Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 5, 1993 TAG: 9312050142
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
The question in the state Group AAA Division 6 water skiing - er, football - semifinal wasn't who would win, but who wouldn't drown.
"It was like playing in a lake," said Pulaski County running back Eric Webb.
"In all my years of coaching, these were the worst conditions I've seen," said the Cougars' Joel Hicks, who has been pacing sidelines for three decades.
Pulaski, the state's top-ranked team, made sure its unbeaten record wasn't muddied, winning 24-7. The Cougars (13-0) will try to defend their state title Dec. 11 when they take a 21-game winning streak into their matchup with Annandale. While they won convincingly, they tried to be gracious hosts, too.
Pulaski scored two touchdowns in the opening 10 minutes, 46 seconds, but the Braves may have lost the game a few hours earlier. That was when Hicks and Pulaski County athletic director Ron Kanipe asked Indian River's coach, Bob Parker, if he would prefer to delay the game until Saturday night, when one weather forecast called for improved conditions.
Why postpone the inevitable? All Parker had to do was look out a window of the Chesapeake school's locker room about 45 minutes before kickoff to see the Braves were outnumbered. That was when the public-address announcer called "for able-bodied men" among the Cougars' fans to go down onto the field and help remove the water-covered tarps.
Then, as about 60 men walked down the stadium steps and onto the tarp, the PA announcer amended his request to include all Cougars faithful, saying, "I didn't mean to neglect any able-bodied women."
Kanipe had called Earl Gillespie, the Virginia High School League's executive director, Saturday morning to see if, because of the worsening conditions, the game could be moved to Sunday. "Only in an emergency can you do that, or if there's lightning," said Kanipe, who with Hicks then offered to give third-ranked Indian River a later start. If the rain had stopped, the field would have been dry because of the tarp.
"It was time to play," Parker said. "Our kids were getting antsy. They wanted to play. Besides, there was no guarantee the rain was going to stop later."
It didn't. By the second quarter, the water was glistening in the deepening footprints around midfield. Yes, this was a job for CMT Sporting Goods. Hello, Richlands, about those mud cleats . . .
"There was no traction at all, none," said Pulaski lineman Randy Dunnagan.
"I didn't want to stop at halftime and come in [to the locker room]," Webb said. "I just wanted to keep playing all four quarters and get done."
Hicks recalled a game at Salem, where the skies began the floods of November 1985 just as a game began, but the field had been dry until then. This time, the field got wet faster.
"This was an awfully big game," Hicks said. "I knew that if it wasn't raining, it might help their passing game and their big linemen plant better. But I wasn't going to take advantage. This is a playoff game. The players should get to play in the best conditions they can play in.
"I was surprised Indian River wanted to go ahead and play, but then they're so far away from home. I can understand why they wanted to play and then get on the bus and get home."
Some in the crowd of about 5,000 understood. While virtually everyone in attendance became a wethead, the men's restroom at one end of the stadium was packed during the second quarter. It wasn't because the toilets and urinals were crowded. These fans - none of them able-bodied women, however - were staying dry while listening to the game on the radio.
So, Pulaski will try to become the first Southwest Virginia school to win back-to-back Group AAA state championships since Roanoke's Jefferson High School took three from 1922-24. The Cougars already are worried about the tattered condition of the field at the proposed championship site, W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax, and will call the VHSL to voice those concerns Monday morning.
Hicks said he thinks these Cougars are a better team than the '92 state-title club. "The hardest thing is to be picked No. 1 beforehand, and then live up to it," he said.
They are tough mudders.
by CNB