Fortson-Linton leads Mastbaum

IF ASKED a question about history, especially the American version, Christopher Fortson-Linton can often respond at length.

Just don't ask him to detail his football past.

"I didn't play Pop Warner or any other kind of youth football, like most of these guys did," Fortson-Linton said. "I played basketball and ran some track, but football wasn't something I really thought about."

Once he did . . . Well, he's quite the quick learner.

In only his third season of activity, Fortson-Linton is serving as a co-captain - with Davidson Okrafo-Smart; all power to hyphenated surnames! - for Jules Mastbaum Tech. And yesterday, under cloudy skies throughout and heavy rain briefly, the 6-foot, 200-pound senior, a two-way end, helped the Panthers muffle visiting Olney Charter, 27-0, in a Public AAAA Silver game at Northeast.

Fortson-Linton logged two sacks worth 18 yards and, in the late going, recovered an errant lateral at Olney's 3 and almost scored a touchdown.

It would have been his first of the game. Though he coulda/shoulda had another.

Late in the first quarter, with the rain (just his luck) coming down big-time, Fortson-Linton dropped a certain TD flip of 19 yards from soph Joseph Walker.

"That killed me," he said, smiling. "I don't get too many chances like those, since we're mostly a running team. My hands were wet. My towel was wet . . . Frustrating. Still should have had it.

"I tried not to let it get to me. Tried to regain my focus. Tried to block out all the unnecessary thoughts like, 'What if I drop one again? What if I make another mistake?' The idea is to put away all that negativity and just concentrate on the next opportunity."

Flash ahead to the fourth quarter. The play began at the 10 and the backward hitch pass by Quadir Schley was cradled at the 3 by Fortson-Linton. Off to the short-term races, for six points, he did not go.

"My teammate tripped me," Fortson-Linton said, referring to soph cornerback Ahharan Barksdale. "He was going for the ball, too, and we got tangled. I didn't know what happened at first. Then he was going, 'I apologize for that.' We laughed about it. At least we still got the score."

That came on a fourth-down, 4-yard flip from Donnell Shields to Kevin Hart; they're also sophs.

Mastbaum's first three TDs were posted on runs of 2 yards by Haywood Mantieo, 10 by Frank Quiles and 7 by Andre Bryant. Guess what grade those guys are in?

Quick thought: Instead of mouthpieces, these guys should use pacifiers.

Quiles added a conversion run and his sophomore brother, Rickie (they're not twins; Frank is 15 months older) kicked a PAT off Frank's long-snap. Also, Rickie, handed newly purchased cleats by his excited mother, Samantha, shortly before game time, launched a late-game, 61-yard punt.

Olney had little fun. Nineteen of its 31 running plays went backward and it lost seven fumbles. Only passes of 28 and 12 yards from Schley to Layquan McCracken and Markques Jones, respectively, kept the total offense number from being much worse than minus-four.

As Mastbaum posted a second consecutive shutout for the first time since games Nos. 1 and 2 of 2003, Patrick Knight recovered two of the fumbles while Johnzell Martin forced one and pounced on another. Somehow, they're seniors.

"I was a little worried about this game because it was our first one right after school," Fortson-Linton said. "When you play at night, like last week (vs. Thomas Edison), everyone's hyped. But we got the job done.

"Olney likes to run sweeps. My job was to contain and force plays back into the middle. Our inside guys were great."

Like what he said is roughly 10 of his teammates, Fortson-Linton attends William Bodine, which partners with Mastbaum for football. He became aware of the grid opportunity late in the ninth grade and began working out, in preparation.

"Since I entered high school, I've been trying different things. Things that would make me stand out," he said. "I went with football - again, just to try it - and everything has gone well."

Though Fortson-Linton, who lives on Willard Street, not far from Front and Westmoreland, hopes to play football in college, that sport is hardly his life. He maintains a 3.1 grade-point average and has evolved into quite the computer whiz. This summer, he even spent 2 weeks at Syracuse taking a special class for web design.

"I got to live like a college student," he said. "It was nice."