Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 18, 1995 TAG: 9502200033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANDREA KUHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Long
That is exactly how Canfield feels about basketball - the kind of basketball you play on an outdoor court, in the middle of summer, sun beating down, shirts vs. skins, for two or three hours at a time. Real basketball.
But the game as Canfield has lived and breathed it for the past 31 years likely will come to an end this weekend at the Salem Civic Center.
The seasoned coach will lead his Washington and Lee Generals into the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament as the No.8 seed. Unless they win the title and earn the ODAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament, the Generals' season - and Canfield's coaching tenure at W&L - will be over.
W&L faces top-seeded Hampden-Sydney today at 1:30 p.m.
``The other day I allowed myself to kind of sit back and reflect and, oh boy, it can become a very emotional experience,'' said Canfield, who was told by university officials last year that he would not be retained as coach after this season.
``I've had about 15 or 16 of my guys come back the last couple of weekends, and that's what it's all about. When they come up and say `Thanks, coach, for helping me make it,' that's what it's all about.''
But Canfield, 61, admits he didn't have that attitude when he began his career at W&L in 1964. Canfield said he was as wrapped up with winning and losing as today's average fan. And in his early years, the Generals did their share of losing.
In Canfield's first season, the Generals were 2-17. But within two years he had built W&L into a 20-5 team and the College Athletic Conference champions.
W&L won the title three of the next four years. Among the players that played a prominent role in the success was Mike Neer, a two-time all-conference selection.
``He is one of the main reasons I'm in coaching,'' said Neer, the head coach at Division III Rochester for the past 19 years. ``I was drawn to the compassion that he had for the game and his players. You could tell he truly loved what he was doing.''
W&L began establishing itself as one of the top small college programs in the nation in 1974-75. The Generals, 15-12 that season, were invited to the first Division III national tournament, but lost to eventual runner-up Glassboro State in the regional round.
Pat Dennis, now in his third season as head coach at The Citadel, helped lead W&L to two more appearances at the NCAA regionals in the next three years and two straight ODAC titles after the league was formed in 1976.
``[Canfield] walked with so much confidence and that really carried over to the players,'' said Dennis, who was a two-time All-American and ODAC player of the year. ``He was also one that would change according to the players he had in the program.''
Dennis said he had incorporated many of Canfield's philosophies into his own coaching style, particularly the teaching of fundamentals and the importance placed on practice.
``His practices were extremely organized,'' Dennis said. ``I never dreaded going to practice and a lot of it was he was really good at letting us go all out. I guess now they'd call it trash talking or whatever, but he let us scrimmage and pretty much get after it. It was very intense and I try to do the same thing here at The Citadel.''
In 31 seasons, Canfield has never missed a practice. He calls it his laboratory, where he melds individual players into a team.
And in 31 years, Canfield has watched hundreds of players come and go. And while he said the game has remained virtually the same, those who play it have not.
``One of the big things I see is kids don't want to work on their game that hard out of season because there's so many other things to do,'' Canfield said.
``The kids today want immediate gratification. Most still want to work if there is an immediate goal they can reach, but to pay your dues, some kids don't want to pay their dues and I see some slippage in that area.''
Canfield said another area of the game he has watched disintegrate over the years was camaraderie between coaches. It used to be that coaches stuck together, encouraged each other, he said.
Bob Johnson experienced that kind of support as a young coach at Emory & Henry and said he would always be grateful to Canfield. The Wasps suffered through several three-, four- and five-win seasons before going 12-13 in 1985.
Johnson said after one particularly ugly loss to the Generals, Canfield visited the E&H locker room to give the Wasps a postgame pep talk.
``He always has had the interest of the game and the kids at heart,'' said Johnson, now in his 15th season at E&H. ``Just coming into the locker room, a lot of guys might have taken offense to that. But it was important to me. I think what Verne felt we were doing was proper and that if we stuck with it things would be OK.''
The Wasps have won no fewer than 17 games in a season since then.
Johnson said he thought so highly of Canfield's knowledge and abilities that he has sent his son to Canfield's summer camps the past several years.
``Verne is primarily a teacher, and basketball is his medium,'' Johnson said.
``The kids have become harder to teach for various reasons and I've always felt that the guy is an incredible teacher. He cares about the things that are important, and that's fundamentals.''
Canfield, who can remain at W&L as an associate professor of physical education, plans to continue teaching basketball, but he isn't sure where or how. He said he has had some outside inquiries ranging from a volunteer position to full-time college women's coach.
Canfield also plans on expanding his camps and venturing into private tutoring for basketball on the individual and small group levels. He has run a boys camp for 30 years and was one of the first coaches in the state to offer a camp for girls in 1971.
``It's really kind of neat to know that there's something out there and I'm not sure what it will be yet,'' Canfield said of his future. ``It might be that I take a year off just to smell the roses - who knows?
``I do know I want to give something back to the game and the coaching profession because it's been good to me.''
Canfield, whose overall record is 459-336, said that he is the all-time winningest coach in any sport at W&L. He ranks 10th on the list of the winningest Division III men's coaches. He has been the ODAC and South Region coach of the year three times.
But Canfield hasn't had a winning season since 1989-90, when the Generals were 15-12. And although he said he has gotten over the initial anger of being forced out of his position at W&L, there still is a hint of bitterness in Canfield's voice when he speaks about it.
``Have we stopped teaching other things, or is it strictly winning and losing? That bothers me,'' he said. ``Like in my situation, because I didn't happen to win in the last five years as big as we did before. ... If that's all I did is win and lose, then something is wrong.''
That, he said, is the biggest difference between the Verne Canfield of 1964 and the Verne Canfield of 1995.
``I've gone down trying to say I hope I've done more than win some ball games,'' he said. ``I hope I've touched some lives. I'm an educator and I hope I've taught them something more than basketball.''
by CNB