ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
LYNNE AGEE DIDN'T GO VERY FAR when she left Roanoke, but she's gotten a long way.
When Lynne Agee left home and crossed the border, she really hadn't gone very far. When she was chosen the women's basketball coach at UNC Greensboro in 1981, it seemed only a stepping stone for the Roanoke native.
It wasn't, yet it was.
Fifteen seasons later, she is still the Spartans' coach. That isn't to say she has stayed put. Not only has Agee become an associate athletic director, too, she has gone from taking her program to the first NCAA women's Division III Final Four, through Division II, to Division I. And she's still winning.
Agee's team beat Radford 94-79 on Wednesday night for the Big South Conference lead. The Spartans (11-8) won their sixth straight game. It was the 355th win for Agee as a college coach, including three seasons at Roanoke College. She has 450 when seven seasons with a 95-16 record at William Fleming High are included.
``What 350 victories means is that I've been on the bench a long time,'' Agee said last week when the Spartans won at Liberty. ``It's 25 years' worth. The other day, the Greensboro newspaper did a story and wrote about my `quarter-century` of coaching. My son, Brian, said, `Gosh, Mom, I didn't know you were that old.'''
Her son, a former star golfer at Northside High, isn't the only one amazed at Agee's years in hoops. And she's not old. She's 47. In reaching 350 college victories in her 18th season, she has achieved a total reached in fewer years by only four active Division I coaches.
Three of those are perennially ranked NCAA Tournament participants: Geno Auriemma of Connecticut, Leon Barmore of Louisiana Tech and Georgia's Andy Landers. That's the next step on Agee's ladder. The Big South has had only two automatic NCAA berths, both won by Radford in the league tournament. If the Spartans would reach the field of 64, Agee would be the first coach to take the same school to an NCAA Tournament at all three levels.
Agee would like one bid before she leaves the bench.
``Someone said that in the midst of this year I could get my 300th win at UNC-G and 350th as a college coach,'' Agee said. ``You hear those things and read them, but they're the farthest thing from your mind. You don't concentrate on that. When it's a milestone, it's like reading about somebody else. I do feel proud about it though.''
Although Agee has remained at the same school for 15 years, the change in NCAA classifications has brought variety and different challenges to her job. This season has brought something else she hasn't experienced. The Spartans have had physical ailments - ankle sprains, a fractured hand, a blood clot in a shoulder and torn foot ligaments. They've suffered mentally, too, when it was learned the 18-year-old sister of sophomore guard Jennifer Lewis had been diagnosed with a malignant heart tumor.
``Emotionally, it's been a roller coaster,'' Agee said. ``It reached the point a couple of weeks ago where I didn't know if I could coach because the situation was so different. We had great expectations, but we were 8-8. The year wasn't over. It was a situation where .500 was good, and we had people step up, and that's gratifying.
``The situation after we found out about Jennifer's sister, we talked and I said it was time to throw out the X's and O's. The game was no longer important. We had to take care of each other. That was first. Only we know everything we've dealt with. Maybe it relieved the pressure. The plays don't matter. I said, `Just try to have a good time and play the game, and keep each other together.'
``I'd never done that before.''
Agee started coaching at Fleming with an attitude commitment shaped in her own school days at Fleming and Longwood, where numerous coaching changes and decisions taught her more than she wanted to know about a lack of discipline and stability.
``You play one of Lynne's teams, you know it will be prepared,'' said Radford coach Luby Lichonczak. ``I admire her. I like her a lot. She's successful and professional. She's meticulous in attention to detail and preparation, a pleasant person to have as a competitor.''
Lichonczak said Agee reflects her game, one of little fanfare, ``as one of the unsung heroes of our business. Lynne is one of those coaches people need to know about. People talk about Pat Head [Summitt], and she's a great coach, but Lynne has done the same kind of job with less, and quietly, with class.''
Agee once considered openings at Richmond and Georgia Tech but stayed put. In her 13 years as a coach and administrator, the duties in the latter have grown significantly. Agee estimates that 60-70 percent of her working hours are spent on the associate AD side of a Division I program.
``The [dual] job I have has outgrown me and us as a department,'' Agee said. ``Very soon I think I'll be facing a reality. Something's got to give, and if I were going to say right now, I'd say it won't be too long before I'm just one, and I'd probably lean toward being an administrator.''
How soon might that be? Agee doesn't know. However, UNC-G will be moving from the Big South to the Southern Conference in 1997-98. It's another change that seems to intrigue her, another competitive challenge.
``I'm not done yet,'' she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. UNC GREENSBORO. Lynn Agee has 355 college coachingby CNBvictories in stints at UNC Greensboro and Roanoke College. 2.
(headshot) Agee. color. Graphic: Chart.