And on the next day, it was basketball season.
That was the case, anyway, for eight members of the Linsly football team that just completed the 2022 season a few days ago with an impeccable 9-1 season. The Cadets were 1-1 following a 27-24 defeat at Fairmont Sr., but that would be the last loss.
“Something happened during the second half of the Cardinal Mooney game,” explained B.J. Depew, Linsly head football coach and athletic director “We were flat in Fairmont and we were still figuring things out that point in our season. But then it clicked against Mooney, and we didn’t lose again.
Not only did the team’s mid-season victories over Fort Frye, Steubenville, and Dover – in consecutive weeks, nonetheless – propel Linsly to a Class AAA OVAC title but wins over St. Clairsville and John Marshall gave the players some bragging rights in the Upper Ohio Valley.
But at the very moment, though, when the clock ticked the final tock, football season was over.
“That’s the way it works around here,” Depew said matter-of-factly. “That’s the way it worked when I was a student-athlete here a lot of years ago, and that’s the way it is this year, too.
“The first day of basketball was this past Monday, and our swimming and wrestling teams started getting ready, too,” he said. “But yeah, our football team had a special season.”
What If?
He can’t help it. You can’t help it. No football fan can.
What if the Linsly Cadets WERE eligible this year for the West Virginia high school football playoffs?
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that after every season we always wish we had a postseason to play,” Depew said. “And we talk about it sometimes and I know our players talk about it a lot because they have friends who do have that postseason to play. I know it bugs our guys, and there have been years when it’s really bugged me, too.
“We have worked on our schedule for the past several years to make it as challenging as it is now, and we also have proven to a lot of people that Linsly belongs on the same field with the schools that were on our schedule this year,” the athletic director said. “Take Steubenville for example. You don’t walk into Harding Stadium and win your first year there. That doesn’t happen. But our seniors had been there each year, and they got closer each year. This year we got them, and it meant everything to those seniors.”
Well, almost everything, right Coach?
“OK, yeah, I would really enjoy watching this team in the postseason on any level in West Virginia,” Depew admitted. “They could put us in single-A or triple-A, and it wouldn’t matter because it would have been interesting to watch no matter what. It would have been fun for sure and I believe we would have competed very well no matter what level it was.
“But oddly enough, not having a postseason doesn’t bother me as much this year because, honestly, I don’t really think there’s anything left we need to prove,” he said. “This team has proven everything they needed to during our regular season. If I felt there was unfinished business, it’d be different, but we left it all on the field and I’m at peace with it.”
Season 16
The first day of basketball season on Linsly’s Leatherwood Lane campus got on Depew’s nerves and NOT because the sneaker squeak had returned inside Stifel Fieldhouse.
Why?
He’s going to miss IT. The practices, the meetings, the game prep, the travel, the victories, the young men, his coaching, the cheerleaders, the parents, and that feeling of satisfaction only a mentor can feel after witnessing youthful joy following success.
“There’s nothing better,” Depew admitted. “That’s what this is all about, too.
“The kids can turn the page easier than I can because football is what I do, so, yes, when I see them having fun playing basketball now, it makes me a little sad,” he said with a laugh. “And honestly, it’s not just because we finished up 9-1 and it was a great season. It’s more because you get very close during those four months of the year, and you become a family.”
That’s why this head coach now is looking forward to future reunions.
“Things were moving so fast we couldn’t even get our full team together for one last meeting,” Depew said. “And that’s weird for me as the head coach because it meant going from spending so much time together since the beginning of August to no time at all.
“I don’t think it affects the kids the same way,” he added. “They just move on, but I know when they return to campus down the road, they’ll all come to visit me to remember that special season.”
