Carey wins first as heir to legend

• USA TODAY preseason Super 25 players
• USA TODAY Super 25 rankings
• Regional rankings
  

By Melissa Geschwind, USA TODAY

Mike Carey still isn't Mike Pettine, but Central Bucks West football fans got a reason last weekend to love Carey anyway.

Central Bucks West (Doylestown, Pa.) beat host Titusville (Fla.) 34-6 Friday in the Bucks' first game since Pettine retired after 33 years as coach.

"If you're asking if I'm glad it's over, yes I am," Carey says. "It feels like 1,000 pounds off my shoulders."

Carey, who played under Pettine from 1968-72 and was an assistant for 23 years, started his head coaching career by winning the Bucks' first-ever out-of-state contest.

Pettine retired as the 11th-winningest coach in the nation, with a 326-42-4 record, leading the school to a 15-0 record last season and a third consecutive Class AAAA state title.

Football player dies: Anthony Craig Lobrano, a senior football lineman at Varina High in Richmond, Va., died Tuesday after collapsing 30 minutes into a practice Monday.

Lobrano, 17, died at the Medical College of Virginia Hospital of heat stroke. Richmond's high temperature Monday was 86 degrees, and the reported temperature at the time Lobrano collapsed was 77 degrees.

The humidity was between 85 and 90% Monday morning in Richmond. "The high humidity can be more important than the high temperature," said Fred Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.

Lobrano, a 6-4, 305-pounder who played offense and defense, earned all-state honors as a junior.

Full plate: Beneath Marcus Spears' 6-4, 276 pounds is a choirboy, a future entrepreneur and an honor student. Oh, he's also a tight end at Southern Lab (Baton Rouge), good enough to be on USA TODAY's Super 25 list of players. He's also a forward in basketball.

"He's well-rounded," says his football coach, Eric Randall. "God gave him a lot of natural ability."

Marcus Spears: Southern Lab High's football and basketball star craves the NFL. (AP)

Spears is making the most of that ability. One organization (rivals100.com) has him ranked as the nation's top tight end. He has a 3.5 grade-point average, is the captain of Lab's Young Investors Club that won third place in the state, wants to open his own business someday and is in his school and church choir.

In basketball, he was honorable mention all-state after averaging 21.5 points and nine rebounds a game as a junior for Lab, which won the state championship and was No. 18 in USA TODAY.

"I'm just going out there and trying to make a name for myself," Spears says. "Down the road, I want to be in the NFL."

Spears added a duty in Lab's opening game Friday, rushing for TDs on runs of 5 and 9 yards in a 27-7 win against St. John. "I don't mind playing running back," he says. "Coach just put that in this week."

Randall thinks Spears could make the NFL next year if he chose to. "He could pass up college with good weightlifting," Randall says.

Spears also plays defensive lineman and had 69 tackles, four sacks, three interceptions, three blocked kicks and two fumble recoveries as a junior.

Spears has been pushed to improve by his sister Deidra, a former LSU basketball standout, and his best friend Mike Clayton of Baton Rouge Christian Life Academy, a nationally ranked wide receiver. "I tried to do something to set myself apart," Spears says. "My sister really motivated me to do my best."

Says Randall: "He's a star hero on campus, our own Deion Sanders. You'd think he'd be arrogant, but he does everything his teammates do, even carry water."

Contributing: Jose Alfredo Flores