Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 4, 1994 TAG: 9402040045
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-9 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Ray Cox
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Truth be known, we really can't have that down at Pulaski County High School right now. People there have suffered enough. Actually and more specifically, those who like to take a shot of life with a fiery chaser of boys' basketball are the ones who have had the severest hangover.
Boys' basketball in the Cougars' compound hasn't gone as marvelously as some had hoped or expected.
But the cold eye of journalism never blinks. Objectivity rarely rides shotgun with sympathy.
So we're talking full disclosure here.
Eric Webb was playing basketball when he wasn't supposed to.
There. It's been said. Civilization marches on, or so it seems from the soiled windows of the luxuriously carpeted third-floor penthouse offices of the Roanoke Times & World-News sports department.
Now, you may be wondering why Webb shouldn't have been playing basketball. As many of you know, this is a guy who dribbles with the dribblingest of the them and shoots with the shootingest.
This was the deal with Webb. He was in a football game in the state semifinals in December against Indian River. He was playing defense, a pursuit that some say he executes even more effectively than a 3-point jump shot. Anyway, he was zeroing in on the ballcarrier when a brute charged with blocking him caught him unawares and whacked him vigorously with a headfirst, hard-bonneted blow to the chin.
For more than six weeks after that, only those with the sharpest powers of hearing could converse with Webb.
"All I could do was mumble a little bit," he said.
Too, the menu at the Webb household took an alarming turn for the worse.
"For breakfast I had a chocolate milkshake, and for lunch I'd have a chocolate milkshake," he said.
Just to jazz things up, he'd celebrate at supper by having a chocolate milkshake.
"Sometimes I'd have some broth, but I didn't like that too well," he said.
When your jaw is busted up, there isn't much they can do for you except wire that baby together and hand you a straw. That tends to narrow the possibilities on the dietary front.
Presumably too, such damage could really interfere with a guy's romantic options, especially those of a bachelor of Webb's status. This he politely declined to discuss. He had other, more pressing concerns.
"I lost 22 pounds," he said.
For a football player, losing 22 pounds is a more dreadful thought than being sent to Devil's Island.
"And I was just starting to gain some weight when it happened," he said. "It seemed like it just drained the strength right out of me."
When Pulaski County basketball coach Pat Burns heard the news, the color drained right out of his visage.
"Webb led us in five statistical categories last year," he said.
Cougars' football coach Joel Hicks didn't feel too hot when he heard, either. Pulaski County was to face Annandale in the state title game with no Webb.
Now, nobody is saying that Annandale won that game, thus denying Pulaski County back-to-back championships, just because Webb couldn't play. But it is safe to assume that the Cougars would have enjoyed taking a shot at the Atoms with an in-one-piece Webb in the lineup.
That bitterly cold and windy afternoon does not rank high on Webb's list of jolly occasions, either.
"I just stood there on the sideline with tears in my eyes because I couldn't play," he said.
Only slightly less melancholy was passing the Christmas season and its corresponding feast and not being able to slip even the thinnest slice of ham past clinched molars. Then, on top of that indignity, being told to engage in no basketball or any other activity deemed in the least hazardous to his fragile chin.
Naturally, Webb ignored these instructions.
"I was going down to the YMCA and playing ball with the men down there," he said.
Hoops at the Y? That's like Saturday night in Dodge City.
"I told my doctor I was doing it," he said.
The doctor freaked.
Webb smiled, as best he could through the oral engineering, and kept right on hooping it up.
Which may explain why he's averaged over 20 points per outing in the four games since he's been back with the varsity.
"Webb can just play," Burns said.
The complication in all this is that despite Webb's contributions, the Cougars' frustrations continued. They lost all four games after his return.
Even so, with a young man of Webb's abilities now on board, you have to believe better days are ahead for the Cougars.
Just ask Webb. He'll tell you.
He won't be mumbling, either.
Ray Cox covers New River Valley sports for the Roanoke Times & World-News
by CNB