Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 21, 1994 TAG: 9401210193
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Ray Cox
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
You and your pals have been practicing since the steam-bath days of mid-August and have found a nice chemistry. So nice, in fact, that you went on a roll. It was the best of all rolls because you've won 14 straight games, including a frigid title tilt triumph over a legendary foe.
People, naturally enough, go nuts over this achievement, football being a highly regarded pursuit where you live. The day after the big victory, which happens to be a Sunday, it is pure bliss, what with congratulatory phone calls and assorted hearty slaps on the back.
Better enjoy it. Glory is fleeting. Monday looms and it's time to go back to work. Basketball practice is at hand and the team needs you in the worst possible way.
No problem. You're in great shape, right? The football coach has worked you like a galley slave for months. You've overcome every obstacle. In fact, to be perfectly blunt about it, you are just short of invincible. Aren't you?
The thought briefly may have crossed the mind of Bucky Burton, a pivotal performer for the undefeated Giles High football state champions. Basketball? No big deal. If you can handle football, you can handle anything. Can't you?
Burton found out in the time it takes to dribble four times and deliver a head fake that he was not as bullet-proof as he had suspected. "It seemed like I'd never played basketball in my life," he said.
In fact, he'd played varsity the year before. That also may have been the last time he was in decent shape. So much for all that football exercise, not to mention all the tennis he played last spring. Tennis is supposed to be good for heart and lung function, right?
"I was so tired after basketball that all I could do was go home, eat dinner, and go to bed," he said.
Burton didn't finish the football season last year, so he was basically unprepared for basketball agonies this year. Teammates Marty Smith and Patrick Steele could have warned him. They'd made the dreaded football-to-basketball transition before and they knew.
"Football shape and basketball shape aren't even close," said Smith, a defensive back turned point guard. "It's a whole different type of conditioning. In football, it's all short bursts. In basketball, it's up and down, up and down, up and down and then maybe you get lucky and have a time out."
Steele, an All Timesland football player who is now the Spartans basketball post guy, put it a different way: "You go from knock-down, drag-out to trying to finesse a ball into a basket."
Steele smoothed into basketball better than the other two because he plays down low. In fact, his first game out, which was after a grand total of four days of practice, he had 13 points and 12 rebounds. But let's be honest about post play: You go get rebounds, you throw outlet passes, and you take point-blank shots.
If you play in the backcourt, like Burton and Smith, there's a whole lot more ball-handling. Hence, the potential for disaster increases exponentially.
But our guys survived, and now all three are starting. Giles hasn't many wins, and things have been tough because of all the games lost because of weather. But the Spartans are coming around.
So are Smith, Steele and Burton. A typical recent outing for Smith has been seven assists and two turnovers.
"When he was starting out, it was more like 12 turnovers and two assists," Giles coach John Howlett said.
Steele has been steady. And Burton has been the surprise of the team as a swing man.
Maybe that surprised him. "At times," said he, "I wondered why I was even out there."
by CNB