ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604290093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: HIGH SCHOOLS
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM
This has been a year of unprecedented change in Roanoke Valley District boys' basketball.
Three-fifths of the district's coaches - Patrick Henry's Woody Deans, William Fleming's Burrall Paye and Cave Spring's Chris Carr - have retired or resigned. At one time, Pulaski County's Pat Burns was rumored to be retiring, and it was said Franklin County supporters were restless after several losing seasons under Calvin Preston.
Burns and Preston are coming back or it would have been a clean sweep, something that probably has not happened to a district in this state.
Burns is coaching basketball at a school where football is king and any other sport has to play second fiddle.
Preston is a former Franklin County great who is one of the hardest working coaches around. He is at a school that has done well at times in basketball, but never has been confused with a state power. Benny Gibson, Franklin County's principal, took a stand behind Preston and refused to be swayed by emotions when replacing his coach might have been the easy way out.
Shocking as all this turnover may be, what's more surprising is the lack of interest in the RVD jobs from other coaches in Timesland. There was a time when a job such as the ones at PH, Fleming and Cave Spring would bring a flood of applications from area coaches. This time, it may not happen.
The Fleming job has been open for only a week, since interim coach Marshall Ashford chose not to move up from his assistant's job on a full-time basis. But the names of some of Timesland's winningest coaches at smaller schools are not among those applying for the PH job.
Consider that Deans won Group AAA championships in 1988 and 1992. Fleming has been a perennial Northwest Region power and a Group AAA semifinalist three times in the past four years. These are pretty good jobs, and you can bet some top coaches from other parts of the state will apply.
Yet, one coach from Northern Virginia who applied for the PH job compared the openings here with one at North Stafford, which occasionally has made the Northwest Region tournament. It's hard to believe North Stafford ever would be considered in the same basketball breath with PH or William Fleming.
Salem's Charlie Morgan, Northside's Billy Pope and Liberty's Mark Hanks are considered among the state's best Group AA coaches. Among them, they have won two state titles and produced numerous appearances in the state semifinals in the 1990s. Yet not one of these three is considering moving to PH, William Fleming or Cave Spring.
The only Group AA head coach in this area who is known to have applied for the PH job is Pat Paye, the son of former Fleming coach Burrall Paye. The younger Paye has had one year at William Campbell.
So why are top local coaches not applying for the vacancies at PH, Fleming and Cave Spring? In the case of Morgan, he's from Salem and that school system has a higher pay scale than Roanoke.
Hanks says he likes living in Bedford, where his family has made friends and become involved in its church.
Pope likes living near Northside where his children attend school. Yet, he could apply for PH or Fleming and never have to move his family.
Cave Spring has a reputation as a graveyard of coaches with its many changes. That explains why coaches from this area are staying away from that job.
Even Vinton native Andy Gray, who was an assistant at William Fleming, refuses to become involved with any of the jobs after two good seasons at Gar-Field in Dale City. Gray admits he doesn't like the hustle and bustle of living in a Northern Virginia community, but he's unwilling to come home for any of the three jobs that are open.
When the new coaches are hired at these schools, look for an assistant to step up, a girls' coach to cross over to boys' basketball or a name from another area of the state to pop up.
ROCKET BOOSTERS: Craig County's athletic booster clubs have paid for a new lighting system for the baseball and softball fields. The Rocket Boosters, as they are known, showed how important these support groups are to high school athletics when they raised $20,000 for the new lights.
Unlike many schools, Craig County gets all the funding for its athletic equipment and uniforms from boosters. They raise money by working concession stands at football and basketball games. The group's biggest fund-raiser is a truck raffle.
In the past, the Rocket Boosters also have put in new public address systems for football and baseball and built new fences and a press box for baseball.
``They're a big deal up here because we're so small,'' said Tom Rudisill, Craig County's athletic director. ``This is their biggest project in terms of expense. Without them, we wouldn't have an athletic program.''
Rudisill says Craig County might be the fourth-smallest school in the state playing football and points out that Giles sometimes makes more money on gate receipts from one home game than the Rockets do for an entire season.
The dedication for the new lights will be at 6:30 p.m. May 10 when Craig County meets Parry McCluer in softball and baseball on the adjacent fields.
HIT 'EM WHERE SHE AIN'T: Billy Meador, William Byrd's softball coach, is a master of understatement.
Frustrated at the way Lord Botetourt second baseman Amy Moore was playing defensively against his team this past week, the Terriers' coach yelled at one of his hitters with two out in the fourth inning, ``Please hit the ball somewhere besides second base.''
Moore heard the remark in the field and managed a shy smile. Meador turned toward the crowd and remarked further that Moore had been responsible for every out. He wasn't far from the truth: At the time, Moore had been involved in seven of 11 Terriers putouts.
PIPELINE: William Byrd pitcher Tamassa Adams, an All-Timesland choice the past two years, is going to Carson-Newman on a softball scholarship. She will join Tracy Doupnik, a former teammate and 1995 Timesland Player of the Year who earned a scholarship to the Jefferson City, Tenn., school last year.
STATISTICS, PLEASE: Monday marks the first day of high school spring sports statistics. Coaches should have received forms in the mail and are asked to fax their leaders to 540-981-3392 by 3 p.m. Monday.
It's important that this deadline be met. Statistics received after that time will not be included in the leaders published in Tuesday's editions of The Roanoke Times.
LENGTH: Long : 111 linesby CNB