Exactly 44 miles west of Bloomington, there’s a small Hoosier State community that prides itself on blue-collar toiling.
Historically, the late Wonga Phil Harris, the Disney voice actor, was born in Linton in 1904. The southern Indiana town is known for coal mining and, according to the Linton Chamber, it’s renowned for its triple-figure digits of lakes in the Greene-Sullivan State Forest.
The area is home to the largest Independence Day Parade in the state, attracting as many as 40,000 people each year for a parade that dates back annually to 1905.
Since the 1980s, the three-square-mile settlement, home of Linton High School, has built a staunch tradition on the football field.
On Friday, No. 7 Linton (1-1) travels to Western (0-2) in Week 3 of the 2024 season.
Charlie Karazsia, an Indiana Football Hall of Famer, guided the Miners to their first sectional and regional titles in 1984 and 1986, respectively. He is third all-time in school history with 84 wins.
Since the turn of the millennium, it’s resembled a small-school juggernaut with 11 sectional championships since, eight regional titles and a state crown.
This framework helped cultivate a winning legacy. From there, families like the Gennicks molded it in recent decades and beyond.
Since 1996, Mark Gennicks and his son, Jake Gennicks, have been building rapport with Miners at the varsity level. Mark’s been a part of three coaching regimes. He also helped out with the Linton Youth Football League from 1988 to 2021, Mark said, when his son, Jake Gennicks, was in eighth grade and playing middle school ball.
When Jake was two years removed from Linton in 2001, he started coaching junior high at Linton.
“When [my sons Hunter and Hank] were born, they were just born into it,” Jake said. “We always had a football. That was always just top of mind. We were talking about coaching the current team and they were listening in on those conversations. Or we were out in the yard playing catch.”
Hunter has moved onto playing sprint football at the Naval Academy after a decorated career while Savant is veteran savant on the field with Linton.
“He’s kind of like having a coach on the field,” Mark, who served four years in the Navy, said.
“It’s definitely really fun having that connection with them, being able to say whatever I want to them without having a huge backlash against it,” Hank said. “Because they know I understand the game of football really well, being brought up in it and coming to practice as a youth guy. Being around it is really special to me. Just having that name that I can carry with me, everybody realizes that’s a big football name and how huge that can be for us.”
And Jake has grown into an adept tinkerer with the offensive unit, case in point came in a 22-20 win over Monrovia on Friday.
Jake pulled the right strings last week with first-string quarterback Paul Oliver less than 100%, and as the squad maneuvers deploying a relatively youthful offensive front.
“I’m really proud of coach Jake, our offensive coordinator,” coach Brian Oliver said. “You look at what he did, not having Paul and putting him at wide receiver. Russell and Jesse in the backfield, something we haven’t done, added several new plays with the boys. That made it successful for us. We are just going to keep making adjustments. We’ll just keep grinding out and we’ll see how the season goes.”
This contingent has a myriad of weapons on offense to pick from: Paul Oliver to senior Braylon McBride, junior Russell Goodman, senior Jesse Voigtschild, senior Hayden Feltner and junior Cooper Smith.
“The biggest problem that we have, if it’s a problem, is that we’ve got a lot of talented guys,” Jake said. “It’s my job as the coordinator and our job as a staff to figure out what’s our best alignment. Getting those guys on the field. And getting those guys the amount of touches we need to make our offense work and to help us to win games.”
Since 2013 when Brian Oliver took the head coaching position, Mark and Jake have directly impacted games as defensive and offensive coordinators, respectively.
With this trio on staff, the Miners had a scintillating start with regional hardware in the first season followed by sectional, semistate and state. With the unbeaten year in the fourth season, the Miners had a meager four losses over that span.
And in the past six years, quarterback Hunter and Hank, a left guard and defensive end, have been key cogs of between the lines.
Their origins date back to the backyard — iron sharpened iron when they first toted the rock.
“At home, it was always full contact,” Jake, who played quarterback, said. “They were always wrestling or roughhousing.”
“Sometimes it would come to blows and fights but for the most part they were pretty good brothers and looked out for one another,” Jake added. “In practice, they never eased up on one another. It was always full contact.”
Jake said Hank played two years above his age when he was four in flag football.
“There was never a time where Hunter was able to bully Hank,” Jake added.
Hunter was a junior when Hank was a freshman and the Miners went 10-1 in 2021 for the program’s first double-digit victories since the state throne.
A year later, the brothers produced the school’s first championships in six years with a 13-1 mark and a regional title.
The kindred couldn’t have resembled more dissimilar physics.
Even the injuries they’ve sustained have been in different areas, Hank to his legs, Hunter to his hands because of their positions, Mark said.
Hunter is 5-foot-11 and a two-time All-state Indiana Football Coaches Association. In his final year, he amassed more than 2,000 yards on the ground at quarterback.
“I just know that he was one of the best runners to come through Linton football,” Hank said. “I was able to block for him a couple of years — my freshman and sophomore years. Just being able to share that for the rest of our lives is really nice.”
Hank, in turn, has the prototypical lineman frame. He’s not just stout, he’s strong as an ox. He's posted one repetition squat of 600 pounds and bench of 375, Jake said.
“He was always a step slower than his brother,” Mark said. “He was always a little bigger. He knew early on that he was going to be a lineman. He was okay with that. He got in the weight room, probably in sixth grade.
“In the weight room, that’s somewhere he was familiar with because when he stepped in there to lift he had already been in there a few times,” he added. “He’s a pretty good-sized boy and he got into weight lifting.”
He’s got the footwork to boot, too. In his four seasons at Linton, he’s had a blue face mask rather than the typical white, which represents the stripes he’s earned with his nimble footwork in training, in addition to his power.
Mark said the 20-year training tradition measures weightlifting and speed in the 20-and 40-yard sprints and the five dot drill.
Hank’s senior season will have a lot of pull — literally. In the Miners over Monrovia on Friday, he showed an ability to be a pulling lineman when he cleared one defender out with an effortless shoulder check that sent a Bulldog flying to clear a path for Goodman’s rushing touchdown from the 5.
After Paul found the end zone, Hank made sure he got to him and hoisted him up high by the hips, almost like his quarterback/wide receiver weighed no more than a female cheerleader.
Oliver is 6-foot-4, 215 pounds.
Mark likens Hank’s ability to Dylan Morris, the GCDW Football Player of the Year in 2015. “D-Mo,” a four-year offensive starting lineman and three-year defensive starter, who had the same size.
Off the field, they are big “softies” but know how to turn a switch on the gridiron, Mark said.
Coach Brian Oliver is Hank's uncle, making Hank cousins with another guy he’s blocking for — Paul.
“It’s a pretty fun time to be able to do this,” Brian said.
“Hank, he’s a generation of Gennicks that goes back to the early 1900s when they’ve all been here,” Brian added.
The family tree goes on and on. Mark and his brother Frank “Frog” played, preceded by their dad, Frank, and one more generation before them.
“It’s pretty special, but when you get on the field you just kind of forget about it,” Mark said. “You are doing your job and trying to coach everybody up.”
Jake said getting on the football field was seamless.
“It wasn’t forced upon us that was what the family did — that was the tradition,” Jake said.
Jake’s brother, Silas, also played and is a former assistant.
While the Gennicks embody the Linton football program year-round — football still plays second fiddle to another commitment.
“That’s the only thing that is bigger than the game, in our house, and amongst the team — our faith in Jesus Christ,” Jake said. “That’s just the driving force [with] every decision we make. It’s the directive to keep us focused in life — to keep us on that right path. [There are] so many Biblical examples of Christ’s leadership, of the church, and the lessons that he taught 2,000 years ago that are just directly reflective of how we try to live our lives as coaches, fathers and leaders of our own family.”
No. 7 Linton vs. Western projected starters
Linton offense
(Position Name Class Height Weight)
QB Russell Goodman junior 6-2 185
RB Jesse Voigtschild senior 5-9 165
RB Braylon McBride senior 5-9 165
WR Hayden Feltner senior 6-3 170
WR Paul Oliver junor 6-4 215
OL Dresden Kenworthy junior 5-11 185
OL Tyler Franklin sophomore 5-11 195
OL Jacob Bredeweg junior 5-10 165
OL Hank Gennicks senior 6-2 250
OL Corey Andrews junior 6-3 215
OL Chris Lyons junior 5-11 185
Linton defense
DL Hank Gennicks senior 6-2 250
DL Trentin Howard senior 6-0 235
DL Chris Lyons junior 5-11 185
LB Cooper Smith junior 6-2 175
LB Tate Gambill freshman 5-11 165
LB Russell Goodman junior 6-2 185
LB Corey Andrews junior 6-3 215
DB Jesse Voigtschild senior 5-9 165
DB Braylon McBride senior 5-9 165
DB Hayden Feltner senior 6-3 170
DB Collin Webster senior 5-9 155
Punter
Russell Goodman junior 6-2 185
Kicker
Russell Goodman junior 6-2 185
Western offense
QB Kyle Norman senior 5-10 170
RB Matthew McKitrick junior 5-11 195
RB Peyton Kauble senior 6-3 205
RB Cameron Hobensack senior 5-11 185
WR Maddox Williams sophomore 6-1 185
OL Devin Frazier junior 6-2 240
OL Jace Smith junior 5-11 250
OL Garrett Heady 6-2 285
OL Noah Watson 5-11 235
OL Owen Mashino junior 6-2 250
TE Levi Shoemaker junior 6-4 225
Western defense
DL Cameron Hobensack senior 5-11 185
DL Carson Vail senior 6-1 250
DL Mason Conner junior 6-0 215
DL Hayden Dillinger junior 5-9 280
LB Levi Shoemaker junior 6-4 225
LB Mason Tedder senior 6-0 190
LB Sean Devine junior 5-9 190
LB Matthew McKitrick junior 5-11 195
DB Evan Dinn sophomore 5-10 165
DB Chase Sullivan junior 6-0 165
DB Daniel Ousley freshman 5-10 165
Punter
Matthew McKitrick junior 5-11 195
Kicker
Bridgely Seekry senior 5-10 150
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