Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 14, 1991 TAG: 9103140399
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Nice guys don't always get to finish the job.
Allen's coaching days at Tech ended Wednesday, when Hokies athletic director Dave Braine removed Allen from the basketball job with one year remaining on his contract. Allen, 41, agreed to move to an assistant athletic director's position.
"If I were Frankie, I wouldn't hang my head," said Roanoke College coach Page Moir, who served with Allen as assistants at Tech. "Most guys who come in as a head coach can make a fresh start. Frankie never had the chance to make a fresh start."
Moir and Allen were Tech assistants to Moir's father, Charlie, who resigned in the wake of an NCAA investigation in 1987. The NCAA put the Hokies on two years probation just as Allen succeeded the elder Moir, who was Allen's coach at Roanoke College and then his boss at the Blacksburg school.
"I feel badly for Frankie," Charlie Moir said from the Salem office of Dillard Paper Co., where the former coach is a sales representative. "I was hoping he would get an opportunity to coach out his contract. I wish him the best.
"I know that Frankie would like to remain in coaching. He's still a young guy, and I think he'll be back in coaching before too long. I hate this, but Frankie is strong. I'm sure he'll land on his feet."
Memphis State's Larry Finch, one of Allen's fellow Metro Conference coaches, recalled that he and Allen coached their programs through probation simultaneously.
"I know what he went through," Finch said. "We got into this about the time everything tightened up academically, too. I think Frankie did a good job in a difficult situation. You couldn't ask for a nicer guy, a guy with high ethics.
"He was making progress, but it's a long walk, and you have to go step by step. It's like everyone of us in coaching knows: Once you're hired, the next morning, you're a day closer to being fired."
M.K. Turk, who coached Southern Mississippi to its first Metro regular-season title and its second straight NCAA Tournament berth, said Allen "took over a job in a difficult situation and made it better. It takes a little time to get over problems."
VMI coach Joe Cantafio said he was happy to hear Allen took an administrative job at Tech. "I like Frankie, and I think everybody does," Cantafio said. "These things happen in coaching, unfortunately. The fact that Tech kept Frankie in the athletic department shows he was liked. It's a credit to Tech that the school just didn't let him go."
Radford coach Oliver Purnell said, "Coaching needs people like Frankie Allen, people who run a program with integrity, people who care about their players' academic progress. I thought he did a good job under the circumstances there, and I thought things were coming around for him from a won-lost standpoint."
Page Moir knows Allen and the Tech situation as well as any coach, other than Allen himself and Charlie Moir. The younger Moir said he felt that leftover animosities toward the 11 Moir years may have had an impact on Allen's status. Page Moir wasn't kept on the staff when Allen became a head coach, and a move to the staff of then-Cincinnati coach Tony Yates enforced some of Moir's opinions.
"Tech's resources, compared to Cincinnati and almost every other program in the Metro, are like apples and oranges," the younger Moir said. "Tech's a great place, but it doesn't have the budget or the resources to match programs like Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis State, Florida State and South Carolina.
"It was a very, very tough situation for Frankie. There are so many ifs. What are the academic standards compared to who Tech is recruiting against? What is the budget? It's tough to recruit at Tech. With the Metro falling apart and Tech coming off probation, it was tougher. People need to open their eyes to what are realistic expectations at Tech."
Ron Carr just finished his first season as a college head coach, at Division II Longwood. He was a Tech assistant with Allen for three years after spending one season on the Moir staff with Allen.
"I feel badly for Frankie," Carr said. "He's one of the nicest people I've ever met in this profession. I learned from Frankie, and I'm certain I wouldn't be in my present situation were it not for Frankie.
"The situation at Tech was tough. It's difficult enough place to recruit to anyway. I know. I tried doing it. I know the players there. I think if they had given Frankie a little more time, he would have gotten them over the hump.
"I'm very disappointed they didn't give Frankie his final year [as a coach]. Charlie Moir did as well coaching as anybody could ever do there, but that wasn't good enough. There were still people there on Charlie's butt all of the time. They're never satisfied."
\ ALLEN RECORD\ SEASON-BY-SEASON\ 1987-88 19-10\ 1988-89 11-17\ 1989-90 13-18\ 1990-91 13-16\ \ TECH COACHES\ VICTORY LEADERS Charles Moir 213-119\ Chuck Noe 109-51\ Howie Shannon 104-68\ Don DeVoe 88-45 Frankie Allen 56-61
by CNB