ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 1, 1996 TAG: 9611010035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Birthdays are like basketball victories. They all count, but they're just numbers.
Lefty Driesell will turn 65 on Christmas, but it's another number the James Madison basketball coach has become attached with in recent weeks.
It's the 700 club, and it's pretty exclusive. Only six coaches in the history of major-college basketball have reached that many victories. Driesell wants to get there - he needs 33 - but despite all of the talk about that number, he isn't hung up on it.
``I don't know what the 700 is about exactly,`` Driesell said Wednesday at the Colonial Athletic Association's preseason media day. ``I may get to 800 or 900. That would amaze some people.''
And only Driesell, although not speaking in a left-handed sort of way, could explain his coaching status like this: ``I'm definitely,'' he said, ``going to coach indefinitely.''
The 700 became an issue when JMU athletic director Don Lemish tried to clear up speculation that this would be Driesell's last season. About to begin his 35th season as a college head coach - and ninth at the Harrisonburg school where he basically rehabilitated his career after the Len Bias saga at Maryland - Driesell is entering the final year of his contract.
To make it clear the Norfolk native was going nowhere, Lemish said Driesell would be at Madison for his 700th victory - and the only way that could happen this season is for the Dukes to rebound from a 10-20 record and reach the Final Four unbeaten.
``Seven hundred? Shoot, it may take me five or six years, if we only win five games a year,'' Driesell said. ``I don't think that's going to happen. I really like our team. I'm excited. Of course, if someone had told me before last season that we'd only win 10 games, I probably would have committed suicide.
``As long as I enjoy coaching, and we're winning, and I feel like I'm doing a good job, I'll keep doing it, whether it's 700, 800 or 900. My wife [Joyce] always asks me why I want to keep doing this. She says, `We have plenty of money and a good life.' She's right, but I like the competition. I've been around athletics since I was a second-grader. It's a big part of me.''
Driesell's team is picked fourth in the CAA preseason poll, behind VCU, Old Dominion and East Carolina. Although he has four starters back and perhaps his best JMU recruiting class, the Dukes lost all-time CAA 3-point leader Darren McLinton.
``It's going to be a struggle early, probably, because we have a good December schedule,'' Driesell said. ``We won five of our last six last year, and there's no way I'd have thought we could do that after the way we played earlier. They could have folded. The staff could have quit. We went the other way.
``We started a freshman point guard [Ned Felton] in January. A month earlier he had been working in a video rental store in Jersey City'' because he hadn't gotten a required test score to qualify.
``We lose 11 of 12, and I wanted to change, but the assistant coaches said to stick with him. They were right. This year, I think we can be as good as anybody in this league.''
Driesell said he heard those who said he should quit after his first losing season since he began a storied career 9-14 in 1960-61 at Davidson. He didn't listen.
``I wouldn't want to end up what had been 35 years that way,'' Driesell said. ``I couldn't go out that way.''
So, he didn't.
``I don't know how long I'll coach,'' Driesell said. ``I always told people I would coach until I died, and I'd probably die on the bench. I don't know if that will happen, but I'm not old. I'm young. Bob Dole is 73. I'm 64. Shoot, I might coach eight or 10 more years.''
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