ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 9, 1996 TAG: 9608090025
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
TYPE: COMMENTARY
SOURCE: RAY COX
Kindness and gentleness, thought to have lost favor after the departure of the 1992 Republican presidential candidate, have returned.
Alas, those noble conditions reappeared in an entirely inappropriate setting earlier this week.
Kindness and gentleness you want in grandmothers, preachers and the water temperature of the swimming pool at the country club.
Kindness and gentleness you don't want in the game of football.
But that's what they had one morning soon after high school football practices opened all across the state this week.
As players ranging in size from beanpole to behemoth struggled to recall everything from proper three-point stance technique to the art of concealing a golf ball-sized lip full of dip from the prying eyes of the nearest coach, gentle breezes blew and kind clouds obscured the cruel (presumably) August sun.
``These kids must be living right,'' Pulaski County High assistant coach Perry Reese said to his fellow assistant J.W. Smith as they walked off the field for the midday break of a practice that was as sweat-free as they ever come at this time of year.
``Nice, isn't it?'' Smith said.
``We'll get them back this evening,'' Reese said.
The sun did break through the gray a couple of times, immediately releasing the steam from the thick atmosphere as though the unseen hand of the divine had turned the valve.
But to be perfectly frank, it was tame stuff, climatically speaking. To properly prepare a football team for the rigors ahead, you have to bake it in the sun, boil it in the great outdoor steambath of the practice field, and draw and quarter it with huge piles of barbells.
Or so they believe in the old school of preseason preparation.
Willis White of Salem is an old school kind of guy. The Spartans' boss takes the Marilyn Monroe approach to August practice. His attitude? Some like it hot.
``Heat is good,'' he said. ``Coaches love it. Players don't like it. They think it should be air-conditioned.''
Getting back to Pulaski County, though, you'll never see a Cougars team overly influenced by extremes of heat and cold. Follow the burgundy and gold enough and you'll experience the full range of weather patterns. Something seems to happen to the air currents in Dobson Stadium as it sprawls charmingly at the bottom of the bowl on the edge of the cornfield.
Should it be a hot September night, there is no place in the state more humid or lacking in any sort of air circulation than Dobson Stadium. In early November, there is no more hospitable address for frost.
Veteran Cougars watchers will tell you that come playoff time, just about any place Coach Joel Hicks' boys are scheduled to play, you can count on having to pack the long underwear, the mittens, and an extra couple of yards of scarf.
On a personal note, those items were of little useful service in a couple of Pulaski County postseason outings that come to mind. After watching a state Group AAA Division 6 semifinal against Robinson in 1993 in Fairfax County and another semifinal against Annandale on the same field the following year, I almost met my frostbitten end. The undertaker would have had a heck of a time with the internment in view of the obvious problems of closing a casket lid on a corpse frozen more solidly than a TV dinner. They only thing they could have done would have been to rent the remains out as a blocking dummy.
Presumably, subsequent generations of Pulaski Countians have caught on to the fact that football is not a game for the feeble.
Said Ron Branch, this year's quarterback: ``You better be in shape before you get here for preseason practice. If you don't, you ain't going to make it.''
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB