SPENCER — A quick splash of Gatorade.
It’s all James House requires. And it’s all he has time to partake.
House, North Rowan’s only two-way starter, cherishes the breaks he gets during kickoffs and punts, even if they hardly give him time to catch his breath.
House doesn’t sprint off the field to find a seat on the Cavalier bench —he would just have to get right back up.
House doesn’t even take his helmet off — he’d just have to throw it right back on.
House worries only about quenching his thirst. He hunts down one of several green Gatorade bottles on the sideline and squirts the sports drink into his mouth through his yellow face mask.
Just as quickly, House heads back on the field for another offensive or defensive series.
“Special teams don’t take that long, like 10 seconds,” House said. “I get a very short break.”
Two-way starters are common in high school football, but not at North Rowan, where Roger Secreast’s fast-break offense could tire a marathon runner.
Secreast doesn’t like to start players on both sides of the ball, but he had no choice but to send the 6-foot-3, 215-pound House out for double duty.
House’s hands were too good to leave out of the offensive game plan, his lateral movement too quick to keep off the defensive line.
Secreast can’t get House, a tight end and defensive end, off the field now.
“We don’t like to play kids two ways unless we absolutely have to,”Secreast said. “But now, since we started it with James, we absolutely can’t get him out. We don’t have anybody that can do the things he’s able to do for us.”
House, a senior, makes the most obvious impact on offense. This season, he has caught 10 passes for 120 yards. His three receiving touchdowns are tied for second most in the county behind Cal Hayes Jr., who has four.
House’s stats aren’t gaudy, but he comes up with catches at key times for the Cavaliers. In North’s wins against East Rowan and Lexington, his touchdowns were his only receptions in the game.
House also had a TD against A.L. Brown on a night when he caught only two passes.
“He seems to be one of those clutch players,”Secreast said. “When you need something to happen, it happens for him.”
House said playing offense at North is more tiring than defense, which is understandable.
The Cavaliers have been running the ball more this season, averaging 226.6 yards a game on the ground. But they still rely on the pass, which means they still rely on their receivers to race down the field play after play.
House estimated that he blocks about 25 percent of the time from his tight end position. The rest of the time he becomes a moving target for quarterback Alfonzo Miller.
“Even if you’re not getting the ball, you’ve got to run your man off and do your job regardless if it’s going to your side or not,” House said.
House’s current offensive position involves a lot more running than his old one. As a sophomore, he was a self-titled “all-purpose lineman.”
Secreast said House was more than happy to make the move to tight end.
“I’m not trying to be ugly, but he had too many other things he could do besides being an offensive lineman,” Secreast said. “He moved too well, caught too well. He just could get things done.
“I’ve never had a problem with an offensive lineman being moved anywhere else.”
House still gets down and dirty in the trenches on defense, where he has excelled as an end this season.
House had two tackles for loss — including a sack— against West Rowan, but he doesn’t push for his role to get headlines.
House’s job is to funnel opposing runners to the middle of the field, where linebackers such as Leonard Atkins can add to their tackle totals.
“In our defense, we like to have it so our defensive end cuts it up so the inside linebacker can make most of the tackles,” Atkins said. “So he does a good job of that, keeping the outside contained, making them cut back.”
It all adds up to a tiring task for House. Out of a game’s 48 minutes, he guessed that he is on the field for 47 of them.
Last Friday against West Stokes, the teams combined for 14 punts and kickoffs. That equates to 14 short breaks for House.
“When you’re doing it, you can’t really think about yourself because you’ll be tired the whole game,” House said.
“You have to think about the team.”
And the bottle of Gatorade that awaits on the sideline.
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