Levenseller believes in sports diversity
Pullman’s J. T. Levenseller knows what it’s like to win.
As a sophomore, Levenseller helped pitch and bat the Greyhounds to the State 2A baseball championship. The following December he quarterbacked the Greyhounds to the football state championship.
Saturday he will be among a dozen area members of the East squad hoping to win the 13th annual 2A/1A/B Earl Barden Classic East-West All-Star football game in Yakima.
The 1 p.m. contest at Eisenhower High’s Zaepfel Stadium is the first of three such all-star football games. Next week, Odessa will be site of the second North-South B-8 game. The granddaddy, the East-West All-Star Football Game for big-school athletes, returns to Everett’s Memorial Stadium on June 30.
Retired Lind-Ritzville coach Mike Lynch, in his 13th year working at this weekend’s game, recalled that before it existed there was one all-star game and it was mainly the province of 4A and 3A athletes. When Yakima businessman Earl Barden spearheaded a second game, now named in his memory, Lynch signed on.
“This is an opportunity for the small-school kids to play,” Lynch said.
Classification size notwithstanding, Levenseller, who will quarterback and play safety, is by no means small potatoes.
He was likely the best all-around athlete in the Great Northern League, this year’s league basketball and baseball MVP, and second-time All-GNL football quarterback.
His three-year basketball career may be at an end after averaging 16.1 points per game last winter, but Levenseller said it will be a sport he continues to play in his spare time, what little of it there will be.
He is a greyshirt recruit for football at Washington State where his father, Mike, is offensive coordinator. He doesn’t rule out the possibility of playing baseball for the Cougars.
“I love both sports and would like to play both,” said Levenseller. “The (baseball) coaches asked me to come out and it might end up working for the spring of 2009.”
He’ll enroll at WSU in January and participate in spring football, then likely redshirt.
“Football has always been my passion,” said the mobile 6-foot-1, 190-pounder. “Quarterback is the position I’ve always wanted to play. But if I get on the field as a receiver or safety, I’m completely open to that.”
Having a college football coach as dad has been an asset. The two would analyze film of his high school games and work to correct his flaws.
“I don’t mind his critiquing,” said Levenseller. “I got better and better every week because of it.”
Saturday’s game will be just one more sporting event in the busy life of the multisport athlete. Levenseller has been playing three sports for much of his life.
“I’ve attended Cougar football camps ever since I was 5,” he said.
He believes that diversification is an asset.
“I think it is something all athletes should do at a school of (Pullman’s) size,” Levenseller said. “It can only make you better. Dad thought so, very strongly.”
His Pullman quarterbacking career began late in his sophomore season following an injury to the incumbent.
That winter he helped the Greyhounds finish seventh in state basketball, averaging 11.5 points per game, an increase of 4.5 over the regular season.
In the spring as a pitcher and outfielder, the Greyhounds lost only two games all season, sweeping the four-game state playoffs. Levenseller had seven hits in the series and pitched in relief during the semifinals.
The following fall he quarterbacked the unbeaten state champions, throwing two touchdown passes to bring them from behind at Gridiron Classic in Tacoma.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as I was in baseball when I hit an RBI double in the championship game,” he said. “(In football), it was just coming back, watching it all develop and gaining more and more hope as we got into the game. Those are things you remember for the rest of your life.”
This year he threw for approximately 1,300 yards and 14 touchdowns and rushed for 700 yards and 13 more scores while making his third state playoff as a Greyhound.