Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993 TAG: 9311260107
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Alan Cantrell stops short of saying that his Floyd County girls' basketball team has some unfinished business to attend to.
Yet, he's the first to admit that it seems like his work is never done.
As his team enjoys its second straight Region C championship and prepares for another run at a Group A state title, Cantrell is eating, sleeping and living basketball - morning through night.
While late fall may mean girls' playoff time for some, for others it signifies the beginning of the boys' winter season. For Cantrell, it's both. He also coaches Floyd's boys, just as successfully as he directs the girls.
This is crunch time for Cantrell. His girls are rolling over the opposition while his boys, also defending region champions, are in preseason practice. He goes through two practices a day, starting with the boys at 6:30 a.m. if the girls have a game that night. On non-game days, the girls and boys practice back-to-back in the evening.
"In a way, it's tiring," Cantrell said. "It's more tiring mentally than physically. What makes it not seem so hard is the fact that we're winning. I guess it would be more tiring if we were losing."
If losing breeds fatigue, the Cantrell is as awake as a night watchman at a graveyard. Heading into Tuesday's Group A tournament game against Hurley, the girls were 26-1 and riding a 24-game winning streak. The girls were 27-1 a year ago, the boys 20-7.
The girls lost to eventual state champion Wilson Memorial in last year's semifinals. This year, with every player returning from that squad, they're favored to win the title.
"We learned a lot from the state loss last year," said Cantrell. "We're focused. I think we're peaking, but we're still trying to improve."
Cantrell has coached boys' and girls' basketball everywhere he's been. He coached both teams at Floyd from 1980-84, then held the same jobs at Tazewell until 1986, and he returned to Floyd in 1987 after having been the boys' coach at Pound the year before.
For Cantrell, basketball is a family affair. His daughter, Melissa, is a sharp-shooting sophomore for the girls, and his son, Travis, is an eighth-grade player. His wife, Gayle, is an honorary assistant, secretary, statistician and team chef.
"The only way I could do this [coach both sports] is if I had support from my family," Cantrell said. "I've got good assistant coaches who put in a lot of time, and that helps. I've got a great wife and kids who spend about as much time in the gym as I do."
Cantrell's players are like family to him as well. A couple of years ago, the Cantrells began a postseason tradition of having the team over for a spaghetti dinner before every tournament game.
"We'll have about 20 kids over," he said. "We've had our fill of spaghetti by the time the tournaments are over with. The kids come over and eat, lay around the floor, watch TV and relax. Some of the parents bring cookies and cakes. It really is a family-type thing."
Cantrell is the patriarch of a Floyd basketball system that has devoured the opposition with a running, pressing philosophy. Since both teams use the transition game, Cantrell's transition is easier.
"Both programs operate on the same type of offense and plays," he said. "That makes it real easy for me, because practices can be identical."
True, the girls' and boys' programs are uniform. So much so, in fact, that the jerseys and shirts the girls wear in the fall are passed along to the boys in the winter - home uniforms, road uniforms, practice uniforms.
A few years ago, Cantrell purchased new uniforms for the boys and received them just before the girls' tournament. The shorts and jerseys the girls were wearing at the time looked so ragged by comparison, Cantrell didn't have the heart to give them to the boys right away.
"We got these nice, white uniforms about a week before the [Mountain Empire] district tournament," Cantrell said. "I thought, `You know, I should let the girls wear these.' We opened up the box in pre-game and asked the girls if they wanted to wear these new uniforms. They about went crazy."
The uniformity isn't just practical, it's fashionable.
"Everybody wears baggy shorts, T-shirts and spandex these days," said Cantrell. "We just make sure the shorts have drawstrings."
Draw strings is usually what Floyd does when it shoots.
On the court, the Buffalo girls don't come up short as evidenced by the fact that through last week, the girls' basketball program had lost just two games at the varsity, junior varsity and eighth-grade levels.
Cantrell maintains his courtside manner in the off-season, too. He either is host to or works at a camp seven weeks during the summer. By August, it's time for the girls' season to begin.
He says he does not favor one team over the other, he expressed relief when the Virginia High School League elected not to play both sports during the winter, and he plans on coaching both sports at Floyd for several years.
"I don't know how much longer I'll coach both," he said. "It would be a tough decision to make. I enjoy doing both. The past two or three years have been real exciting."
by CNB