each other, and it takes its toll.

“You can really tell in the third and fourth quarters if a lineman is going both ways. Of course, Travis is an exception. He’s a special player who plays equally well on both sides. But we rest him every third series defensively and every other series offensively.

Are there risks playing both ways? Meek believes so.

“There seems to be a breaking point for a 16- or 17-year-old kid, both mentally and physically. Asking him to go both ways may be asking too much. Football is far more sophisticated by today’s standards. There’s much more preparation.”

The added responsibility of playing quarterback this season means that Bobby Sunderland, Sunny Hills’ all-league free safety, spends twice as much time preparing for games. Sunderland is a three-year starter at safety but hasn’t played quarterback since his freshman year.

“The positions are very compatible, but you’re required to watch twice as much film,” he said. “I spend my lunch periods watching film, but I love playing both positions. I don’t like leaving the field; I feel like I’m missing something when I do.

“I worked hard to become a starter, and most of us will only have one shot at playing football in our lives, so I want to be out on the field all the time.”

Edison cornerback/running back Adam Cancelleri is usually the smallest player on the field at 5 feet 8, 150 pounds, but his size doesn’t keep him from playing both ways. The Chargers’ fastest player is also a standout baseball player.

Cancelleri sat out last season to concentrate on baseball but missed the game so much that he decided to double his pleasure at two positions this year.

“I thought, because of my size, that it would be best for me to concentrate on baseball,” he said. “People are always looking at me and saying, ‘There’s no way you play football. You’re too small.’ ”

But Cancelleri said his size is never a factor in playing both ways.

“When you’re playing cornerback, a lot of the plays go to the opposite side of the field, so you don’t have to be at peak performance for every play,” he said. “It’s kind of like playing right field in baseball. The ball doesn’t come out there a whole lot.”

Garden Grove quarterback/free safety/kicker Brian Schneider has done everything but sell programs as a two-way starter for the Argonauts, according to his coach, Jeff Buenafe.

“He could even punt if I let him, but that’s the only time I can get him off the field for a breather,” Buenafe said. “I realize that all the other things he does take away from his quarterbacking ability, but he’s too valuable to take out of the game.

“He only seems to tire in a real physical game. I know against Rancho Alamitos (superior team, stronger players) he took a beating. They pounded him. But pound for pound, he’s the toughest kid in the Garden Grove League.”

Schneider said he rarely tires in a game.

“I’m having so much fun, I don’t ever think about being tired,” he said. “The preparation is more tiring than the game. There’s a lot more work preparing when you go both ways, but it’s definitely worth it because it’s so much fun on Friday nights.”

While most schools have four or five players going both ways, Servite continues to platoon its players under Coach Larry Toner. Toner said he hasn’t seen another school in the county using the one-way system.

“Initially, you spread out the 22 starting spots among a team of 50 or so players, engaging more players and hopefully developing a true team concept,” Toner said. “If you’re successful, the morale of the team is generally better.

“Second, if you work with a boy on one side of the line only, he repeats the fundamentals over and over again. He becomes focused on one position and generally becomes a more capable performer.”

Toner said he watched Mater Dei play several times last season and marveled at the level of play that the Monarchs sustained with seven players going both ways.

“Their players never left the field, and they were able to sustain a tremendous effort for 14 weeks,” he said. “But that was an exceptional team, the type of team that comes along maybe once every 20 years.”

This season, Mater Dei fullback/linebacker Nicky Sualua injured his ankle in the Monarchs’ season-opening 0-0 tie with Servite and missed the next three games. The loss was a heavy-duty hit for Mater Dei on both sides of the line.

“We got into a situation where we needed two kids to replace him at fullback and two more to replace him at linebacker during those three weeks,” Rollinson said. “Fortunately, our backup guys were ready when they got the call.”

Rollinson doesn’t have a set pattern of substitution for his two-way starters, saying he generally goes with the flow of the game.

“You use common sense,” he said. “If it’s a long offensive drive for your team, you give the kid a breather before he goes out to play defense. And vice versa if the opponent has a long drive, you rest the kid before he goes out to play offense.

“Then, if it’s crunch time where the game is on the line, we tell the kid to signal us if he has to come out.”

This season, Mater Dei’s best lineman, Parker Gregg, is playing only on defense because his role as defensive captain means he needs time to confer with the defensive coordinator on the sidelines during the course of a game.

“We experimented with Parker at fullback, but I felt it was important that we keep communication lines open with our defensive coordinator during a game,” Rollinson said.

Looking back, Rollinson realizes that last year’s Monarchs had several exceptional athletes who played equally well on both sides of the line.

“I may coach for 20 years and never have another team like that,” he said.

Finally, Servite’s Toner offered this piece of coaching advice:

“If you’ve got kids who can perform on both sides of the line and the fatigue factor never enters, if they can perform at a high level and endure for a 14-week season like Mater Dei did last season, God bless you.”