Myrtle Beach’s Arnold, Sinclair fittingly finishing high school careers as teammates

Though they didn’t scout out the best spots for anglers around Old Dominion University during their visits to the campus this past spring, Brandon Sinclair and Drayton Arnold sure hope the fishing is good in Norfolk, Va.

The Myrtle Beach High seniors have been teammates since they were 8-year-olds in recreation football, and have committed to continue their gridiron careers together next season at Old Dominion.

As one might guess, they’re more than just teammates. “We’ve always been really close friends,” Sinclair said.

Hence the anticipated fishing adventures.

They live in the same Forestbrook neighborhood, and when they’re away from the football field they most look forward to going fishing once or twice a week. They cast for bass in the lakes and ponds in the Forestbrook community or gig for flounder in the Intracoastal Waterway.

“We try to go as much as we can,” Arnold said. “When it’s not cold and whenever we’re not busy. ...We try to find hotspots, but we can’t give those away.”

They’ll be searching for new hotspots in Norfolk, but first they’ll finish their high school football careers Saturday as teammates in the Touchstone Energy Bowl North vs. South All-Star Football Game at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium.

“I think it’s going to be fun,” Arnold said. “The main thing is finishing our high school careers. It’s a big and important thing for both of us, and to end it the way we’re ending it is pretty special, I think.”

What’s been pretty special is the amount of success each player has had operating out of the same backfield.

Over their high school careers, Sinclair rushed for 5,341 yards and 70 touchdowns while accumulating 6,252 total yards with 74 touchdowns, while Arnold threw for 8,516 yards and 103 touchdowns.

For each player to amass those gaudy statistics, each had to defer to the other at different times. “I’ve always looked at it as a game plan,” Arnold said. “It depends what the defense is in. If they’re in like a cover-4 then obviously we’re going to have to run the ball more and Brandon will probably have a good game. If they’re playing man [coverage] across the board I’ll probably have a better game than he will.”

Sinclair summed it up succinctly, “Just whatever it takes to win,” he said. “That’s what we like to do, we like to win.”

They did their share of that, as well. With both starting over the past three years, they helped Myrtle Beach go 32-11, win a 2013 Class AAA state championship as sophomores, reach the state semifinals this season after defeating previously unbeaten and top-ranked Hartsville in the quarterfinals, and reach the quarterfinals in 2014 despite Arnold being sidelined during the playoff opener with a broken right thumb.

The duo gave Myrtle Beach coach Mickey Wilson the luxury of knowing that whether he called a run or a pass, a talented leader would have the ball in his hands.

“It created a situation where we were balanced on offense, so it made it tough on opposing defenses – who they were going to try to take away from us,” Wilson said. “... Having both of those guys in the backfield for three years was fun, and it was great to see them grow up and mature and get better physically and mentally.”

Their influence will likely impact Myrtle Beach teams for the next couple years.

“The thing I’ll always remember about both of those guys is they were the hardest working kids in our program,” Wilson said. “If we worked out four days a week they were going on days five, six and seven on their own. They were always the first ones there and the last ones to leave in the weight room.

“Both of them had tremendous work ethic and I think that carried over to our younger guys, they saw that and it’s something those guys brought to the table that made our whole program better. The legacy they’ll leave is they outworked everybody.”

Both players had multiple college offers on the table last spring. Arnold had outstanding offers from Old Dominion, Ohio, Akron and Charlotte when he verbally committed to ODU in May, and he’ll begin his college career immediately after graduating from Myrtle Beach in January. Sinclair committed a week later, eschewing offers from Coastal Carolina and Cornell, and will enroll in the fall.

Having each other at the Conference USA school will be a bonus, though both players say they believe the school and its football program headed by coach Bobby Wilder present good situations for them individually.

“I committed because the coaches were so good and the university was so good and the offense that they ran,” Arnold said. ‘You have to find what’s best for you first, and I did that personally.”

Sinclair said Arnold’s commitment “definitely made me look into it a little more. After he committed I scheduled a visit the very next weekend and loved everything that I saw. The coaches there wanted me, they were coming after me hard. In the recruiting process there are a lot of games being played, schools are like, ‘I don’t know if we want to offer you’ and this and that, and they were straight up about it: ‘We want you. You’re a good player.’

“I toured the campus and it’s nice up there, it’s right there by Virginia Beach. Everything seemed like a good fit.”

The potential fishing holes included.

This story was originally published December 9, 2015 at 8:34 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach’s Arnold, Sinclair fittingly finishing high school careers as teammates."