Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508190004
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Football players won't have any trouble with that. Their school year is plenty long anyway, seeing as how just about the entire month of August is spent in preseason drills.
Even though such practices enjoy a poor reputation as gleeful recreational activities, they may come as a relief to some of the participants.
As proponents of the longer school year point out, the last month of vacation is a drag for many young scholars. Younger students put it in slightly more fundamental terms:
``Mom, I'm bored.''
A recent visit to a Giles High practice provided an illustration of what we're talking about. A trio of players, veterans all, were talking about the manner in which they'd spent their summer vacations.
By comparison, football practice didn't look so bad after all.
Reggie Hoston baked like an apple while being buried in hay bales.
Anthony Myers was up to his earlobes in canned goods.
Brandon Steele was menaced by an active volcano.
The blocking sled and one-on-one drills don't look so bad after something like that. Hoston, Myers, and Steele got plenty of exercise as it was this summer.
Spartans coach Steve Ragsdale must have been pleased with the shape they showed up in.
``You're never in good enough shape for Coach Ragsdale,'' Steele said.
Myers, who is likely to be the target of a lot of Giles pass patterns this fall, had to supplement his labors at a quick-stop grocery store with running and basketball playing.
``I came in in pretty good shape,'' he said.
Hoston, who's a strapping guy to begin with, kept up his muscle tone in his grandfather's hayfield.
``We put up 3,000 bales,'' Hoston said.
Which is about 2,000 fewer than Steele had a hand in. Steele lives on a farm but he was slinging bales on Larry Reynolds' Giles County spread. But that wasn't the most physically challenging of Steele's activities.
Two weeks were spent on St. Vincent in the Grenadine Islands off Venezuela while he was part of a youth group on a mission from Riverview Baptist Church in Pembroke. The group helped with a summer Bible school, among other good deeds.
It was there, on the steamy island, that Steele and some associates ascended Mt. Soufriere, 4,048 volcanic feet above the tropical seas.
Excuse me? You doubt that this All Timesland linebacker made it all the way to the top?
``I have a rocks from the top to prove it,'' Steele said.
But there was more to it than just picking up a rock. In fact, there are those who would tell you Steele had rocks in his head to be on top of that mountain to begin with.
``It's still an active volcano and one of the biggest ones in the hemisphere,'' Steele. ``The last time it blew was 1969 and it sent rock 60,000 feet into the air.''
Good thing it didn't blow Steele 60,000 into the air. His family would miss him. So would his football team, which is going to need him.
This is the last go-round for some seniors - Steele, Hoston, and Myers among them - who have won one state championship and were a state quarterfinalists last year. They were in on a 25-game winning streak.
They've lived with some sour memories of Lebanon, the team that severed the victory string last year and also ousted them from the playoffs three years ago just before the winning streak started.
``I don't like to even hear that name Lebanon,'' Steele said. ``We've lost three games in three years and two of them have been to Lebanon.''
``That's becoming a little rivalry,'' Myers said. ``Maybe even more than Narrows.''
Now that's serious.
Kind of like loading up 5,000 bales of hay.
Ray Cox is a sportswriter for The Roanoke Times.
by CNB