Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993 TAG: 9305090046
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: E9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There is nearly unanimous agreement: Girls' basketball won't have it so good anymore.
"I don't feel the girls will get the amount of press they're getting," William Byrd athletic director Jane Layman said. "We have only football to compete with on Friday nights [in the fall]. If they change, we'll have to compete with boys' basketball and wrestling."
Presently, the Roanoke Times & World-News fields calls from 30 to 35 games every Tuesday and Friday night during the winter.
In the fall, there are from 20-25 games scheduled each Tuesday and Thursday when girls' basketball is played.
Put them together, and that means there could be 60 games for a full schedule during the winter.
Yet most newspapers in the state won't add space or reporters despite the heavier influx. It likely will mean less attention for both girls' and boys' games.
\ WEST VIRGINIA: The fight to move fall girls' basketball to the winter in West Virginia has been going on longer than it has in Virginia.
It is a politically hot issue in that state. The legislature voted against making a change and turned the hot potato back to the principals for a decision. According to an article in the Huntington (W.Va.) Herald-Dispatch last month, principals have resisted lobbying and pressure from the state board of education to make the change.
"The issue has reared up about mid-March every year for the last three seasons," says Herald-Dispatch sportswriter David Walsh, who wrote a series of articles on the subject. "It's become more volatile during that span. The state legislature is involved. This year, we had the state board of education, state women's commission, the state government and a few parents groups involved.
"When it got down to a vote of the principals, it was lopsided to leave it the way it is. Opponents say even though the issue gets down to gym space and officials, they don't buy it. They ask if 45 other states do it, why can't we?"
\ VIRGINIA GROUP AAA: Although the Group AAA schools won't be involved in the Virginia High School League vote on moving fall basketball, the Roanoke area teams have shown there is no agreement on what to do when boys' and girls' basketball are played at the same time.
Franklin County, with plenty of gym space, doesn't hold doubleheaders.
"We decided not to because of the facilities. Each team has its own gym," said the school's athletic director, Jerry Little.
Cave Spring won't play a doubleheader against Pulaski County but would have at least one home doubleheader against either William Fleming or Patrick Henry.
"If our boys' teams are very competitive, and with the following of girls' basketball, we couldn't get everyone in the gym who wanted to see the doubleheader if we played one with Pulaski County," Cave Spring athletic director Otis Dowdy said.
He adds that playing varsity and junior varsity boys' and girls' games at opposite sites on the same night doesn't work well because some supporters and parents want to follow both programs.
Pulaski County likes to play doubleheaders.
"We ended up with some of our largest crowds in years," Pulaski County athletic director Ron Kanipe said. "We have a good following for boys' and girls' teams. They're not always the same people. So you get both groups in.
"You have some duplications [in drawing people]. But it makes it more attractive to see two varsity teams the same nights."
by CNB