ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606070039
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
ROLAND LOVELACE welcomes the challenge of taking over the boys' basketball program.
New William Fleming boys' basketball coach Roland Lovelace knows all about pressure.
Lovelace was Al Holland's catcher when the future National League Fireman of the Year (1983) was a wild and crazy left-hander at Lucy Addison High School, throwing fastballs clocked at better than 100 mph in the general vicinity of the plate.
Now Lovelace is following Burrall Paye and Marshall Ashford as the William Fleming High School boys' basketball coach. Paye's Colonels had reached the Northwest Region tournament every year since Jimmy Carter was president, and Ashford guided them to a Group AAA semifinal this year after Paye retired in midseason.
This is pressure.
``I'm glad to have the job,'' said Lovelace, who also knows the pressure of being an assistant to Fleming football coach George Miller, who demands a lot but treats his assistants as a family more than a staff.
``The Roanoke Valley District is one of the state's toughest,'' Lovelace said. ``It's a challenge. I'm a competitor and I'm ready to accept [the challenge]. I also want to enhance the lives of the student-athletes. I don't want a young man just to come out, play basketball and then be out on the streets again. I want our young men to have a chance to go to college.''
Lovelace moves over to the boys' coaching position after a 12-year tenure as the girls' coach at Fleming. During that span, Fleming was competitive in a tough RVD that has included perennial state powers Cave Spring and Pulaski County.
Lovelace will continue to serve as the Colonels' offensive coordinator in football, though boys' basketball is his priority.
``If, by chance, football is too time-consuming, then he'll go work with basketball,'' Miller said. ``Our friendship extends all the way back to when we were in a Boy Scout troop together.''
At Fleming, the staff is family, and school principal Alyce Szathmary said Lovelace is perfect to keep up the tradition.
``He's already gained the respect of our community,'' Szathmary said. ``I've heard nothing but positive reports since people knew that he'd be our coach.''
Lovelace didn't apply for the boys' coaching position in late March, when Ashford announced he was not interested in taking the head coach's job on a full-time basis. Ashford will remain with Fleming as an assistant, the position he held before succeeding Paye on an interim basis.
``I waited until the final day to send in an application,'' Lovelace said. ``The people in the community said something [to me], and I decided I wanted to do this.
``I haven't thought about next year. We'll have a meeting [today] and see where we go from there in getting the summer camps and leagues started.''
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