ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 13, 1996 TAG: 9603140110
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
TWO EX-HIGHLANDER assistants, Tulsa's Steve Robinson and Phil Hopkins of Western Carolina,
Joe Davis' influence has reached across the Virginia basketball landscape from Glenvar High School to Radford University to Lynchburg College, and now has worked its way into the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
Two of Davis' assistants when he was at Radford, Steve Robinson and Phil Hopkins, are rookie head coaches, and each has his team in the tournament.
Robinson, a Roanoke native and Radford alumnus, has been the maestro as Tulsa (22-7) won the Missouri Valley Conference's automatic invitation to the 64-team party.
Hopkins, a 45-year-old South Carolinian whose basketball travels have taken him to jobs at Middle Tennessee, Indiana State and Wyoming as well as Radford, took over from his former boss, Benny Dees, at Western Carolina and coached the Catamounts to the Southern Conference tournament championship and their first berth in the NCAA field. Western started 3-10 before winning 14 of its last 16 games.
Davis left Radford after the 1987-88 season and, following a stint coaching at Cave Spring High School, moved on to Lynchburg, where he is now. Davis also has coached at Ferrum College and Glenvar High School.
``I called both Steve and Phil when I heard they would be going to the tournament,'' Davis said. ``I'm as proud of both those guys as I can be.''
Hopkins and Robinson coached together at Radford for two years starting in 1984, which also happened to be the Highlanders' first season in Division I. They haven't had a chance to speak to each other since the tournament pairings were announced.
``I've left messages on his voice mail and he on mine, playing phone tag,'' Hopkins said of Robinson.
Tulsa is in as an 11th seed and will be playing sixth-seeded Louisville in the Midwest Region at Milwaukee on Friday. Western, the 16th seed in the West, plays Thursday against regional No.1 Purdue at Albuquerque, N.M.
Robinson played for Davis at Radford.
``I think we've lost the picture of Steve when he was a player here, but that may be just as well for him,'' Radford sports information director Mike Ashley said. ``Back in those days, he wore an incredible Afro [hairstyle], one that was almost Artis Gilmoresque.''
Once his playing days ended, Robinson, 38, was an assistant at a Pennsylvania high school and later at Albemarle High in Charlottesville before he came to Radford to coach. Next was a stint at Cornell for a season before he joined Roy Williams' staff at Kansas in 1989.
``Steve was so organized,'' Hopkins said. ``Even if you'd been around him only a couple of days, you knew he was going to be successful.''
Now that he has his own program, Robinson is farther away from home in Virginia than ever.
``I haven't been back for a long time,'' Robinson said. ``But home came to me in December'' when his brother and sister, their respective families, and his parents visited Tulsa for a couple of games.
``We lost to Oral Roberts when they were here and I felt like I was going to die. Then we beat Oklahoma State a couple of days later and that made me feel a little better.''
Hopkins' path to the helm of his own ship was more convoluted. Among those whom he has called boss are Stan Simpson at Middle Tennessee, Tates Locke at Indiana State, and Dees at both Wyoming and Western Carolina.
``I'm very thankful to the people who have given me a chance to coach and I've learned something from each one of them,'' Hopkins said. ``My four years at Radford were among the happiest in my life. I never dreaded going to the office, and I can't say that about all the places I've worked.''
Davis never doubted that either Robinson or Hopkins would achieve the goal of having his own program.
``It doesn't surprise me a bit that Steve would get to where he is because he's always had one of the sharpest young basketball minds around,'' Davis said. ``And Phil is one of those guys who has a bulldog personality. Once he gets ahold of something, he isn't going to let go of it.''
Hopkins has achieved a degree of notoriety for proposing to his girlfriend, Bronda Dedmon, while accepting the Catamounts' Southern Conference tournament trophy.
``I'd thought about about it for a couple of days before that,'' he said. ``I wasn't going to do it if we'd lost.''
Hopkins may have been taking a risky rhetorical path when he was asked by ESPN this week whether he was more nervous about the tournament or the proposal.
``I told them that I'd been married before but I'd never won the Southern Conference championship,'' he said. ``Bronda laughed. She's just a good old country girl.''
Hopkins tactics amused his old boss.
``I believe Phil's got his hands full now,'' Davis said.
Actually, both of the former Radford aides do.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 linesby CNB