Football: Brinkley powers Griffith

Updated: November 1, 2011 9:56PM

Griffith’s Brett Brinkley has shown some quick feet as the Panthers’ top speed threat this season. Which might be a matter of simply following in his father’s footsteps.

Brett’s father, Mark Brinkley, played football and baseball at Calumet in the late 1970s and ended up in the school’s athletic Hall of Fame. Mark finished his high school career as a member of the North squad in the 1979 North-South All-Star baseball game and went on to a full scholarship to play shortstop at North Carolina State.

“My dad was a pretty good athlete,” said the younger Brinkley, who’s turning out to be a pretty good athlete himself.

Brinkley is second to quarterback Austin Brown in both rushing and scoring for the Panthers this season. The 5-9, 161-pound junior has rushed for a total of 740 yards and has 18 touchdowns to his credit. In last week’s win over Hammond, Brinkley rushed for 151 yards, scoring twice on the ground and twice through the air.

“Earlier in the season, I wasn’t carrying the ball quite as much,” Brinkley said. “But we’re starting to open things up a bit and I’m getting a lot more touches.”

Brinkley and Brown’s association goes back quite a few years. Brinkley started his football career as a 5-year-old in Pop Warner.

After quarterbacking the team for a couple of seasons, Brown showed up and joined Brinkley in the backfield. Brinkley called the signals for one more season before permanently turning the reins over to Brown.

“We finished fourth in the state one of our seasons,” Brinkley said.

The two occupy the backfield not only offensively, but on the defensive side as well. Brinkley mans the strong side defensive back position, while Brown operates at weak side safety. And they share return duties on kick returns.

But when football ends, Brinkley and Brown pursue other interests as Brown heads to the basketball court, while Brinkley, like his father, takes up baseball. Brinkley plays center field for the Panthers’ baseball team, but he considers football his primary sport.

“(Baseball) coach (Brian) Jennings has tried to get me to concentrate on baseball, but I pretty much just do that in the spring,” Brinkley said. “We start football conditioning the first day after school ends and that’s what I do in the summer.”

But Brinkley and Brown still have some unfinished football business this fall as Griffith faces Morton in the sectional final on Friday. The Panthers have lost four straight times to the Governors, including a 21-14 defeat to open this season. Morton is the two-time defending sectional champ after Griffith had won the title the previous four seasons.

“It’s going to be a big game, a really big game,” Brinkley said. “The school is pretty excited and everyone’s talking about it. Morton’s our biggest rival these days.”

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