Some of the future is here for the Denver Prep League.
The new Futures League in conjunction with the Broncos for 10 city high schools already has produced Phillip Lindsay and Pete Williams, impact freshmen at South.
“Every program’s getting better. Our lower levels are beating the suburbs,” said John Andrew of the DPL department of athletics.
Futures is in the spring for seventh- and eighth-graders headed to DPL schools. Opportunities for experience, particularly across the lines — the city’s worst disadvantage against the suburbs — as well as keeping talent within the city, Andrew said, have increased.
Lindsay has rushed for 1,117 yards and 12 touchdowns, and Williams has 422 yards and four TDs for the Class 4A Rebels (5-3).
Truthfully, Andrew said, the city was aware “of still taking some lumps.” It is. Through eight weeks, four local teams were above .500, and the league was a combined 28-51 in three classes and leagues.
There’s a long way to go.
“But after one year of Futures,” he said. “Our kids are learning.”
Parke department.
He laments that high school football is different here from in his native Arkansas, but Battle Mountain coach David Joyce insists he knows talent when he sees it.
His hidden nugget in Edwards is 3A Huskies senior Parke Robbins, who has 1,330 yards rushing while lining up at quarterback, running back and wide receiver.
“If he was on any other team, you would have every (college) coach knocking down his door,” Joyce said. “We call him Superman because he is Superman.”
However, Joyce added, “we’re 1-7.” Parke, in a lineup mostly manned by sophomores, also was below the radar after a back injury from snowboarding.
“He was walking like Frankenstein when (recruiters) showed up,” Joyce said.
Princeton is among the 6-foot-1, 170-pound Parke’s suitors.
Pirates on the horizon.
Olathe has sweet corn and juicy football. The Pirates are tied with Wheat Ridge for the current longest winning streak, 22 games, and fly their 2008 2A title banner, the school’s first, like a Jolly Roger.
“I think we are a target, but the good thing is that we have another goal,” coach Ryan Corn said.
Olathe (8-0) has put up a blistering 352 points a year after winning the 2A Western Slope’s first title since 1973. It would like another with a good junior class that has pleasantly surprised Corn, whose running game has changed gears.
“We had power last year, and now we have some quick backs,” he said. “And our line is having a year. It’s fun to watch get off the ball.”
Footnotes.
4A Mesa Ridge’s Phillip Rhodes, Colorado’s leading rusher, upped his 2009 total to 1,792 yards after a season-high, 294-yard effort against Widefield. Rhodes has run for at least 235 in five consecutive games. . . . More playing of the name game — Nederland has Carrington Power and Hotchkiss has Tell Hawk.
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
