Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508250062
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-9 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Don Lowe, the Narrows High football coach, demonstrated this summer that he is without dispute a gentleman who can control his emotions.
Had that not been the case, then certainly he would have long since taken a desperate and fatal plunge into the deadly swirling rapids of the New River after hearing that his quarterback, Brian Pruett, had made other arrangements for this autumn.
Pruett, one of the finest quarterbacks to come out of Narrows in a long time, had a productive and showy summer playing basketball on the summer camp circuit. Somewhere along the line, he found out he was a Division I prospect and Radford University is among those schools that would like to have him.
Pruett hasn't told Radford anything yet but he has told Lowe that his sporting future will not include football.
Lowe, who faces a massive rebuilding job with or without Pruett, took it like a man.
``I admire him for making up his mind to do what he has to do,'' Lowe said.
NURSERY SCHOOL: Radford girls basketball coach Brenda King has been dividing her time between blowing whistles and instructing and being a baby-sitter.
In fact, the whole team has had a share in baby sitting the infant daughter of new player Kiona McIntyre, a transfer from Kentucky.
``I've told her that if she's dribbling the ball down the court on a drill and she hears that baby crying, to drop the ball and go pick her up,'' King said.
McIntyre has had frequent child-care schedule disruptions (King, a mother herself, knows how that goes) with baby Kierra, so often as not, she's had to load up the portable crib and bring her to practice.
Without being judgemental, King sought the practical message of McIntyre's experience for the team at large .
``Say no,'' King said. ``Being a mother is difficult. This is not fun and games.''
McIntyre has earned King's admiration for managing her parental responsibilities along with her academic and athletic ones.
As for McIntyre as a player, she's athletic but unpolished. She will be a factor before the end of the season, though.
``She is trying so hard,'' King said. ``I want her to do well.''
DON'T WE KNOW HIM? Somebody mentioned to the coach of one of Richlands High's football opponents that Dennis Vaught was back at the controls after serving a two-year suspension as head coach after the Cleatsgate cheating scandal in the 1992 Group AA Division 4 playoffs.
``He never left,'' the opposing coach said.
Two interim Richlands head coaches could tell you all about it if they chose to chat.
MEAN AGAIN: One of the problems Christiansburg has had in football the past couple of years, its coach Mike Cole was saying, was that its players just weren't aggressive enough.
``But there's been a nice turnaround,'' he said. ``I think that the main reason we weren't aggressive enough was we weren't strong enough to be physical. But we've had the best participation in the offseason weight program that we've had in years and it shows. We've been very pleased with that.''
CLANGING IRON: The new Louisa Chrisley super-maxed-out-mega-massive weight training, aerobics and dressing facility at Pulaski County is sweet. Maybe those folks who raised the bucks it took to build that baby could give prospective fund raisers in Blacksburg some tips on coming up with the cabbage it'll take to renovate the football stadium there.
BANGING WITH THE BIG BOYS: Giles will have had a challenging football preseason after it finishes a scrimmage schedule that includes Richlands along with Pulaski County and Cave Spring, both of whom it will play at the Pulaski County Touchdown Classic this week.
The season opener with Blacksburg is no breather, either.
INCOMING: Auburn girls basketball coach Tim Goetz is whipped up about adding 6-foot Crystal Moles to the roster after she transferred in from Christiansburg. Why shouldn't he be? She's a Division I prospect.
The Eagles gain is of course the Demons' loss.
As Carroll County coach Howard Mayo pointed out: ``Six-foot players don't grow on trees.''
As Auburn may come to find out, neither do the shorter girls who feed the ball to those 6-footers.
by CNB