Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991 TAG: 9104140104
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In 1991, that's the way it goes for a couple of Roanoke College's more illustrious former basketball players. In the early and mid 1980s, those kinds of shots always fell and the Maroons were the scourge of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and a national Division III power.
Holmes earned All-America honors in 1982 and '83 hitting follow-up shots, and he earned a living in Sweden doing the same thing. He is one of the Roanoke College alumni players from the 1980s who returned for a game against Maroons seniors from the past two years.
The younger alumni team won 81-80 Saturday at Bast Center because Bond and Holmes missed at the end. Coach Ed Green and his first assistant, Mike Parrish, were on the bench trying to direct the older alumni to victory.
"I couldn't pick up the ball," said Bond, whose dunk shots were a spectacular trademark of his career at Roanoke College after he graduated from Liberty High School. Bond, last a member of the 1982 team, Holmes, Kenny "Special K" Belton and Carey Patterson all work for All-State Insurance.
Holmes tried a last-second tip to no avail.
"I was going to bring it down, but I didn't think I had time," said Holmes, a Division III All-American. "If we had been at the other end, that tip would have gone. The rims weren't as tight."
Said 6-foot-7 center Jeff Rakes, "Just say the mind is willing, but the body's not." Rakes still can sing the national anthem, as he demonstrated before the game. The Northside graduate who last played on the 1982 Roanoke team now is with Dominion Trust.
Belton, a 6-4 center who was Green's first recruit, hasn't lost his touch since he last played on the 1981 team. He had 28 points and made the fade-away shots that earned him his nickname.
"All the guys have talked about me all week long," said Belton, who hasn't lost his competitive fire. "I still can't believe we missed that final shot."
Mike Styles, also from the 1981 team, demonstrated he can still go coast-to-coast. Now he's a deputy sheriff in Madison County, where he was once a star high school athlete.
Mike "Shake 'n Bake" Baker doesn't have the Afro hairstyle he sported at Roanoke when he earned All-America honors in 1981. But, despite a gimpy knee that has taken its toll, he still has the moves that earned him his nickname. He now is head coach at Fairmont, N.C., where his team is favored to win next year's state title.
Bruce Hembrick is bulkier, but the 6-3 forward still has the smooth stoke from 15 feet. Last a member of the 1981 team, he now works with Liberty Mutual Insurance in Pottstown, Pa.
Angelo Hardy, of the clan that starred at William Byrd, was back but missing his long shot that used to be routine. He last played on the 1984 Roanoke team and now is a probation officer in Hampton.
And Donnie Morris still looks like the same quick guard that helped the 1983 team come within a whisker of a national championship. He's managing a Radio Shack in Martinsville.
Parrish, who left coaching to take up law, has a practice in Greensboro.
Green is the athletic director at Coastal Carolina. He recruited all the players from both alumni teams.
Even Roger Petersen, a Maroons alumnus and the public-address announcer from Roanoke's great years in the 1980s, returned from Norfolk where he is an attorney for Norfolk-Southern.
Styles summed up this first reunion of some of Roanoke's greatest Division III players.
"I'm glad this only comes up once every 10 years. I don't plan on returning for any more," he said, trying to catch his breath after a trip up and down the floor.
by CNB