Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994 TAG: 9404270013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Kathleen Wilson
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
And when Amanda approached her swim coach, Don August, at the recent banquet for the Blacksburg Sunfish, she walked up to him with a furrowed brow and all of the appropriate reverence and deference.
Then she let loose a huge smile - less two front teeth - aimed, and fired a big, gooey cream pie right into his face.
The crowd went wild.
``Isn't this great?!'' crowed Tessa Merna, 9.
Amanda earned the right to cream her coach by raising $100 in pledges for a recent swim-a-thon held at Virginia Tech's swimming pool in the War Memorial Gym.
Each Sunfish was awarded one pie to hurl for every $100 he or she raised.
At the banquet held in the Gilbert Linkous Elementary School, there were tables filled with homemade potluck goodies. There were medals and ribbons and oodles of awards for swimmers in every age category.
But it was hard to keep calm a gymnasium filled with wound-up swimmers.
``We want PIES!'' they'd chant from time to time.
The big bucks raised at this year's swim-a-thon put the Blacksburg Sunfish squarely into the black for the first year ever. It's a rapidly growing organization, jumping from just 40 swimmers to 130 in only two years.
And with such a devoted following, you can't really think of the Blacksburg Sunfish as the little organization that could.
The Blacksburg Sunfish will tell you, quite proudly, that they are the not-so-little organization that can.
For as much confidence as I'm sure swim coaches Bob Murphy, Maggie Oney, Alan Davis and Don August have in their teams, it's doubtful even they expected the pie total to run as high as it did.
Yvonne Ng, 7, was somewhat of a comedienne with her ``I Love Lucy'' pie throw timing. Her eyes planted firmly on Alan, she flung the cream pie right into Maggie's face without warning.
Maggie, wisely, had opted to wear swimming goggles.
Alan was determined to mess up as many swimmers as he could with the whipped cream goo that covered him not 10 minutes into the pie throwing. He rose from his chair and like a soaking-wet hound dog, shook himself off, flinging whipped cream in every conceivable direction.
But Nichole Chan, 11, was the big star of the evening.
Nichole raised over $600 for the swim-a-thon. That's nearly $300 more than her closest competitor.
Earlier in the evening, Nichole reminded me some of Miss America, walking around the gym, her arms loaded with swimming goodies instead of bouquets of red roses.
At the end of the evening, just six cream pies separated her from the already cream-soaked coaches.
Nichole reveled in the moment.
Each coach got smeared and got smeared good.
With Alan, Nichole even paused to apply the whipped cream to his hair like styling mousse.
The coaches and parents of the other swimmers all think a lot of Nichole.
She's not the best swimmer on the team.
And she doesn't come from the wealthiest family either. So don't get the idea her parents are responsible for helping her raise all that money.
Nichole Chan just tries harder, they said.
Her fellow teammates think the world of her, too.
Danny Ha hadn't raised enough money to get to throw even one pie. When Nichole found this out, she gave him one of hers.
``It's no big deal,'' she said. ``I have six.''
Is Danny a good friend of hers?
``No, not really,'' she explained. ``He's in some of my classes.''
For the swimmers who thought they were getting out of the gymnasium cream-free, they had another thing coming.
When the last pie had been thrown, Alan leaped off of the stage and grabbed every swimmer he could scoop up and gave them a big ole messy hug.
Alan covered as many as he could from head to toe with whipped cream.
``Revenge is sooooo sweet!'' he growled.
by CNB