Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 7, 1991 TAG: 9103070042
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Only Louisville's Denny Crum has been a head coach in more Metro tournaments than Moir, who has coached more college games at the Roanoke Civic Center than anyone. However, it's been four years since Moir was on Virginia Tech's sideline.
The other night, a longtime coaching acquaintance quizzed Moir about his address.
"I told him I lived over there by the hospital, the old folks' home and the funeral home," Moir said, laughing.
Moir, 60, is a sales representative for Dillard Paper Co., and this week he will be very visible at a tournament in which he coached 10 times - one year at Tulane and nine with Tech. Moir and his wife, Betsy, moved back to the Roanoke Valley after he resigned as the Hokies' coach in October 1987. They live in Salem, a 3-wood from Hidden Valley Country Club's golf course.
When Tech was selected co-host of the 1991 Metro, one of the first calls Hokies associate athletic director Danny Monk made as tournament director was to his old friend Moir, whose personal ties with the league and its coaches remain strong. Moir is a co-chairman of the '91 Metro host committee and also served on the gift committee.
"The coaches and players are getting a lot better gifts now than when I coached," said Moir, who now takes golf vacations to Florida and Arizona during basketball season.
Moir said he doesn't miss coaching, "but I do miss the camaraderie, seeing coaching friends as much as I used to. I still go to the NCAA Final Four. I still go to games now and then, but not many. If I had stayed in coaching, I probably would be retired by now."
Moir left Tech in the wake of an NCAA investigation, a probe he and former athletic director Dutch Baughman weren't informed of until a week after it had been started by the campus police. After 11 seasons and 213 victories, Moir stated publicly that he wasn't staying no matter how the affair turned out because his longtime loyalty to the school had been rewarded with university administration moves behind his back.
The NCAA placed the Hokies on two years of probation in October 1987, finding Tech's basketball program guilty of nine violations, including academic impropriety and improper benefits. Moir said he has not forgotten that during the probe, Tech's top administrators - also gone from the school - repeatedly attempted to discredit him.
Although the unraveling of Moir's program was rooted in a lack of discipline, the NCAA did not reprimand the coach. Moir left Tech after the school bought out the remaining two years of his contract for $250,000.
Now, the only time he goes to Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg is to work games for the Bertka Scouting Service. He has done reports on some Metro teams for other Metro coaches. He also is a regular at Roanoke College's Bast Center, watching his youngest son, Page, coach the Maroons. The elder Moir guided Roanoke to the 1972 NCAA college-division national championship.
"I enjoy watching Page's games, but sometimes it's nerve-wracking," said Moir, whose great wit and gentlemanly nature hasn't changed after having left his profession of 35 seasons. "It's hard for me to sit and watch a game I'm emotionally involved in.
"I would never tell Page what to do. I do find myself sitting there, thinking to myself that I'd like to see him handle something during a game a certain way. But I'd never say something about it to him. If he asks me, we discuss it. But he's the coach.
"It's hard for me to watch a game I'm not emotionally involved in, too. I don't just many games. I follow the Metro; I keep up with it, just like I keep up with teams coached by good friends of mine. But just seeing a game doesn't set me on fire. It just doesn't excite me. I guess that's only natural. It's tough for me to just sit and watch unless I'm extremely interested."
Moir, who used to stand and crouch in his Ultrasuede sport coats on the Tech sideline, at times finds himself walking behind the top row at Bast Center during pressure moments. A lot of basketball remains in a man who coached 616 victories in 31 years as a head coach, 20 of them as a college boss.
Moir also has more than a passing interest in his former team. Tech coach Frankie Allen, whose job status is in question after three straight losing seasons, was Moir's assistant at Tech from the first day on the job. Allen, the leading scorer in state college history, played for Moir at Roanoke.
"It's something that's out of my hands, but I'd hate to see Frankie lose his job," Moir said. "You hate to see that happen to anybody. I would hope he'd have the chance to prove himself [with one season remaining on his contract]. I guess some people would say he's had a chance, but that's been a tough situation.
"It's tough enough without [probation], in the middle of ACC country. It's tougher now [in the admissions' process] than it was when I was there. It's as tough to get into Virginia Tech as any school in the area, maybe tougher.
"In normal times, coaching is hard enough. I know."
by CNB