In, and never out: Tucson High flag football player moves quickly toward her goals

After topping eight Tucson High and Pima College classes every day with a flag football or soccer practice, then maybe a six-hour evening shift at In-N-Out Burger, Bethany Linares wastes no time at night.

“I can get right to sleep,” she said.

That’s a must. An aspiring lawyer who is aiming to graduate a year early from Tucson High next spring, while playing both flag football and soccer for the school, Linares is as efficient as she says she is driven to keep moving forward.

Quickly.

“I always push myself to the next step,” she said before a recent Tucson High flag football practice. “Like, what’s next? What else can I do? I just want to look forward to the next thing. I set my mind to a goal, and I push myself to get there.”

As a result, this is what a typical week looks like:

Mondays and Wednesdays include both afternoon flag football practice and evening club soccer practice. Tuesdays often have flag football games. Thursdays could involve a flag football game and work. Friday is about work, while Saturday and Sunday can involve both work and a club soccer game.

That’s on top of classes that begin at 8:05 am. and continue through mid-afternoon. Any remaining downtime is for breaths … and homework, of course.

“If I finish work early in class, I’ll do a homework assignment because on the weekend, I have club soccer games or club football games,” Linares said. “Whenever I get a chance, I do work.”

Occasionally, Sundays can be different. Those are the ones when she might hop in the car for a trip to see a Cardinals game in Glendale.

Her father and Tucson High coach, Jorge Linares, was a longtime Cardinals season-ticket holder who still has a partial ticket package and, not surprisingly, the family knows how to pack a full day of fun and football in with characteristic efficiency.

“We usually leave Tucson about 6:30 or 7 in the morning for a 1 o’clock game,” Jorge says. “Then we get there, we set up the tailgate, we set up the TVs. We play corn hole, we play catch, we grill, and then we enter the game.

“After the game, we set up the grill again, warm (food) up and eat dinner there. We let the traffic die down because if you leave, you’re just gonna be on the gridlock, right. We usually make it back to Tucson at 7.”

Bethany says she and her father sometimes talk the technical side of football — sometimes “he goes back and forth, back and forth” — though both of them have found tackle football is a much different game than the flag version.

“The concept of the ball running and passing is the same, but the rest of it is almost night and day,” Jorge says. “What’s great about flag football is the touches on the ball. Everyone’s eligible — the center, running back, a blocker.

“When you cannot have everyone eligible in (tackle) football, that’s a chess game. Here, it’s more relaxed. If you’re a creative play caller and play designer, the sky’s the limit because you’ve got everyone involved.”

That’s one reason why when Bethany isn’t playing corner or safety on defense, she’s playing center on offense, allowing her to protect the backfield and/or flare out for a breakaway catch.

“Even if she misses the block, there’s a lot of options,” Jorge says. “She quickly turns around, and she’s the hot read right away.”

It’s a dynamic game but, in Tucson, still an emerging one. Jorge Linares said he’s been coaching soccer and flag football within his club organization, but that Tucson High’s flag football team only joined official play last season, after Marana, Sunnyside and Mountain View had jumped into the newly sanctioned sport.

While that put Tucson’s program behind, it helped that Bethany take on another role: chief recruiter.

“We were working together to get it approved and then once it did, we just started polling girls,” Bethany said. “I just started walking around school, saying ‘Do you want to play flag football?’ A lot of these girls are from club soccer and we just pushed them here.”

Years before, Bethany had the same done to her. Her older sister, Crystal, started playing the game under her dad’s coaching, and it quickly rubbed off.

“She had played soccer her whole life, and once she got into middle school, high school, she started playing flag football with my dad,” Bethany said. “She inspired me to try flag football and then ever since, we’ve all been playing, but soccer has been a family tradition, especially with my dad being the coach.”

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Bethany says she likes both sports equally, though the actual competition can be secondary.

“I think my favorite part honestly is the people, meeting new people, making new friends,” she says. “These practices are so fun because we’ll just laugh. We’ll obviously focus, but when we can laugh, it’s fun because we all love each other like sisters. The bonds are crazy. We all come out here and enjoy what we do.”

That even goes despite the challenges Tucson High might face on the field in 6A competition. While the Badgers are 4-1 heading into a game Tuesday against Sahauro — when Bethany and three other final-year players will be honored before the game — they suffered a 53-0 loss to a much more established Red Mountain team on Sept. 16.

“The best thing is to just keep our cool, know our worth and know that Phoenix is honestly just a different breed, Phoenix (teams are) super good,” Bethany said. “Especially at Tucson High, we barely started this year. We’ve made history even having a flag football team and achievements that we’ve already done. We’ve done a lot more than other schools can say they’ve done.”

Linares’ contributions on the field and in the classroom have already attracted several college offers, her father says, though Bethany says she is leaning toward Pima College because of a program helping students toward law careers and the chance to stay near family and home.

She says she already has been accepted to shadow an attorney in Tucson.

“My family always says, ‘Oh, she’s super argumentative. She could defend the statement,’” Bethany says with a laugh. “So they’ve always been like ‘You would be a really good lawyer.’ Then I actually looked into it, and I was like, ‘that seems really fun.’ It seems like I’ll be good at it.”

The moonlight gig

Adding athletics and academics to what Linares says are usually three six-hour shifts at In-N-Out Burger per week might seem impossible.

For that, she dishes an assist to her manager at the El Con fast-food restaurant.

“He’s super understanding about the schedule and everything,” Bethany said. “I had talked to him early in the year, because graduating early was always a plan. He was like, ‘Just request the days off that you have for games, or request the days that you just have to be off and we can work around it.’”

When she is at In-N-Out, Linares can be found at the front cashier, or sometimes in the drive-thru pay or handout windows, dealing with customers who may or may not be in a great mood.

“A lot of interactions daily,” Linares said. “It’s just keeping your cool. Maybe they’re having a bad day, and you helped — the good interaction helped their day get better. I think being friendly is a huge thing.”

Fast five with Bethany

Do you get tired of the food when you work at In-N-Out?

I don’t. I don’t. I think working at In-N-Out makes me crave it more.

What’s your favorite In-N-Out secret menu item?

The Flying Dutchman. Two meat, two cheese with no bun. You can get it wrapped in onions. But honestly I like the double-double with grilled onions. That one’s good.

Do you have a pregame routine, either in soccer or football?

Just talking to teammates. Having a good laugh before games gets me in a good mood. And I think if you’re in a good mood, you play way better.

Favorite athlete in football or soccer?

Budda Baker from the Cardinals. The way he plays, his effort between every play, he runs with full speed, you can tell his (desire). And in soccer, Alex Morgan. I think Alex Morgan is just an inspiring athlete.

If there’s no practices or anything on a weekend, are you taking it easy or studying?

I try to keep up on homework. And once I feel that I’m catching up and everything, I’ll see what my friends are doing. I’ll see what my family’s doing. I honestly prioritize family time.