Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 7, 1995 TAG: 9509090010
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That's Glenvar's Spike Harrison and Dennis Layman. As a duo, they're probably the state's most successful coaches in girls' sports.
Harrison coaches softball with Layman's help. Layman coaches Highlander girls' basketball with Harrison's aid in most years.
Get them together and the old war stories roll. Harrison's real name is Fenton, so he has to be funny to go around with that moniker. No one, not even his friends, call him anything but Spike.
This is a true story about how the two paired up in softball.
True story No.1: ``I think it was the year we won our first state championship in softball [1985],'' said Harrison. ``We were playing Castlewood. Everyone was yelling and screaming. Their coaches were upset at the umpire.
``They had two coaches. I was the only one coaching Glenvar. It dawned on me that maybe they were trying to get a coach from each team thrown out. That would leave them with one and us with none.''
``So my job was to get thrown out if there was an argument, but it's never come to that,'' said Layman, who became a coach because Harrison realized he could get tossed from a game.
True story No.2: ``I got thrown out one time at William Byrd. I was questioning a call and let loose with an improper word. The umpire told me to go sit down [or I was gone],'' said Harrison.
``Later on, there was another call. I came out, got even with the shortstop, remembered what I was told and said to the umpire, `Yeah, yeah, I know I'm out of here.'''
Harrison's record in softball is 204-52-2. Two ties in softball?
``One time it was so cold at Byrd that we agreed to go home with a tie game,'' said Harrison. ``In another game we had a thunderstorm in a district game with the score tied and didn't make it up.''
Harrison also has four Group A state championships to his credit, but only four or five Region C titles. ``I can't remember the total, but it's not as many as it might seem,'' said Harrison.
In girls' basketball, Layman has an overall record of 263-62. ``In the Pioneer District,'' he said, ``it's 195-6-1.''
A tie? ``It took 1.5 seconds for that to register with you. That's faster than I thought,'' he said with a smile.
These two are a couple of stand-up comedians disguised as coaches. Even in games, they don't wear masks of grim determination but instead look as if they're having fun.
The girls have won two Region C basketball tournaments and were runner-up in the Group A state tournament in 1989. ``We were state champs until the last seconds,'' said Layman, managing a smile over getting beat on a shot by Clintwood with 12 seconds remaining.
Are these two social friends? ``No, he doesn't have my phone number,'' said Layman. ``Actually, if I need any help, Spike's always there. We've been at parties together.''
``I haven't asked him for a date yet,'' chimed in Harrison.
True story No.3: When Harrison came to Glenvar after a short, unhappy tenure at William Byrd, James Earp, then the school's principal, was looking for a wrestling coach.
``When he came to me and said something about coaching wrestling, I was determined not to do it and to keep a straight face,'' said Harrison.
``I said I didn't know how to get through the ropes [into the ring]. Mr. Earp looked at me, patted me on the shoulder and said OK. I'm sure he saw liability written all over my face. I'm sure he had visions of kids getting on the ropes and diving on the mats.''
He may have talked himself out of wrestling, but Harrison became the assistant girls' basketball coach, opening up his relationship with Layman. Layman is a coach in softball as an unpaid assistant. It's a labor of love for a team which includes daughter Amy, the team's star pitcher.
Layman doesn't coach his daughter, though. The other softball assistant, Jerry Brittain, coaches the pitchers.
Layman also is a basketball official in the winter. So he is acquainted with the officials who call his games in the fall in two ways, since he frequently works games with them from December through March.
Still, Layman has to watch himself. ``Actually,'' said Harrison, ``he calms me down in softball and I do the same thing for him in basketball. When they had that rule several years back that a basketball coach couldn't stand up, I was always looping my fingers through one of his belt loops to pull him back to the bench.''
Layman says because he officiates, he can't afford to go berserk during games. ``I understand when it's a close call what they're looking at,'' he said. ``I'm sure it enters the mind of other coaches that I'm an official and I get an advantage because of that.''
The only technical foul he remembers came from legendary official Jimmy Haupt, who got Layman when a player thought she had been taken out for a sub. Play started with only four Highlanders on the floor, so the player rushed back in from the bench, making herself an illegal entry. Layman was called.
True story No.4: ``The vital thing Dennis does for me [is] to go give signals to the hitters,'' said Harrison. ``Young ladies are notorious for missing signs. At first, he's more in their line of vision and gets their attention.''
Of course Layman says Harrison is not the best coach at giving signals.
``I didn't always know what he was signaling, so we worked up a system and I relay them to the girl,'' said Layman.
``One day,'' recalls Harrison, ``it looked like he gave a signal to steal second, but there was no one on first.''
``I was asking, `Do you want [to] steal second?''' said Layman.
``Aw, you should have stepped on first and said, `I'm ready to go,''' said Harrison with a smile.
Layman was in the first graduating class at Glenvar. His wife Cathy also graduated from Glenvar.
Harrison comes from New York, but got to know the Roanoke area when he was courting his wife, Jane, who is from Greensboro, N.C.
``The only thing I knew about Roanoke was that it was the place with the star whenever I drove from New York to Greensboro,'' said Harrison.
So how long will this act last? Right now, it's on hiatus for the basketball season. Harrison is running for the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors from the Catawba District and isn't coaching. He plans to do softball this year, but beyond that depends on whether he is elected.
``Aw, Fuzzy Minnix [who is on the Board of Supervisors] is coaching softball at Cave Spring,'' said Layman when he heard that.
Layman is nearing 300 victories as a basketball coach and should reach that plateau next year.
``Reaching a certain number of victories isn't going to keep me in coaching,'' said Layman, who won't say if he's pondering retirement.
When they do break up as coaching buddies, though, the world as Glenvar supporters know it will be less jovial without the long-running and successful act.
Memo: NOTE: Also ran in September 7, 1995 Current (photo ran in B&W).