by Alex Schwartz

A pair of dual sport standouts who had long ago decided they would play football at the collegiate level made their commitments today. With National Signing Day tomorrow, 2011 prospects Tevin Westbrook of North Broward Prep (FL) and Anthony Gaffney of The Pennington School (NJ), both pledged within the past 14 hours.

Standing 6'6, Tevin Westbrook is a power forward on the basketball court and may have ended up at the low-major Division I level if he had focused on hoops. A bruising post player who spent the first three years of his high school career at Pine Crest (FL) with University of Kentucky freshman guard Brandon Knight, Westbrook will instead play football in college.

Jamie Newberg of ESPN posted on his Twitter account this morning that Westbrook had committed to the Florida Gators. Although the basketball program at UF did not get Brandon Knight, the football program will now be getting a player from the 08-09 Pine Crest state championship basketball team. Westbrook is set to play defensive end for Florida, which has won the FBS national title twice in the past five years.

According to Rivals, Westbrook is a top 100 football player in the loaded state state of Florida and a top 50 defensive end in the nation. Rivals lists him as also having football scholarship offers from programs such as UConn, Duke, North Carolina, Purdue, South Florida, Texas A&M, UCF, Virginia, and Wisconsin, amongst others.

Anthony Gaffney, who stands 6'2, is a shooting guard on the hardwood. He scored the 1,000th point of his high school career about three weeks ago. Gaffney was recruited mostly at the FCS level for football and due to his superb grades, he had looks from a number of quality academic institutions.

The Recruit Scoop broke the news this evening that Gaffney had committed to one of the standout academic schools, pledging to Holy Cross for football. Gaffney played a few different positions in high school, but will be a wide receiver for the Crusaders.

Gaffney was an honorable mention in Northstar Basketball's New Jersey Class of 2011 Fab 50 and is the fourth player of the 65 (including honorable mentions) on the list to commit to a school for a sport besides basketball. The others who will play football are #16 Keith Lumpkin of St. Peter's Prep who is headed to Rutgers and #44 Shilique Calhoun of Middletown North, who will suit up for Michigan State. In addition, Gaffney high school teammate at Pennington, #34 Chandler Fraser-Pauls, committed to Lafayette for soccer, but will be a basketball walk-on as well.

This is the second straight year that a basketball/football standout at Pennington committed to an FCS program the night before signing day. Last year Harold Spears popped to the New Hampshire football program. In 09-10, Pennington went 23-2 and finished #13 in the state and four players from that team either have signed with DI programs or will do so. None of the four did or will do so for basketball though, which is interesting. Along with the aforementioned three, Dontae Johnson '10 picked North Carolina State for football.

Note- photo of Westbrook is from http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ and photo of Gaffney is from http://sosportz.blogspot.com/