ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050110
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-14 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: HIGH SCHOOLS
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM
Just when it appeared Jim Carroll and his weekly high school football game would disappear from the air after 32 years, a Roanoke Valley tradition has been saved.
Carroll again will pick a high school game of the week in the Roanoke Valley and pump out the play-by-play as he has done since he started working WROV-AM in 1964.
In this case, Carroll's streak was saved by Lloyd Gochenour, the general manager and owner of WRIS-AM and WJLM-FM (J-93). This is the same Gochenour who lost Salem football because he didn't want to switch in the weekly broadcast from WRIS to J-93.
Gochenour said he had a change of heart when he heard about Carroll's plight and decided that high school football would be carried on J-93. By that time, Salem football games had been placed on WSLC-AM, thanks to Herm Reavis, another saviour for high school sports continuining on the air in this area.
``My program director [at J-93] and staff weren't for it, but I overruled them,'' Gochenour said.
Carroll never thought there would be problems broadcasting high school games this year. He had a deal with David Weil, who had sold both WROV sations to Benchmark Communications, to continue the series. Weil was supposed to lease WROV-AM, but negotiations fell through.
``I was out of town for a month. When I came back, I asked Benchmark what they would do in sports and they said nothing,'' said Carroll.
At that point Gochenour, who had read in the newspaper [on Aug. 18] that there might not be a game on WROV, asked his station manager, Lloyd Woods, to call Carroll.
``He asked if I would do a game, but I said not on WRIS because the signal isn't strong enough,'' Carroll said. ``I told him I would be interested in doing games on WJLM. He said he'd get back. Lloyd called and said we're really interested in doing it, so we got together.''
Carroll, whose main job was to sell advertising at WROV, had no trouble getting a sponsor. Kroger will do the whole broadcast. Carroll says Gochenour and Kroger are the ones who saved his broadcast.
Carroll said he had the feeling in mid-August his days as a play-by-play commentator appeared numbered. ``I would say I was concerned about what the future would be if WROV didn't pursue it. After the article in the paper, there was a lot of reaction that spurred me on.''
As for the future of Carroll's highly popular basketball broadcasts in the winter, it depends how football does. Gochenour isn't ruling out broadcasting basketball, though he said he knows his staff won't be in favor of pulling J-93's country music format off the air for 20 evenings of basketball.
Gochenour said he thinks ratings are made in the daytime. Carroll said his high school broadcasts always have boosted WROV's ratings during their time slot.
So high school basketball, with its Blue Ridge District and Roanoke Valley District races, might have a place. J-93 could gain because its signal stretches to Blacksburg and Christiansburg, new additions to the Blue Ridge District.
Carroll's broadcasts start this week. Like he did at WROV, he said, he'll try to cover the best game of the week, and there will be some overlap when he does Salem football. The first overlap is likely to be his second broadcast when the Spartans play host to Pulaski County on Sept.13 in what has become one of Timesland's biggest draws.
RUCX FALL CLASSIC: The Radford University Cross Country Fall Classic is set Saturday, with 40 teams and possibly 1,000 runners expected to participate. There will be five races, beginning with developmental runs at 9 a.m.
The boys' varsity (red division), won last year by Cave Spring, is set for 11:30 a.m. Christiansburg, which eventually won the Group AA championship, was far down the list in eighth place in last year's race. Coach Steve Shelton's Demons had numerous injuries including junior Matt Nolan, a two-time All-Timesland runner, who placed fourth in Group AA meet.
Cave Spring is led by Ben Dowdy, who last year was second team All-Timesland after finishing fourth in the Northwest Region. Dowdy finished 37th in the Group AAA meet, but he has hopes of moving into the top 15 this fall and making All-State.
SALEM INFLUENCE: Former Salem footballer Jimmy Wolfe and Rob Bowen, who played at Cave Spring, have jobs as coaches in Roanoke city. The pair is coaching the Patrick Henry ninth grade football team this fall. The two played together at Hidden Valley Junior High (now Middle School) before Wolfe transferred to Salem.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD: Cave Spring is the second Roanoke Valley District school to change athletic directors. Joe Hafey, who has coached girls' tennis 1990-95 and boys' and girls' track from 1983-90 at the school, replaces Otis Dowdy. At Pulaski County, Todd Browning took over athletic director duties this summer.
ACTIVE DEANS: Former Patrick Henry boys' basketball coach Woody Deans will keep his hand in coaching this year after all. No, Deans won't do anything with basketball, a sport in which his teams claimed two Group AAA championships. Deans is the assistant golf coach to Carl Rydell.
GIRLS BASKETBALL TIDBITS: Mirandia Schechterly, a freshman guard, scored 10 points for Cave Spring in its opening game against Parry McCluer. The Schechterly name might be familiar. Her father, E.D. Schechterly, was arguably the best player in the school's history when he played there in the early 1970s. He later starred for some powerful Lynchburg College teams in the NCAA Division IIIthat blasted Roanoke College when it still was in Division II.
nAt the William Byrd season-opening tournament, three teams - Martinsville, Northside and Glenvar - each had 33 rebounds in their opening round games. Host Byrd, playing Martinsville, spoiled a rare statistical quartet as the Terriers snared 38 rebounds.
TURNED DOWN: The Virginia High School League, which is looking for sites to hold state championship football games this fall, inquired about using Salem Memorial Stadium after it was learned that the Division III Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, scheduled for the same site, is set Saturday, Dec.14, a week after the high school title games.
The city of Salem turned down the VHSL because there would be a risk, with bad weather, that one or two high school games the week prior to the Stagg Bowl might ruin the field. The VHSL was looking to put either a Group A or AA game in Salem.
LENGTH: Long : 111 linesby CNB