ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 22, 1996 TAG: 9609230144
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
A CAR WRECK CLAIMS the life of Jim Young, who won four state boys' basketball titles in eight seasons.
To followers of Piedmont District boys' basketball, Jim Young was a friendly competitor who earned respect.
The Magna Vista coach, whose teams never lost a game in state tournament play, was killed Saturday in a two-car crash on U.S. 220 near Martinsville Speedway.
Young was driving south when a tractor-trailer pulled out in front of a Lincoln in the northbound lane. The driver of the Lincoln swerved to miss the truck and went into Young's lane, striking his Dodge Colt on the driver's side, state police said.
The woman driving the Lincoln was injured and was taken to Memorial Hospital. She was not identified by police. Charges are pending, police said.
Young won four state titles - three at Drewry Mason and one at Magna Vista - in a span of eight years from 1982 through 1989.
Young's overall record was 259-113. Although his Magna Vista teams never returned to the state tournament after the 1989 season, the Warriors always were among the top squads in the Piedmont District. His final state tournament record was 9-0.
At Drewry Mason, Young won three consecutive Group A crowns starting in 1982. When Drewry Mason and George Washington Carver of Fieldale were consolidated to form Magna Vista for the 1988-89 school year, Young pulled off his greatest coaching feat by winning the Group AA title in the school's first year of existence.
In a semifinal, Magna Vista rallied from a seven-point deficit to beat Tabb, a Yorktown squad led by future NFL players Terry Kirby and Chris Slade.
In the championship game, with one of his scoring leaders, Jerome Preston, hobbled by a sprained ankle, Young's Warriors beat Charlottesville when Chad Ford hit a shot at the buzzer in overtime.
``I never had to endure anything like that,'' said Young, reflecting on the title when he was named the Group AA and Timesland boys' coach of the year in 1989. ``We were going against some tremendous basketball teams. Fortunately, we could hang in there and persevere.''
Young was part of the Martinsville basketball connection. He played for the coaching tandem of Mel Cartwright and Husky Hall, who made the Bulldogs the state's best program from the 1960s through the 1980s. Young later coached with and against both men.
``I remember his nickname, `Hercules,''' said Cartwright, who gave Young that that moniker while coaching him from 1960-62. ``He was only 120 pounds and fighting one of the bigger players on our team. When I broke up the fight, I asked him, `Who do you think you are, Hercules?'''
Hall, elected to the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame as a coach, worked with and against Young.
``We went after each other as hard as we could,'' Hall said. ``It was a good, clean rivalry. Jim could talk to every player. He could communicate as well as any coach I've ever seen.
``He didn't get rattled. He was very calm. That was one of his assets in coaching. We roomed together coaching the West in the [Virginia High School Coaches' Association] All-Star Game. He had a great sense of humor and always came around with the jokes.''
Don Bateman, Magna Vista's athletic director and football coach, said the Warriors' coach always had his priorities in the right order.
``He loved his family and his church,'' said Bateman, who once coached junior varsity basketball with Young. ``That's where he was going [Saturday to a church function] when the accident happened. Jimmy loved the kids at Magna Vista. He'd do anything in the world for anybody, but at the same time he was a fierce competitor. Once the game was over, that part was over and he was friends with anybody.''
Young, 52, is survived by his wife, Joyce, and a daughter, Jessica; his parents, Jesse Gordon Young and Texas Frith Young of Martinsville; and a brother, Larry Lee Young of Tobaccoville, N.C.
Funeral services are 4 p.m. Monday at Ridgeway Methodist Church. Visitation will be today from 7 to 9 p.m. at the church.
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