Scalzo: Multi-sport athletes are on the right track

If you follow social media — and if don’t, you’re probably a super-awesome newspaper subscriber, so thank you — you might remember a chart that went viral last year. It showed that 42 of Urban Meyer’s first 47 Ohio State football recruits were multi-sport athletes. At the bottom was this: “Only play football? #WWUS.” (“What were you smoking?”) Meyer, of course, was a multi-sport athlete in high school in Ashtabula, getting drafted as a shortstop by the Braves in the 13th round in 1982 before playing defensive back at Cincinnati. But most of his football recruits ran track as their second sport, which makes sense since he puts such a huge emphasis on speed. “Urban Meyer, I think at one point said, ‘If you only play football, we won’t recruit you,’” GlenOak track coach Scott Ferrell said. “Now, I don’t totally believe that, but he sees the importance of the multi-sport athlete. They’re more well-rounded and when it comes time to play their prime-time sport, they’re used to competing.” Ferrell is no objective party in this. Some of the best athletes in his program have been football players, from future NFL guys such as Dustin Fox (who helped the Golden Eagles set the county record in the 4×100-meter relay in 2001, a mark that still stands) and Brian Hartline (who won state titles in the 110 and 300 hurdles) to Ohio State running back Bri’onte Dunn (who was versatile enough to do everything from sprints to jumps to throws). “There’s three highlight guys who have certainly gone on to some limelight careers,” he said. Ferrell has coached plenty of other standout football players, such as Joey Card (who played DB for Miami of Ohio), Bobby Coates (a lineman at Youngstown State who threw shot and discus in high school) and Kyle Hall (who had top-five finishes in both hurdling events at last year’s state meet and now plays DB at Slippery Rock). This year’s track team has 22 football players (out of roughly 100 athletes), including WR/DB Pierlus Burton (a regional qualifier in the 300 hurdles) and RB/LB Malik Compton (a regional qualifier in the discus). …

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