Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 7, 1993 TAG: 9301070015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
LET SPORTIN' LAURELS NOT BE FORGOT AND HERE'S LASHES TO GO WITH 'EM
It has just come to my attention that it is no longer New Year's Eve. This is a shocking development.If it isn't New Year's Eve, then why do I have this dinner jacket and black tie on?
How could I have missed it? Must have been a bad barrel of oysters we got into.
But we must press on, tardy though we may be, with the laurels and lashes from dearly departed Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-Two.
Let us be the last and the first to examine the New River Valley's best and worst of the past year:
\ BEST ATMOSPHERE FOR A POST-GAME CHAT: The Pulaski County boys' basketball office, wreathed as it is in the smoke from Coach Pat Burns' pipe.
As generations of Ivy League professors who have had to replace worn elbows of wool sport coats with leather patches know, pipe smoke conjures deep thoughts.
Tobacco fumes in Cougarland are nothing new, of course. Burns' predecessor, Allen Wiley, entertained locker-room visitors through a fogbank of cigar smoke. Stogies also have been a standard prop at football victory celebrations in the headquarters of Cougars boss Joel Hicks.
\ WORST FORUM FOR POST-GAME REMARKS: Heroes of Floyd County's football upset of Narrows had to be interviewed in the guest's shower at the Green Wave's Ragsdale Field.
The players were clothed and the shower off, but it still was hotter and more humid than a summer day in Borneo.
\ BEST GIRLS' BASKETBALL: No contest. Compared with anywhere in the state, the winner is the New River Valley.
You want Group A competition?
Floyd County gave a fair accounting of itself before a semifinal loss - barely - to eventual state champion Wilson Memorial and 6-foot-3 superstar Angela Gorsica. Before that, the Buffaloes were undefeated. Everybody will be back next year.
Group AA? We submit Blacksburg, the undefeated state champion. Skilled, well-prepared, embodying all the precepts of team play.
AAA? Pulaski County was the grittiest and most courageous around, bar none.
Terri Garland and associates were a thrill machine all the way to a championship loss to Phoebus. Unforgettable.
\ WORST GYM: Blacksburg. Ersatz floor surface, thin mats over the walls just inches beyond the baselines, iceberg temperatures, audiences distantly removed from the action. I'd advise Montgomery County to burn it down and start over, but I'd hate to see the taxpayers waste a perfectly good match.
Blacksburg's chamber of horrors isn't totally devoid of redeeming qualities. The state championship banners on one wall are a classy touch matched by few other schools in the state, exceeded by none.
\ BEST GYM: Radford, with the undersized facilities at Giles, Floyd County and Narrows not too far behind. Wooden floors, bleachers, your basic high school winter hotspots.
\ BEST BASEBALL FIELD: Calfee Park in Pulaski. One day the Atlanta Braves will rue the day they abandoned these fair grounds.
\ WORST BASEBALL FIELD: Giles. Nice for t-ballers, lame for high-school sluggers.
\ BEST FOOTBALL FIELD: Dobson Stadium in Pulaski. State of the art matched only by Salem Stadium.
\ WORST FOOTBALL FIELD: W.T. Woodson in Fairfax, where Pulaski County beat Robinson 12-10 in the Group AAA Division 6 semifinals. A couple of children could build a better stadium with an Erector Set.
\ GIRL YOU'D MOST WANT ON YOUR SIDE: Katie Ollendick of Blacksburg. Whether it be basketball, a footrace or leaping tall buildings with a single bound, she'll beat you.
\ GUY YOU'D MOST LIKE TO HAVE ON YOUR SIDE: Matt Smith of Blacksburg. All-Timesland two years at different positions in football, a bang-up basketball player his first year out for the team and a lock for All-Timesland in baseball had he not misbehaved his way off the squad as a senior.
\ BRIGHTEST FUTURE: Tough call, but I'd have to go with Pulaski County's Eric Webb, a 10th-grader who dominated in football and is a leading scorer in basketball. Hard not to think of him as a Division I football prospect at the very least. Randy Dunnigan, a 270-pounder senior-to-be for the Cougars, also figures to be playing a lot of football beyond high school. Another tenacious 10th-grader, Giles' Raypheal Milton, I know has a lot to look forward to and I haven't even seen him play baseball yet, a sport several say is his best.
\ BEST SOCCER: The players and coaches come and go, but Blacksburg keeps booting along.
\ BEST JOB OF RUNNING AWAY WITH IT: Christiansburg for boys and Blacksburg for girls. The runners and coaches come and go but. . . .
\ WORST FREE-FALL: Radford football goes from 11-2 and an overtime loss in the 1991 AA Division 3 semifinals to 1-9.
\ BEST GRIT: Wayne Lineburg of Radford wasn't real big, wasn't real fast and had neither a killer fastball nor an unstoppable jump shot. But he never quit during a gruesome basketball season, was the prototypical leader during football and outfoxed hitters all the way to the district championship in baseball.
\ QUOTE OF THE YEAR, from Narrows basketball coach Todd Lusk, on his team's propensity for taking a lot of three-point shots: "This year, our philosophy will be to make some."
Ray Cox covers New River Valley sports for the Roanoke Times & World-News