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B-A athletes Ned and Miles Smearman have unique talents that translate to a multitude of sports.

They’ve got speed and endurance, making them perfect for sports like basketball, track, and swimming, but where they really excel is their ability to kick a ball, which is why soccer is their primary sport.

For a while, there was a dream of using those skills in two sports at B-A, helping both the co-op soccer and football teams, but a rule preventing dual sports shut down the idea quickly.

Now, Bellwood-Antis has found itself in the midst of a long-challenged debate. Should B-A athletes be able to participate in two sports during the same season?

The policy

On February 11, Andy Smearman, Ned and Miles’s father, presented a plan to the school board to allow Bellwood-Antis athletes to do just that. Smearman is pushing for his sons to have the opportunity to be the place kickers for the varsity and junior varsity football teams during the soccer season.

“When my oldest son inquired about trying out as a kicker for the football team, we learned that Bellwood has a rule preventing students from participating on two separate teams during the same season,” Smearman said. “That realization prompted me to take action, as I believed this rule was limiting opportunities for student-athletes.”

B-A has a policy of not permitting athletes to compete in dual sports during the same season that goes back more than 20 years. Former athletic director John Hayes first implemented the policy. The rule was based upon the schedule disruptions that would ensue with an athlete playing two sports in one season as well as the issue of athletes who attend practice everyday possibly losing playing time to an athlete who’s only at half of the practices.

Injury concerns caused by overuse were also taken into consideration.

While those are legitimate concerns that have shaped B-A policy for decades, Smearman sees too many benefits to ignore.

“I would argue that any student-athlete willing to take on the challenge of competing in two sports simultaneously is likely practicing more, not less, than those who participate in just one” Smearman said. “I don’t believe dual-sport participation is for every athlete or every position — it has to be a well-structured situation where athletes, coaches, and teammates are all aligned and working together for the benefit of both programs.”

Beyond that, schools in the area have been utilizing dual athletes for years now. Neighboring school district Tyrone for example, has used a soccer player as its football kicker for the past decade. Bishop Guilfoyle and Hollidaysburg have each had a kicker from the soccer team earn college scholarships as football kickers within the last several seasons.

As of now, Bellwood-Antis is the only remaining school in the Laurel Highlands conference to have this policy.

Striking a balance

Many schools use dual sports participation to their advantage. For example, the football players at Tyrone can focus on their game and hand the kicking over to someone who solely kicks for their sport. These kickers can generally kick farther and more accurately than those who do not specialize.

Tyrone/Bellwood co-op soccer coach Alex Bartlett, a 2013 B-A graduate and former Mountain League soccer MVP, believes that dual participation depends on the situation.

Coach Bartlett remarked, “At the inner scholastic level, kids should be able to have that choice as long as it doesn’t interfere with their primary sport. As long as players aren’t missing any practices before my games, I’m okay with it.”

At Bellwood, on the other hand, an athlete who has focused their life on soccer but wants to try out football kicking has to choose between their sport or benefiting the football team. This is exactly the decision former Bellwood-Antis kicker Alex Schmoke had to make.

“I think I would have wanted to try to do both at the time,” said Schomke, who graduated in 2019. “I didn’t really understand what the issue was back when I was playing.”

However, now as a coach for the B-A junior high football team, Schmoke’s view has changed, and he sees the drawbacks of using a utility player for some of the most important moments of a football game.

“I think a lot of my teammates would have been upset if they would not have gotten as much playing time as the kid who only showed up to half the practices. Athletes who don’t practice and condition as much may lack the commitment of being a part of a team,” he said.

Fortunately for Schmoke, his decision to kick for the football team paid off. He went on to kick three years at Division I Saint Francis University and then used his last year of eligibility to transfer to the University of Delaware.

One dual sport athlete who now coach at B-A  is all for allowing athletes to compete in two sports during the same season: basketball coach Tyler Mertiff. A thousand-point scorer and record-setting passer, he excelled at both baseball and track during his high school days at Tyrone in the early 2000s. He ultimately went on to play Division II football at IUP, which he partly credits to his dual sport ability.

“It worked by allowing me to use different skill sets to help both teams be successful during the season. The benefits I noticed were pushing my body to the maximum, which helped me prepare for college athletics,” Mertiff said. “It helps with time management and also helps with learning how to compete, which is the ultimate goal.”

Mertiff noted that if B-A were to allow dual sports in a season it would take strong communication between both coaches concerned. He said he would plan on meeting with the player before the sport to make sure they were on the same page with the game plan.

You only get one chance

Solid communication is one of the things that made playing two sports relatively easy for a local kicker ten years ago.

A sophomore kicker at Tyrone, who was also a member of the Tyrone/Bellwood-Antis co-op soccer team, had the opportunity to send his team to the District semifinals. All eyes were on him as he took a deep breath and nailed a game-winning field goal in a playoff game against Huntingdon. The kicker was Ethan Vipond, who is now a successful PIAA referee.

“Setting clear expectations prior to the season that I’d miss football practice during soccer games helped clear any confusion… having supportive coaches and teammates in both sports made everything smoother,” he said.

Vipond feels strongly that high school athletes should be given the same opportunity he had.

“You only get one shot at high school athletics, so you should do as much as you can,” Vipond stated.

Joe Pullara, who lives in Tipton with his wife Lindsay and his kids Sophia and Nico, concurs. He was a top tier football player in the 1990s at Jolliet Catholic outside of Chicago. He played with Mike Alstott and against Donavan McNab. Pullrara saw first hand the value of having a kicker from the soccer team.

“We ended up playing in the state championship game because we had a good kicker. And we won the state semifinal game 13-11 because of his consistent ability to kick field goals and extra points,” Pullara said. “The state championship game went into double overtime and he gave us the best opportunity to win because again he made a field goal and all the extra points.”

Pullara said that without having a solid kicker their season would have ended much sooner. He hopes that his son Nico will one day have the same opportunity to kick for the football team and play soccer.

“Kicking is a key component to winning football games. It’s a small and specialized role on the team,” Pullara added. “It’s called special teams because it takes special attributes to perform well.”