Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994 TAG: 9406080036
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: by BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Lord Botetourt's Jay Gilliland and Radford's Cathy Richardson came from nowhere to win Timesland's tennis players of the year awards.
Gilliland, who last week won the Group AA boys' state singles championship, started his high school career just two years ago.
Richardson, who joined teammate AshLeigh Funk to take the Group AA girls' state doubles title, started as a freshman only because her father gave her a racket.
The coaches of the year are Salem's Mike Gibson, whose team won the Group AA boys' state title after he had taken it over from long-time high school tennis guru Dave Petersen, and North Cross' Sharon Killam, who was suddenly thrust into coaching for the first time when the school needed someone to head up the girls' team.
For Gilliland, the interest in tennis came because a friend, David Stallard, was playing No. 1 for Lord Botetourt.
"I always played with him," Gilliland said. "It was nothing serious; no tournaments. I came out as a sophomore.
Lord Botetourt coach Sharon Franklin said the road to success was long for Gilliland, who went 17-2 this season.
"He never had a pro lesson," she said. "He learned to play tennis from his friends. They taught him at a swim club where there was grass growing down the middle of the courts.
"He doesn't have a [Middle Atlantic Tennis Association] ranking. I spent the fall writing college coaches. They'd look for a ranking and find he doesn't have one, so he didn't get any scholarship offers."
Eventually, VMI wanted Gilliland, but he decided to go to George Mason where he's been promised scholarship aid as a sophomore if he earns a spot as one of the top six singles' players.
Franklin said she thought at the beginning of the season Gilliland could win state because he had been one of the tougher players against Salem's Edel Veloso last year.
"She's got big expectations," said Gilliland. "Before the district tournament, Coach Franklin handed me a piece of paper. It told me when the state was. That was like some kind of expectation."
Gilliland's temper nearly cost him his shot. Franklin pulled him out of a district match the week before the tournament, causing him to default and asked that he control himself if he wanted to continue.
"I'm personally kind of glad it happened, though I wasn't glad at the time," Franklin said. "It had been building all year. Now I'm more impressed with him for winning the state without yelling and screaming."
Gilliland admits he gets excited sometime.
"It's better since I've gotten older," he said. "This year I had no outburst until that point. I can't tell you why it happened. It was the stupidest thing in the world. It helped me to overcome it because I stayed focused."
Richardson's high school career was also an accomplished one. Her four-year singles record was 65-3, and she lost in the Group AA state semifinals this spring. In doubles, Richardson was 59-2 with an 18-0 record this season. She'll attend Virginia Tech next year, major in engineering and give up an athletic career that also included volleyball and basketball.
"My dad [Robert Richardson] got me a tennis racket when I was a freshman," Richardson said. "Coach [Betty] Branch and several other girls talked me into playing. I went to a couple of clinics at the recreation department, but I never took a lesson."
As a freshman, Richardson went 16-0 as No. 6 singles and 9-0 as No. 3 doubles. In four years, she never lost a regular season match.
Branch had a feeling Richardson would be something special.
". . . You can see a good athlete," said Branch. "Her mother refused to let her play soccer, and someone who worked with her dad had a tennis racket they wanted to sell.
"Someone told Cathy she ought to play tennis. She beat all the freshmen and sophomores for the sixth position on the team. The thing is she kept the ball in play, she could run and hit the ball in the court. It wasn't always the prettiest, but it was there and that's what counts."
Gilliland beat out Glenvar's Nick Varney, who led the Highlanders to their third consecutive Group A tennis championship, for the boys' honors. Richardson finished ahead of unbeaten Armistead Lemon of North Cross and Parry McCluer's Melanie Wexel, who lost in the Group A singles championship game.
Gibson topped Glenvar's Art Lawrence as the top boys' tennis coach. Both won state titles, and both had to rebuild. Gibson, who was taking over a new program, may have had a slightly tougher task.
"My goal this year was to [get to] know the kids a little bit," Gibson said. "That wasn't tough. I told them I wasn't Dave Petersen, I have a different philosophy and I tried to make it my team.
"I didn't think it was my team until halfway through the season. I was lucky to be with a junior-senior bunch. We worked more on match play than we did drills. One of the biggest goals was to keep the team humble. They wanted shirts with state champions written on them, but I didn't want that. We already had enough people coming after us."
Salem split regular season matches with Blacksburg and then beat the Indians 5-4 in a state championship match that boiled down to the Spartans' No. 2 doubles' team of Mark Byington and Jon Valera outlasting the Indians' Michal Pfeil and Jeff Varner in three sets.
Killam's North Cross team went 11-1 and beat both Salem and Blacksburg, which are bigger public schools.
"I was hired as a middle school language arts techer at the middle school," Killam said. "They needed a tennis coach. I've never coached a tennis team in my life. Armistead was my right arm, helping me through the whole thing."
Killam says that she might not be back next year.
"It's up in the air because they have some candidates coming to school who have quite a bit of experience," she said. "No one knew it would turn out this way. I'd love to help the new coach. I enjoyed it. I learned a lot. I knew from the beginning I wasn't experienced and that I had a lot to learn."
Killam topped Grayson County's Judy Moser, whose team made the Group A state semifinals.
by CNB