Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 12, 1994 TAG: 9405120161
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Medium
Bishop has been on the high end of a lot of baseball scores in his two decades of coaching at Floyd County, but never had he coached a team that was so powerful it frightened away all prospective opponents.
Last Tuesday, though, Bishop was like a ball player who discovered the other team's bus broke down on the way to the game. He was ready to play ball, but no one would play with him. Like a solitary runner in a one-man race, Bishop coasted to victory.
Such is life when you do such a bang-up job as the town mayor that no one will run against you.
In Floyd's town election on May 3, Bishop was re-elected as mayor, a position he has held since he was appointed to that task in late 1991. He would liked to have had a little competition, though, to satisfy the coach in him.
"Winning an election without opposition is like winning a game by forfeit," Bishop said. "Of course, you'll always take a win."
In Floyd, there's no question who the boss is.
"We know him as 'coach,'" said Phillip Marshall, a senior pitcher on the team. "Nobody calls him 'mayor' around here."
His Honor is a battling Bishop, to be sure. Had any other candidate dared to oppose him in the local hustings, he probably would have taken them on with verve. You see, Bishop does not relinquish a title without a fight.
He lost his coaching job in the late 1980s, an event that was probably more painful than an election loss could ever be. Bishop performed the dual tasks of coaching baseball and boys' basketball at Floyd before giving up the baseball job in 1986. Two years later, in a surprising move, his basketball contract was not renewed by the Floyd County School Board.
A full explanation was never given for Bishop's dismissal. In 13 years as the basketball coach, Bishop had taken the Buffaloes to two Group A state tournament finals and had been named Timesland Coach of the Year in 1987. His last four teams won a total of 80 games.
Bishop filed a $2 million lawsuit, which contended his firing resulted from a School Board member being unhappy about the lack of playing time his son received on the basketball team.
Most of the suit was dismissed in early 1991. That November, the rest was settled between Bishop and the School Board. At the end of that meeting, Bishop was named Floyd County's baseball coach.
In the three years he was out of coaching, Bishop maintained his position of teaching physical education at the high school. He remains close to athletic director Wes Starkey, who filled in capably as baseball coach during Bishop's exile, and Alan Cantrell, who took over as basketball coach and serves as Bishop's assistant baseball coach. He stayed involved in sports by umpiring high school baseball games.
"Baseball is in my blood," said Bishop, who has won more than 200 games in 20 years of coaching baseball.
"My attitude [during his three-year absence] was that 'things are going to work out the way they're supposed to.' I don't know why I thought that, but I knew I'd be back."
Floyd has had good teams in each season since his return. This year's team has faltered a bit after a fast start, but the Buffaloes still have one of the better teams in the Mountain Empire District, a league that will surely feature a more interesting race than did the Floyd mayoral campaign.
The Buffaloes amassed a year's worth of highlights in the season's first few weeks: Sam Burton and Marshall tossed back-to-back no-hitters against North Cross and Rocky Gap, sophomore Robert Favre showed he's going to be one of the MED's elite pitchers by winning his first four decisions, and junior catcher Peter Bucklin had a streak of 10 straight base hits over a three-game span to raise his average above. 600.
"I've cooled off a bit since then," he said.
Bucklin is currently batting a positively frigid .589.
Some of the players who live outside town limits confessed they didn't know Bishop was Floyd's mayor. They also probably don't know that he had impressive credentials as a player.
Bishop, a native of Kingsport, Tenn., turned down an offer from the Dodgers in order to attend Tusculum College ( "A small Christian college for small Christians," as Bishop described it) on a basketball scholarship, even though the school recruited him to play baseball. Basketball was the only sport that offered financial help, so Bishop played that sport and became an all-conference point guard.
He was an all-conference pitcher as a freshman, then battled back from a serious arm injury to make all-conference again as a senior. He was a pretty good first baseman, too, who hit above .300 for his college career.
Bishop, 54, still plays baseball for a team of over-40 players out of Tennessee that travels down to New Orleans every year for a national tournament. Bishop is 4-0 in those tournaments.
"My teammates say I'm crafty," he said.
Crafty enough to run a town, teach school and coach baseball. It's not hard for him to determine the toughest of those chores.
"Coaching is rougher on my nerves," he said. "It's a small town. The mayor's job is really only part time."
by CNB