ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 9, 1996 TAG: 9606100076
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
Consistency being the virtue it is in baseball, Grayson County player Chad Shaffner and Giles coach Bruce Frazier have had excellent high school seasons.
Make that excellent careers.
Shaffner closed a terrific, multifaceted four-year athletic run for the Blue Devils with a baseball campaign that has earned him Timesland's player of the year award.
Frazier's teams at Giles always have seemed to either be on the way to winning some kind of championship or making it tough for the team that was. This year, the Spartans had their best go ever, a feat for which Frazier earns the Timesland coach of the year honors.
Shaffner, who was chosen as Group A player of the year by the coaches' association as a junior, had another banner year for the Blue Devils by batting .516 with seven home runs and 32 runs batted in while dividing his time between roaming center field and pitching.
The Blue Devils breezed through the regular season once beaten and made it as far as the Group A quarterfinal round. Shaffner didn't have as good a year as he'd hoped, though. A batting average that declined by 100 points was the proof.
Shaffner's reputation preceded him.
``I saw probably 70 percent breaking balls and off-speed pitches,'' he said. ``The fastballs I did see weren't exactly right down the middle of the plate, either. I had to hit a lot of pitcher's pitches.''
Shaffner made All Region C in football and basketball and was the region's player of the year in baseball. He has not decided on a college yet, although he is believed to be inclined toward High Point (N.C.).
Frazier orchestrated a season-opening 13-game winning streak, the longest in school history, then presided over a 22-2 run that ended with a 3-0 loss to Powell Valley in a Group A semifinal. The Spartans had never won that many games or advanced that far.
Frazier has coached the varsity at Giles for 13 years, a period in which the Spartans have gone 149-74 with five outright district championships (in two classifications), two shared district crowns and three district tournament crowns.
Among those he's coached is Mike Williams, a right-handed pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. Frazier often has laughed when recalling criticism he took for playing Williams at shortstop more often than putting him on the mound. Frazier's answer was that he always hated making his defense weaker and that's what happened when he put his best shortstop on the mound.
Frazier remembered when he got the head coach's job at Giles. For three years he had been the junior varsity coach while Mike Cole was the varsity boss. When Cole announced he was leaving Giles to go to Christiansburg as an assistant football coach, Frazier said he knew everybody at Giles was most concerned about finding another assistant football coach.
``All I could think about was finally I was going to be the baseball coach,'' Frazier said. ``I wanted to jump up and down, but I didn't.''
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Shaffner. Graphic: Chart: All-Timesland 1996by CNBbaseball.