ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250019
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
For at least three members of the Roanoke Rush, Saturday night's football exhibition game with Hampton Roads at Christiansburg High couldn't be called a homecoming.
Defensive back Carl Lewis, quarterback Darren Graham and tight end Eddie Sloss are already home. Games time is 7 p.m., and $1 of every admission will be donated to help the children of Angie Knowles, the Christiansburg woman shot to death earlier this year.
All three, via the Rush, have resumed football careers that started when they were local high school stars. The soft-spoken, hard-hitting Lewis played for Pulaski County; Graham called signals for Christiansburg; and Sloss played both end and defensive back for Blacksburg.
``That's one of the good things about playing for the Rush,'' said Graham, Christiansburg class of 1990. ``You get to meet people who you'd always heard about.''
As far as Lewis was concerned, the notoriety was fairly widespread. Such is the product of being one of the top players on a team that won an AAA Division 6 state championship and was in the running for another.
Sloss and Graham were well-known to each other, having been players from two of the oldest rivals around. During the junior and senior seasons, they played no less than four times. When they were juniors, Blacksburg beat the Blue Demons during the regular season but lost to them during the Group AA Division 4 Region IV playoffs. The following year, Christiansburg won the regular-season match only to be knocked off in the playoffs by the Indians.
``Worst game I ever played,'' Graham said with a grimace.
Sloss and the fleet-footed, strong-armed Graham went eyeball to eyeball any time the play called for a Christiansburg receiver to visit Sloss' sector of the field.
``I really didn't like him very much at all,'' Graham said. ``Now, we're the best of friends.''
Lewis graduated from high school in 1994, went to New River Community College for a while, then took a year off ``just being a couch potato,'' he said - before landing a job at Pulaski Furniture Corp. Lewis began playing for the Rush last season and scored five touchdowns returning kickoffs and punts. Such production ought to be no surprise to Cougars fans because Lewis was a terrific special teams player in high school as well.
``The thing I really like about Carl, though, is that he weighs 160 pounds at the most, but he hits like a 200-pounder,'' Rush coach Duke Strager said.
Before last year, Sloss hadn't played football since he was in high school. After graduation, he played a little baseball at Ferrum College before transferring to Radford University, where his intercollegiate sports days came to an end.
Then came the Rush.
``I still felt like I had the ability to play, so I decided to try it,'' he said.
A year ago, Sloss caught five touchdown passes and gained 341 receiving yards. During the off-season, he put on 25 pounds to make encounters with opposing linebackers more of an even match.
``Eddie has some great hands,'' Strager said. ``We really ought to get him the ball more.''
Graham may be the answer to the problem of getting the ball to the tight end more. After he left Christiansburg, he went to Newport News Apprentice, where he had 5,835 yards total offense for his career to go with 40 scoring passes and 24 touchdown runs. He almost didn't make it that far.
``Newport News is tough,'' he said. ``Work all day then play football. I had the car packed to come home a number of times.''
Graham signed with a pro team in Germany last year, but that didn't work out and he came back home to work at Wolverine Gasket and Manufacturing Co. in Blacksburg.
``I want to play in the Canadian Football League and I think this will help me get there,'' he said.
All three of the players have more immediate concerns, though.
``You play,'' Lewis said, ``because you love the game.''
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Darren Graham (left, Christiansburgby CNBHigh), Eddie Sloss (center, Blacksburg High), and Carl Lewis (right,
Pulaski County High) are players from the New River Valley who play
for the Roanoke Rush. color.