Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 3, 1995 TAG: 9503030072
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-11 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some youngsters scrape together a few bucks to take a date to the movies; Sanders had scrapes with the anybody who passed for an authority figure.
His mouth was a moving violation.
Teachers threw up their hands. Others who were not amused by his loutish behavior just wanted to throw up.
As for his his coaches at Floyd County High School, many of them just wanted to wring his neck.
They stopped short of that when he started acting up on the junior varsity football team when he was freshman, but they did tell him to get lost.
``I was just being a smart-butt,'' Sanders said.
But a funny thing happened on the highway to Hades. Sanders suddenly saw the value of virtue.
Now those same coaches who once wanted to wring this 140-pound senior's neck, are sending him out to a wrestling mat to jerk a knot in somebody else.
``He's a totally different kid,'' said Barry Hollandsworth, Sanders' wrestling coach.
Perhaps some of the boys Sanders has whupped this year might have preferred running into the old Sanders.
``He's been one of these late bloomers,'' Hollandsworth said.
Sanders is blooming his way, 26-1 record and all, right into the state Group A championship tournament at the Salem Civic Center this weekend. Sanders won the Region C title, which is a fairly significant accomplishment for somebody who has only been grappling for two years now.
Over that span, he's gone 41-10.
Sanders is only one of the boys with interesting stories that Hollandsworth and co-coaches Danny Cronk and Tony Morisco are chaperoning to state in only the fourth year of the program's history.
Among them is 103-pounder Josh Copus, a cool 11-6. He couldn't make weight last year. He was too light. Even now, he goes no more than 101 and is usally lighter. Or heavyweight Chris Peters, who took a 1-15 record into the region, beat two guys who had once before this season beat him, and will join the top-four at state.
Or you have 130-pounder Matthew Blackwell, who won twice last year. That's all of last year.
Others making the trip include 135-pounder Kamal Chantal, who is probably the second most talented wrestler on the team behind Sanders. They wrestle each other every day in practice.
Then you have 152-pound freshman David Phillips. He's among the tops in his class. His class in school, that is.
Sanders is another one who uses the old coconut for something other than to wrap a wrestling headgear around. He scored 1,100 on the SAT test and hopes to interest somebody enough to give him a chance to wrestle in college.
And this is the kid who they had to throw off the JV football team for yapping back to the coaches.
Sanders played football for Floyd County and started at strong safety (a position known as ``Buffalo'' on Coach Winfred Beale's depth chart).
``Sports has been the source of my turnaround,'' he said.
Certainly, that's a major part of it. But there was something else. After his freshman year, Sanders and his parents agreed that he would need the proverbial change of scenery.
``I was associated with the wrong crowd,'' he said.
So away he went to a ranch down in Tennessee run by some ex-military types that catered to other hard to manage boys such as himself. It was boot camp mixed with Christian education. Just what Sanders needed.
As it turns out, he's just what Floyd County wrestling has needed since he returned.
Ray Cox is a sportswriter for the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB