Schuckman: Hawks’ Inman adding his own chapter to legacy of wearing No. 22

QUINCY — The legacy isn’t in the jersey number, no matter how meaningful it is for Brock Inman to wear it.

That legacy lies in the leadership and leverage of how he plays.

To that end, he’s upholding the legacy of No. 22 quite nicely.

Inman is the third consecutive anchor of the Quincy University football team’s defense to play middle linebacker while wearing that number, a detail he doesn’t take for granted, not when the two who wore No. 22 previously — Cody Leonard and Peyten Chappel — piled up accolades as tackling machines and leaders.

“It’s an honor to wear it,” said Inman, who switched from No. 27 to No. 22 last season. “Big shoes to fill last year, and I still have big shoes to fill. Just keep doing my job to the best of my abilities.”

Doing so has made him one of the best linebackers in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

Inman earned second-team All-GLVC honors a year ago when he led the Hawks with 71 tackles and five interceptions. Throw in a sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery and it’s easy to say he was all over the field all the time.

The 6-foot-2 senior from Arnold, Mo., plays that way for the right reasons.

“I just want to do it for my friends on the football field,” Inman said. “Do it for them. Trust them and they trust me. That’s all we have to do. Trust each other.”

That’s a page out of the Leonard and Chappel playbook.

Leonard joined the Hawks in 2015 and was assigned No. 53, but two years later, he switched to No. 22 and created his own legacy. The Carrollton, Ill., product racked up 110 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries as a junior.

As a senior, he was one of the best tacklers in NCAA Division II. Named an All-American and the GLVC Defensive Player of the Year, Leonard piled up 168 tackles, 17 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks and walked away as the program’s all-time leading tackler.

That’s when he passed No. 22 on to Chappel.

The Mt. Zion, Ill., product racked up 317 tackles, 31 tackles for loss and seven interceptions in three seasons wearing the number, while earning first- or second-team All-GLVC honors each of those three seasons.

He passed the legacy to Inman following the 2022 season.

“Peyten gave me the green light to take it,” Inman said.

He has proven to be the right person and player to shoulder the legacy.

“Now Brock’s writing his own legacy,” said first-year coach Jason Killday, who recruited Leonard to Quincy when he was an assistant coach under Tom Pajic.

Part of that legacy is being a stabilizing force in the middle.

“How important having him there is something I hadn’t even considered because he does his job so well,” Killday said. “The good ones you don’t even notice them because they just go out and do their job. They’re consistent. They’re there every day. They perform their job at a high level. That’s him.

“More importantly, he keeps everyone else calm. He’s able to do his job and then some. It’s a blessing. You miss him when he’s not there, I know that.”

And you can’t replicate his energy and effort.

“I’m just trying to keep the guys up and that they’re all having fun, but focused at the same time,” Inman said. “No horseplay or anything like that, but having fun is the most important thing about our defense. We can’t lose sight of what we need to do and how we approach getting it done, but we want to have fun.”

There’s one other important aspect Inman didn’t want to overlook.

“Oh, and also swarming to the football,” he said. “We can’t forget about that.”

That will be on display at 1 p.m. Saturday when the Hawks face Lincoln in their home opener at QU Stadium.

“Coach emphasized that this week,” Inman said, “Swarm even more than we did last week.”

He will be in the middle of the swarm where No. 22 always seems to be.