Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 8, 1994 TAG: 9411080082
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUENA VISTA LENGTH: Long
Steady as a metronome, straight as a plumb line, blunt as a fullback dive on fourth and 1 is Bob Williams.
``What time does the bus leave?'' he asks a young man in mismatched shorts, T-shirt, and scuffed white football helmet.
``Four o'clock,'' the kid replies.
``Good. You pass.''
As the man in charge at Parry McCluer Middle School, principal Bob Williams has seen a whole pile of them pass. As the man in charge on the Parry McCluer football field, he's seen to it that the passes are considerably fewer.
Now, his time strolling the practice field and sideline has dwindled to the final minutes. This is his last week. Friday, his last game. There will be no more. The Group A playoffs won't be in Parry McCluer's travel plans next week.
Parry McCluer football is basic football. Shorten the game by running old-fashioned T-formation power plays right into the face mask of the opposition, and if that doesn't work, turn around and strangle them with defense.
Simple football. Basic as a middle school faculty meeting.
So simple, that Williams, 55, almost doesn't want to talk about it. Even about the best teams he's had in 21 years of being in charge of the Fighting Blues.
``I've always evaded the issue,'' he said.
But wait a minute, what about the 1977 edition? That muscle-bound group won the state championship and triumphed in all 14 games it played.
``I guess that may have been the best,'' he said. ``A lot of people thought that the team the next year was even better, though.''
Well, that outfit did extend a 26-game winning streak. But it had the ill fate of losing to Clintwood in the semifinals.
Who's to choose among the five state champions that Williams has coached? Or the 12 champions of two different regions? Or the 12 kings of two different districts?
It's an issue of taste among the 1977, 1979, and 1983 state championship models - the prototype bust 'em in the chops Parry McCluer teams. Or perhaps your fancy might be tickled by the 1986 and 1987 teams that won back-to-back state titles.
Those last two units were pretty to watch. They could power it, finesse it, throw it, catch it, and stick it right in your ear hole. Chris Wheeler was the quarterback, a tall, dark recoilless rifle of a field general. He's dead now, claimed by a traffic accident. But memories of his leading the Blues back from two touchdowns at the break to a 21-14 victory on the bitterly windswept valley floor at Strasburg for the last crown in 1987 don't perish so sadly and swiftly.
Wheeler was good enough to play big-time college football, but one thing and another kept him from it. No Williams guy has ever played big-time college football unless you count Brent Secrist, who toils now for James Madison, a good program but a notch below the real heavy hitters.
``Bob can remember every year,'' said his wife, Frances. ``He can remember almost every play.''
She was fresh out of Radford College in her first job at old Lexington High, and he was teaching English and apprenticing on Pete Brewbaker's crack football staff. The romantic match of the rookie school teacher and the coach worked out well. When Williams took over at Parry McCluer, his alma mater (she went to Natural Bridge), he went on to coach in 254 games for which he has a 198-53-4 record.
She missed one of them.
Their only daughter, Jennifer, attended her first game at about age 3. She was there, a shivering 5-year-old huddled under a sleeping bag with her mother, at a playoff match down in the mountains at Honaker on a day that was so horrifically cold that it was a wonder the football didn't shatter like a china teapot when somebody kicked it.
Jennifer picked up her father's sporting genes. He earned 11 Parry McCluer letters in football, basketball, and baseball. She played volleyball, basketball, and softball. Even after going away to Radford University and later the University of Virginia to study for a graduate degree in sports psychology, she attended all the Blues' games, both at home at rickety Camden Field and on the road.
Woe be to the man who questions one of her father's plays within her earshot, too. She's torn into more than one flabbergasted grandstand heckler.
``They don't know the time and dedication that he's put into this,'' she said. ``It's easy for them to sit up there and call the plays - 20-20 hindsight.''
Truthfully, her father can take care of himself.
``He's a class guy all the way,'' said coach Temple Kessinger, whose teams at old Rockbridge High got hammered so many times with the Parry McCluer T that he imported it to Galax when he took a job there.
``Now that I'm down here, he's finally letting me in on some of the secrets,'' Kessinger said.
Williams is learning a little bit about how the other half lives in his final season, the first losing campaign. He could see it coming a mile off, of course. So could his assistants Dave Ellison and Mike Turner, who have been with him from the start, and Charlie Wheeler, who joined up in 1976. You don't miss many prospects when you work at the middle school, as all four of them do. A fourth assistant, Vince Beasle (on board since 1983), minds the store as the assistant principal of the high school.
Small of stature and not real fast, the last Williams team has won two of nine games. The latest indignity was a 46-6 pounding at the hands of Bath County Friday.
``Never had a year like this one,'' Williams mused.
One of his best players, lineman Matt Fitzgerald has been gone since the Stuarts Draft game with a leg so splintered that it has a top-to-bottom cast. Running back and linebacker Craig Lawhorn, a co-captain, has missed most of the season. First came a family crisis that ensued when his younger brother Shane was hit by a car when riding his bicycle. Shane pulled through enough to be brought home from intensive care in Charlottesville, but then Craig tore up a shoulder on the football field.
Still, the Blues have soldiered on against the traditional murderous schedule. Some coaches may have been troubled by leaving on such a melancholy note.
``It really might be making it easier,'' Williams said.
Put another way, this too shall pass.
Williams was working in his office the other day when an old friend dropped by, Hot Springs insurance man Tracy Phillips, a former coach at Bath County. After some jokes and football talk, Phillips turned to take his leave.
``Hang in there,'' he said. ``The only consolation in this is that next year, it'll be somebody else's headache.''
Williams will have some input into who that somebody else will be. His assumption is that it will be one of his veteran assistants.
``I'll hate to see him go,'' Turner said. ``He makes things a whole lot easier for all of us. You know exactly where you stand.''
Said Ellison: ``He's the same day in and day out, unflappable.''
Under present circumstances, it's hard to see how the former Washington and Lee baseball and football player could remain unflappable, but such apparently is the case.
``Life pretty much much goes on win or lose,'' Frances Williams said. ``There's no major change. But he has a lot of wins, so that helps.''
The last opportunity for win No.199 comes Friday at Rockbridge County. Parry McCluer will be a long shot, at best. No.200 will never come.
``I'm not that hung up about it,'' Bob Williams said.
Williams' career in education may be coming to a close, too. The Williamses will look over their finances with an eye on his retirement. Their house is for sale. Plans are to move in with Williams' widowed mother, Dorothy, just down the street. The house is within sight of Parry McCluer. Williams' only sister, Mary Lou, died in August of cancer at age 51. She lived with their mother and Williams is now worried about her being alone.
Once he does retire, Williams sees himself playing some golf, gardening, maybe traveling a bit. The school will be hard to live without. Football practice, maybe not as much.
``But I know I'll miss being down on that sideline Friday night,'' he said.
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by CNB