Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401230078
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The athletic directors of Timesland schools were put through the torture test.
To the public, being athletic director seems like an easy job. It appears all they have to do when games are postponed is to reschedule.
Simple, isn't it? Not quite.
They must juggle gymnasium space and reschedule for basketball (girls' and boys' in Group AAA), volleyball (Group AA and Group A teams), wrestling, indoor track and swimming (three schools).
That's varsity. There also are junior varsity teams.
Still seem simple? Now consider that all this must be scheduled around exams. The question is when are exams? Because of snow days, schools constantly must change exam dates and no two systems seemingly have the same exam dates.
It's a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of pieces, and they always seem to be changing.
"It's been a little crazy," said Jane Layman, William Byrd's athletic director. "We're having an emergency meeting Monday of the Blue Ridge District athletic directors. The main problem is wrestling. We each have about three wresting matches that have to be rescheduled."
Consider the plight of any Roanoke County athletic director. Exams were to begin Tuesday, meaning there would be no games or matches that evening.
"This [past] week I've had to cancel 13 activities through Saturday," said Roger Martin, Glenvar's athletic director.
At noon Friday, Martin was waiting to find out about Roanoke County exams, which were postponed to Thursday, giving schools a chance to play Tuesday.
"Had we moved them back a full week, we would have been dead. Scheduling outside activities had to be part of their decision," Martin said.
The exam change didn't help, though. Martin had postponed a game against James River originally scheduled for Tuesday because of exams. When the exam dates were changed, James River wouldn't play the Highlanders despite the fact that both teams had open dates. It seems James River hadn't been able to practice and didn't want to play a game without some workouts.
Cave Spring's Otis Dowdy tentatively scheduled a key boys' and girls' basketball doubleheader makeup with William Fleming for Tuesday. He was relieved to hear that exams were off for Roanoke County schools.
"We probably could have played Friday or Saturday, but we weren't sure about what to do with spectators [because of the ice-covered parking lots]," Dowdy said. "Now that we've rescheduled Fleming, all I was dealing with in basketball this week were two non-district games [against Alleghany and E.C. Glass]. We'd still like to get them in because they were our home games."
That brings up rule No. 1 that might be invoked. In emergencies, district games take precedence over non-district competition. So far, no non-district games have been canceled, but for a while Pulaski County and Blacksburg nearly didn't reschedule in basketball.
"We're in fairly good shape," said Ron Kanipe, Pulaski County's athletic director. "We had scheduled early basketball games late with the state championship in football in mind."
Kanipe learned that lesson last season, when he was busy changing basketball games after the Cougars won the Group AAA Division 6 state title. With the 1993 team expected to repeat (Pulaski County advanced to the title game again), Kanipe was ready.
He wasn't ready for the weather, though, but the Cougars still are going to try to play all postponed games.
At Blacksburg, Warren Murphy agrees "we're all running out of places to put things."
"Exams have really made it a little more difficult because everyone is changing them around," Murphy said. "We're [athletic directors] certainly earning our money. I'm a rookie at this, but I'd say it's one of the worst."
"We're all headed to Florida and hoping the next ADs' convention is in Hawaii," Kanipe said with a laugh.
"I haven't seen anything like this in winter, but I sure saw a lot of it in the spring," said Dowdy, referring to the heavy rain that hit in March and early April. "We had cancellations and makeups that were horrendous."
Dowdy, though, says there was one difference: Many of those postponements came early instead of late in the schedule.
"Much of that rescheduling last year was during the state athletic directors' meeting [in Roanoke]. I'd say this winter is pretty close to the biggest mess," Layman said.
"It's really fun isn't it?" asked James Easthom, William Fleming's athletic director.
Easthom could manage a smile, though. He is considering retirement at the end of the year.
\ BIG ORANGE FIRST: When Northside won the Big Orange wrestling tournament on Jan. 15, Vikings coach Fred Wagner became the tournament's first champion to come back as the head coach of a championship squad.
Wagner won the Big Orange heavyweight title during the 1982-83 school year.
"I remember the guy I wrestled [Calvin Tyree of Franklin County] was huge. He weighed over 300, and I was about 205," Wagner said.
Under today's rules, Tyree, if he weighed that much, couldn't wrestle. The limit is 275 pounds.
Wagner's research on former champions was in error. He maintained that Northside had never had a Big Orange individual titlist.
The year after Wagner won, Billy Sloane was the 98-pound champion representing the Vikings.
by CNB