Quinton Spain weighs right around 335 pounds right now, and you can tell it’s good on him, it’s good for him. This is what happens when time and tactics merge lanes in the weight room and accelerate down the highway. Spain, now a fifth-year senior, looks right.

He’s always looked big, and sometimes maybe too big, but, hey, 6-foot-5 is 6-foot-5. At that elevation, at that size, at that position, you need weight and it tends to come quicker and go away slower.

But there was a time when Spain was over 370 pounds when he showed up on campus and he needed and took time to get into the 36os and then the 350s. Given how strength and conditioning is a 12 month gig and how the dietitian is so available and willing and above all else influential, a transformation was bound to happen.

Spain played in the 330s last season, but was in the 340s again at the end and in the spring. Now he’s in a good place and in great shape. That’s big, especially for a big guy. Remember, the first week or two of camp used to be spent getting guys into football shape. That stuff happens in June and July now.

Spain was ready for the summer, never mind the season, because he turned back the clock in the spring.

Quinton Spain, intramural power forward.

It’s a memory now, one that isn’t even included in his media guide biography, but Spain was a very good high school basketball player. As a senior, he helped Petersburg (Va.) High to an undefeated regular season, the top ranking in Group AAA and a top-100 ranking in the nation. The Crimson Wave smoked fools early and often and were heavily, heavily favored entering the VHSL title game against Norcom.

Norcom won, 55-54, but keep an eye on the 54 in crimson.

Times and sports change, but Spain has always kept a basketball nearby. In the spring, he was on a team with long snapper John DePalma and holder Mike Molinari, and that’s a clever squad. DePalma is 6-5 and 245 pounds now, but scored more than 1,000 points as a four-year starter and all-county and all-region player in high school. Molinari was a good scorer and team captain at Parkersburg South and made honorable mention all-state as a senior in 2010.

So based on all that, you can pretty much guess where their season went and how it ended.

“We went to the championship game,” Spain said, “but we lost.”

Not again!

“I had to get back to it,” Spain said, mentioning he slowly got his groove back, but never restored the drop-step or Dream Shake.

“I didn’t do any dunking, either,” he said. “I don’t do that any more.”

He can, he says. He just won’t, and Ron Crook would thank you for understanding.

It was nevertheless fun for Spain, that competitive release for the time after the end of a 4-8 season and before spring football and summer workouts and preseason camp, but also a return to a fun time in his life that’s been devoted to football ever since.

It served a greater purpose, too. Forget sharpening that edge. Never mind the agility and the coordination required and how basketball helps football. That all may be true, but Spain saw a better benefit.

“Conditioning,” he said. “Football and basketball are totally different. Basketball, you’re going back and forth, back and forth. Football, you’ve got breaks during play. I feel like it helped get me ready for football.”