ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, June 6, 1996 TAG: 9606060035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: COLLEGE NOTEBOOK
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY
One of the last instructions University of Pittsburgh freshman Karim Thompson received at the end of spring football practice was to put on weight, which might not be the easiest assignment for the next couple of weeks.
Thompson, a first-team All-Timesland running back for Northside High School in 1994, was involved in an auto accident May 28 and required surgery for a broken arm and broken jaw.
``If I hadn't been wearing my seat belt, I would have flown through the window,'' said Thompson, whose car was struck while he was attempting to make a left turn onto Virginia 419 from Brambleton Avenue in Roanoke County.
The other driver was charged with running a red light, but Thompson's physical condition was his first concern. He spent three days at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where doctors inserted plates into his right forearm, which was broken in two places.
``They said it would take anywhere from three to six months to heal,'' Thompson said from his hospital room. ``I'm hoping I can get cleared to play in 2 1/2.''
That would enable Thompson to join the team for preseason workouts, but there's one other problem. The Pitt coaches wanted Thompson, a 6-foot, 200-pounder, to gain at least 15 pounds for a possible move to fullback.
That might be difficult, considering Thompson's jaw was wired Friday and he will be drinking milkshakes almost exclusively for the next two-plus weeks.
Thompson, who rushed for 1,000 yards in his junior and senior seasons at Northside, was redshirted last season as a freshman. He wasn't wild about the proposed move to fullback, but had decided to make the most of it.
``I'm hoping it's only temporary,'' he said. ``The way I look at it, if playing fullback gets me on the field, that's a good way to show them what I can do.''
TRANSITIONS: Virginia freshman Darryl Presley, who sat out the last month of the 1995-96 basketball season following his arrest for petty larceny, took a visit to Dayton last week. Scott Johnson, also involved in the theft of merchandise from a Charlottesville department store, has transferred to South Florida.
Tom Hickman, named interim athletic director at Winthrop University last week, is a former athletic director at Ferrum College. Hickman has been at Winthrop since 1989 as an assistant to Steve Vacendak, an ex-Winthrop basketball coach who resigned as AD last week.
COACHING CAROUSEL: Greg Elliott, an administrative assistant to Virginia Tech men's basketball coach Bill Foster the past year, has accepted an offer to become the boys' basketball coach at Hilton Head (S.C.) High School.
Hilton Head was one of several South Carolina programs after Elliott, who is from Georgetown, S.C., and previously coached at Choppee (S.C.) High School. Elliott came to Tech after four years as the restricted-earnings coach at Southern Mississippi.
Six-year Maryland basketball assistant Art Perry, instrumental in the signing of 1995 national player of the year Joe Smith, is out of a job. Head coach Gary Williams has been catching flak for the Terrapins' recent lackluster recruiting.
New North Carolina State coach Herb Sendek has named Mark Phelps, previously the coach at Atlantic Shores Christian School in Virginia Beach, as his director of basketball operations.
The Wolfpack earlier had signed 6-foot-7 Damon Thornton from Atlantic Shores and the addition of Phelps could help State with 6-8 Atlantic Shores star Kenny Inge, headed to Hargrave Military Academy for a year of seasoning. Virginia Tech had recommended Inge to Hargrave.
LOCAL UPDATE: Bluefield College, men's basketball champion in the Tennessee-Virginia Athletic Conference, has signed 6-4 Phillip Taylor from Patrick Henry in Roanoke and 6-1 Andre Law from Fieldale-Collinsville. Law, a point guard, scored 9.4 points per game. Taylor averaged 6.1 points.
Bruce Berger, a Virginia Commonwealth University senior from Laurel Park High School, qualified as an All-American when he finished 13th overall and eighth among Americans in the 800 meters at the NCAA Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Ore.
Ernest Harrington, a former All-Timesland defensive back at William Fleming, has signed a letter of intent with Delaware State. Harrington spent the past two years at Dean College, a two-year school in Franklin, Mass., where he ranked second in the nation in 1995 with nine interceptions.
ALWAYS A SHOWMAN: Richard Morgan, who had a flair for the dramatic during his basketball career at Virginia, upstaged himself Sunday when he returned to University Hall for the second edition of the Herman Moore Celebrity-Alumni Basketball Classic.
Morgan took the public-address microphone at halftime and proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Sherelle Walker. Walker, a cousin of former UVa basketball player Mark Cooke, accepted Morgan's proposal and they will be married Oct. 19.
``I've had a lot of good things happen to me at University Hall, so that just seemed like the best place,'' said Morgan, who has coached the Salem High School junior varsity to consecutive Blue Ridge District championships and is an assistant under his brother, Charlie, with the varsity.
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