‘I like to create chaos.’ Raleigh high school football star lives up to punishing name
Football’s popularity grew by romanticizing its legends, especially those names dripping with the sound of punishing play.
Bronko Nagurski. Sam Huff. Dick Butkus. Larry Czonka. Mean Joe Greene.
Well, Cardinal Gibbons contributes its own menacing name heard over the stadium loudspeakers.
“Touchdown, Stone-king!”
“Tackle, Stone-king!”
As in Joshua Stoneking, Gibbons’ punishing fullback and defensive lineman.
“I love my last name,” said Stoneking, sitting up in a chair with smile. “Hearing ‘Stoneking!’ after a tackle or a touchdown is really cool. My friends give me so many nicknames out of it. I can’t name them all.”
This week, Sanderson’s public-address announcer will take his turn calling No. 99’s name. Sanderson (5-4) hosts Cardinal Gibbons (7-2), ranked No. 2 in the News & Observer’s Sweet 16, on Friday at 7 p.m.
A football family
Football is the family business in the Stoneking clan. Joshua’s father, Tony, was a walk-on offensive lineman at Purdue. His uncle, Brian, was an NCAA Division III All-American defensive end at Anderson University in Indiana.
“Our high school announcer always had fun with our name,” Tony said of their days growing up in Avon, Indiana.
On the Gibbons campus, Stoneking was an established surname before Joshua began his three-year varsity run as a sophomore defensive lineman. Both older brothers played for the Crusaders.
Anton was a quarterback who graduated in 2016 and went on to play at Stonehill College in North Easton, Mass. Grant played offensive tackle, graduating in 2019. He’s a student at Virginia Tech.
Joshua, a 6-foot-3, 245-pounder, says the grit in his game comes from his brothers. Instead of them telling their little brother tagging along to get lost, they invited him to join their pickup football and basketball games.
“I looked up to my brothers,” he said. “They made me who I am today. My oldest brother is six years older than I am, but I’d play football and basketball with him and his friends. I was smallest guy and they always beat me up.”
What’s a high school opponent double- or triple-team blocking him compared to what he faced growing up?
“I like to create chaos,” Stoneking said. “I love squeezing through a double or triple team and getting to the running back.”
That’s on defense.
“When he’s running with the ball as a fullback, he’s like Larry Czonka,” said Tony Stoneking, citing the Pro Football Hall of Famer on the Miami Dolphins’ Super Bowl title teams. “He likes running into people instead of avoiding them.”
Dual threat
Gibbons’ offensive coordinator Bill Liedy, remembering Stoneking’s experience as a freshman running back, asked him before his junior year if he wanted to play both ways.
“He’s a throwback,” Gibbons’ head coach Steven Wright said. “He does a little of everything for us — fullback, defense and special teams. He’s been a one-man wrecking crew. I don’t think he cares where he plays. He just wants to play football.”
Modern football limits a fullback to blocking — if one is used in a scheme at all — but Stoneking is more than a situational fullback. In an I-formation, he’s averaging 6.2 yards per carry with 27 carries for 167 yards and seven touchdowns.
Football Bowl Subdivision schools consider him too short for the defensive line, and with fullback a vanishing breed, not quick enough as a running back. But in addition to Football Championship Subdivision schools recruiting him, he also has drawn interest from Air Force and Army.
“I think he’ll end up getting an offer from both Air Force and Army,” Wright said.
The service academies specialize in identifying overachieving “tweeners” who want to play Division I football and then developing them. And Gibbons is familiar recruiting turf for the academies.
Stoneking recently tweeted out congratulations to his Gibbons teammate, tight end Brock Chappell, for receiving an offer from Air Force.
Gibbons graduate Scott Washle was an Army linebacker, 2014-17. He’s now an Army Ranger. Jalen Brooks committed to Army out of Gibbons in 2019, although he transferred after a year to North Carolina.
The military lifestyle and five-year commitment as an officer upon graduation weeds out many candidates, but Stoneking says that won’t deter him if he receives an opportunity.
“I like a challenge,” he said.
Back on track
This week, Gibbons seeks an eighth straight win after opening a rugged schedule with an 0-2 start.
In the opener, Chambers of Charlotte avenged its loss to Gibbons in the 2021 N. C. High School Athletic Association 4A state final, winning the 2022 rematch, 28-14.
The second week, Gibbons traveled to New Jersey and fell to Bergen Catholic, 49-14. The New Jersey school is ranked No. 49 in the nation by MaxPreps.
“We dropped those games, but we’ve been playing together,” Stoneking said “We knew we were good enough to come back from that start. We didn’t let it bother us.”
The wins are back, but nothing has altered the soundtrack over the stadium loudspeaker.
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 5:27 AM with the headline "‘I like to create chaos.’ Raleigh high school football star lives up to punishing name."