Unimposing spark plug

Spencer Patterson

Thursday, Nov. 29, 2001 | 12:13 p.m.

Pass Chad Pool on the street and you'd likely never guess he's the starting inside linebacker for a team playing in this week's state title football game.

At 5-foot-8, 170 pounds, the Las Vegas High junior looks more suited to play safety or receiver than a position that requires him to fight off blockers and bring down running backs and quarterbacks, many of them outweighing him by 40 pounds or more.

"I tell people I'm a linebacker and they look and me and say, 'Holy crap,' " Pool said. "It's something I've always dealt with."

Yet Saturday at noon, Pool will lead his Wildcats out on the field for the NIAA/U.S. Bank 4A State Championship against McQueen as his squad's leading tackler and the emotional spark plug for the team's tough defensive unit.

"He's not a real imposing looking guy, but he's got a real love, a passion for the game," Las Vegas coach Kris Cinkovich said. "We take him for granted quite a bit, because he's so consistent, but we wouldn't be here without him."

An inside linebacker since his Pop Warner days, Pool received an early chance to show his stuff when Cinkovich called him up to the varsity squad just one game into his sophomore year.

"Even playing freshman football, he had a great nose for the football," Cinkovich said. "We had a long discussion about his size -- we didn't want to bring a guy up to satisfy a need and put him at risk -- but Chris Faircloth, our defensive coordinator, has done a great job coaching him and he's bought in."

To compensate for his size disadvantage, Pool has become a student of the game, studying his upcoming opponents on tape each week. According to Cinkovich, Pool is the first Wildcat player to come looking for game film each Sunday, getting weekly rides to school from his father to pick up videotapes before he was old enough for a driver's license.

Pool has also been a hard worker in the school's weight room, where he now regularly power cleans 250-260 pounds and benches about the same.

"I started lifting weights after my freshman year," Pool said. "I knew I was smaller and would have to get strong to keep playing linebacker. It's the position I've been playing my whole life.

"I like being in the middle, running around and throwing my body into things."

This year, Pool has found himself with an even more central role, that of defensive quarterback. Cinkovich and Faircloth rely on him to call plays and read the offense for a unit that has allowed just 12.8 points per game over its past nine contests.

"He's our coach on the field," Cinkovich said. "He knows all the checks, he calls and adjusts the defense. He does a good job with that."

Above all, Pool knows how to tackle. Playing behind a strong front five of Kenny Marzola, Mustafa Barnes-Cruz, Gary McNeal, David Hales and Rusty Hale and alongside fellow linebacker Tommy Colbert, Pool has 117 takedowns in 13 games.

The Wildcats are counting on him to pile a few more onto that total against the defending state champion Lancers come Saturday.

"Our scheme is to keep people off him so he can get to the football," Cinkovich said. "He's a good, sure tackler and he does it all with technique and leverage."