Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 10, 1994 TAG: 9403100078
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DeVoe, who turned 52 on New Year's Eve, is bidding to join Frankie Allen of Tennessee State among former Virginia Tech head coaches in the field. In addition, one-time Tech assistant Mack McCarthy will be taking Tennessee-Chattanooga to the NCAAs for the third time.
Another former Hokies assistant, Page Moir, guided Roanoke College to the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time since 1987.
DeVoe, whose first Navy team finished 8-19 in 1992-93, overcame a 5-10 record in mid-January to share the Patriot League regular-season championship and earn the top seed for its tournament. The Middies (16-12) will entertain Colgate (17-11) at 4:30 p.m. Friday in the championship game.
Navy will be without point guard and captain Victor Mickel, who has been suspended by the school for the rest of the season. Mickel is the younger brother of former Virginia Tech football player Marcus Mickel.
DeVoe, named Patriot League coach of the year, was Tech's coach when the Hokies played in the NCAA Tournament in 1976 and he subsequently went to the NCAAs six times as Tennessee's coach. Navy is the fifth stop as a head coach for DeVoe, a one-time Army assistant under Bob Knight.
\ FLETCHER FLOURISHES: Former VMI head coach Marty Fletcher has won exactly 100 games in the past five seasons at Southwestern Louisiana, including a 78-72 victory Tuesday night at Western Kentucky. That victory clinched the second Sun Belt Conference championship and second NCAA trip in three years for Fletcher, who was 37-75 in four seasons at VMI but took the Keydets to the Southern Conference title game in 1986.
\ BID? WHAT BID?: Salem Civic Center manager Carey Harveycutter was slightly taken aback last week when contacted by a Rock Hill, S.C., sportswriter concerning Salem's bid to serve as host for the ACC women's basketball tournament.
Salem previously has expressed interest in the tournament; however, any proposal to the ACC will have to wait until after the Big South Conference makes a determination on its men's basketball tournament.
The women's tournament contract between the ACC and the Winthrop Coliseum has expired; however, Rock Hill has made no secret of its desire to retain the women's tournament after setting an attendance record of 20,365 for the week.
\ TRAVIS HONORED: Radford senior Tyrone Travis capped a distinguished college career when he was named first-team all-tournament in the Big South, a tough task for a player whose team didn't make the final.
Travis had 25 points in each of the Highlanders' tournament games and went 16-for-23 from the floor. Travis ranks first in Radford history in blocked shots, third in rebounding and tied for fourth in scoring; classmate Don Burgess was second in scoring and fifth in rebounding.
\ AN INSTITUTION: J. Dallas Shirley, who was synonymous with the Southern Conference for three decades as a basketball official and administrator, died last week. Shirley, who turned 80 in July, served as commissioner of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference. He was a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
\ RECRUITING: Of the 23 football players in coach Bill Stewart's first recruiting class at VMI, 16 are from Virginia, including linebacker Jeff Berkley from Pulaski County and kicker Brandon Bissell from Rockbridge County.
\ WILLIAMS BACK: Former Bath County standout Tim Williams, the 1991 Timesland athlete of the year, is starting in left field for VMI's baseball team despite a shoulder injury that has threatened to end his football career.
"I was tired of sitting around and watching the action," said Williams, who had lost use of the deltoid muscle in his left shoulder. "There was very little progress at first, but I've noticed some improvement lately. The doctors said it would take a year or a year-and-a-half."
Williams, a starter for VMI's football team in 1991 as a freshman, injured the shoulder in the third game of the 1992 season but did not come out of the lineup. He was unable to play football in the spring or fall and contemplated leaving school.
"My mother and brother [Chris] convinced me that education was the main reason I came to college," Williams said. "There's still a slight chance I could play football next year if everything goes well and the nerve regenerates."
Williams, who had not previously played baseball for the Keydets, was batting .235 after 10 games.
\ LOCAL UPDATE: Virginia freshman Katie Ollendick, the 1993 Timesland track athlete of the year at Blacksburg High School, finished fourth in the pentathlon at the ECAC championships during the weekend in New Haven, Conn.
by CNB