William Fleming's Warren Craft makes a spectacular football debut 

Warren Craft did not describe it as a full-court press.

But the William Fleming junior did run into a double-team that he could not break.

Craft has starred in basketball during his first two years at Fleming, but the closest he has gotten to the Colonels’ football field was when he crossed it to go to track and field practice.

Until now.

The 6-foot-2, 175-pound Craft played his first football game in almost three years last Friday and it was a spectacular varsity debut for the Virginia Tech basketball recruit.

Starting at wide receiver, Craft caught eight passes for 240 yards and three touchdowns in Fleming’s 32-13 season-opening win at Fluvanna County.

“Two hundred and forty yards?” Craft said. “Honestly, I didn’t think I would do that good. But God blessed me with that talent and I went out there and did what I could for my team.”

Craft wasn’t part of Fleming’s football team during the first week of summer practice.

Finally, after some prodding by first-year Colonels head coach Bobby Martin and even more from sophomore quarterback Tyrell Adams, the lanky Craft decided to put on the pads for the first time since 2010.

“I’ve been out for two years,” he said. “I just thought I might as well come out and enjoy it while I can. Tyrell always told me to come out and I never did. I finally took the initiative.

“My mind wasn’t made up. At first, I was just going to focus on basketball, but I thought I might give it another shot.”

Craft said Martin did not give him a hard sales job.

“Not as much as I thought he would,” Craft said. “He talked about it a little bit. I think he just wanted to get it in my mind that I could come play football.”

The first-year coach was willing to let Craft and several other players join the team after practice had begun.

“I didn’t give him a deadline, but I told him the clock’s ticking,” Martin said.

“He’s a great pickup for us. He’s a great kid, too. You say that, but he’s legit, anybody that’s dealt with him.”

Craft is possibly the premier athlete in Timesland.

He accepted a basketball scholarship offer from Tech in the summer before his sophomore year at Fleming. He excels as a triple jumper for the Colonels’ track team.

If Craft wasn’t headed to Tech to play basketball?

“He’d be a football guy for Tech, or wherever he wanted to play football,” Martin said. “He could get a Division I football scholarship off that one game tape.”

Fleming hasn’t timed Craft in the 40-yard dash yet, but Martin did get out the stopwatch for the shuttle run, which is five up-and-back sprints of 25 yards each.

When Martin was an assistant football coach at George Washington High in Danville, future Tech football recruit Kenny Lewis Jr. ran the shuttle in 52 seconds.

Craft’s time?

Fifty-two seconds.

Craft did his share of extra running just to catch up with his teammates for the week of practice that he missed.

“I had to run a lot of miles, a lot of hills, a lot of gassers,” the Fleming star said. “I had to make up a lot of running and get in football shape.”

Martin said Fleming limited its playbook last week because Craft had not yet learned the entire offense. It was hardly a problem.

“For the most part, he was pretty much on key,” Martin said. “For someone who hadn’t played ball in [three] years. I’d hate to see it if he’d been playing the last two years.

Craft, who is nursing a sore ankle heading into tonight’s home opener against Martinsville, said he received the blessings of Tech basketball coach James Johnson and Fleming coach Mickey Hardy after he made his decision to play.

“The day I came out, when I went home I sent [Johnson] and Coach Hardy a text to let them know,” Craft said.

“They said, ‘Good luck. Give it your best shot. Just go out there and have fun, and just keep them updated.”

Craft also got another endorsement, from his mom, Toni.

“She’s with me 100 percent,” he said.

Craft might have come late to Fleming football, but he was an early arrival at birth, weighing just 1 pound, 10 ounces as a premature newborn.

Craft, who just turned 16 last week, has been adding to his stature ever since. He believes football will only serve to strengthen him in several ways.

“It will get me more weightlifting in,” he said. “It will get m e physically and mentally ready as well.”

However, don’t think Craft’s success in Week 1 of the high school football season has him giving up thoughts of playing ACC basketball, or even trying both sports such as former Tech athletes like John Rivers and Jeff King.

“It doesn’t change my mind about basketball,” he said. “I still love basketball. I just want to come out here and have fun. I’m not thinking about playing college football.”

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