Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 8, 1994 TAG: 9412080022
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
To use the words of the esteemed girls tennis coach, Betty Branch, now retired:
Hon, we're going to miss you.
Not that she's really going anywhere. You can't keep Mrs. Branch (she insists you call her "Betty," never "Coach," but the more formal version is force-of-habit for me) far from a tennis court, not when her girls are playing. Maybe now that she is a coach emeritus, she can smoke a cigarette without sneaking off behind the building so the impressionable young players won't see her.
Maureen Weher is the new coach and she has solid Radford ties. She's been an assistant coach at Radford University, where she was also a player. She and Chris Garber, who used to coach the Bobcats to great glories, were doubles partners.
Radford girls tennis went back and forth between Garber and Mrs. Branch in the 1980s, each of them winning state Group AA titles. Mrs. Branch's teams went 102-20, won the state in 1985, were state runner-up in 1989, and a state semifinalist in 1992. Two of her doubles teams won it all, Michelle Miano and Beth King in 1989 and Cathy Richardson and Ashleigh Funk in 1994.
No, we expect we'll be seeing Mrs. Branch, whether it's keeping the book at a basketball game, or just pacing nervously when the girls take up their positions in the serving court next spring.
Meanwhile, she has big plans.
``I'm going to do nothing,'' she said. ``And I'm going to do it well.''
A HERO'S TALEChris Ratcliffe was a Pulaski kid who loved baseball, a sport he played for the county high school. He could see the glow of Calfee Park on warm summer nights from his house. That is, when they still had pro baseball in Pulaski.
Ratcliffe would have missed the Appalachian League even though the balmy breezes around the old neighborhood were still a delight.
The kid who lived near Calfee and loved baseball died recently at age 17. He'd had a car crash Nov. 3 when he and his pal Chris Back were driving on one of the country lanes near Hiwassee. A deer was in the road, Ratcliffe swerved, and that was it. Back pulled through. Ratcliffe didn't.
Ratcliffe's remains were donated to help others whose health has taken a turn for the worse. Let's hope his gift will allow a little boy to once again stare down a curve ball without his knees buckling or some little girl can get a chance to slide into second, pigtails flying from beneath her batting helmet.
Probably there will be no measuring those kids' gratitude.
Certainly, Ratcliffe's loss has been a crushing one to his family and friends. So too, though, was it a loss to baseball.
Baseball needs more good kids, not fewer.
WATERLOGGED Mercy, it's been warm this week. Only one way to deal with this balmy situation. Time to go swimming.
Radical solution for December, you say? Not for Pulaski County High's aquatic team, which will play host to 11 other squads for a swimming showdown Saturday at Radford University's Dedmon Center.
The combatants include Blacksburg, Cave Spring, North Cross, Patrick Henry, E.C. Glass, Heritage, Virginia High, Tennessee High in Bristol, Dobyns-Bennett of Kingsport, Tenn., Collegiate of Richmond and Norfolk Academy along with the host Cougars.
Now that we're pondering pools, it might be mentioned that the Dedmon Center will entertain teams from all over the state come February in the Virginia High School Invitational. The event traditionally has been held in Northern Virginia, but a scheduling snafu arose and Radford allowed the schools to splash down there.
THERE'S NO RIC FLAIR THERE:Barry Hollandsworth, the Floyd County High wrestling coach, was recalling the day four years ago that the Buffaloes had their first home match.
``We got the word out so that we could get some people in to watch,'' he said. ``The day of the match, some people came down out of the mountains to see it. But they took one look at the mats on the floor and they got real mad.
``They wanted to know where the ropes and turnbuckles were.''
Ray Cox is a Roanoke Times & World-News sportswriter.
by CNB