ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 16, 1997 TAG: 9701160020
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: NARROWS
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
Todd Lusk has faith in Joe Shipbaugh.
This is good. Lusk is the basketball coach at Narrows High. Shipbaugh is a player for Narrows High. Shipbaugh is also the best player on the team, if numeric measures such as scoring average, field goal percentage, and 3-point accuracy indeed provide solid foundation for such statements.
Coaches must have faith in their best players. If they don't, it shows. Then the other players on the team wonder what the coach thinks of them. This is called a crisis of confidence.
This is very bad for the team's long-term prospects.
At Narrows, there is no such crisis. Lusk believes in Shipbaugh. Shipbaugh, in turn, gives daily assurances that the faith is justified.
Lusk's faith in his best player goes further than that. Much further. Lusk believes in his best player to such an extent that he invited him to come live with him.
Time has passed. Shipbaugh still resides in the Lusk household. All the members of said household are in the process of living happily ever after.
Or until Joe, a senior, heads off to college.
``Joe's been a blessing for our family,'' Lusk said. ``He plays with our kids [4-year-old Brock and 1-year-old Tori] and they love him like they would a big brother. It's like he's lived with us his whole life.''
How Shipbaugh came to move in with his coach started when Shipbaugh's mother Nancy moved to North Carolina.
``I wanted to stay and finish school at Narrows,'' Shipbaugh said. ``She wanted me to come to North Carolina, but she understood why I wanted to stay.''
The next step came when Shipbaugh told Lusk and Narrows athletic director Rick Franklin of his hope to finish high school at Narrows.
``We started making up a list of people that maybe Joe could live with,'' Lusk said. ``Then it just came down to the best place for him would be with us.''
One more endorsement of this philosophy was essential.
``I went home and talked to my wife, Debbie, and she agreed with me,'' Lusk said. ``Still, we were kind of worried: If we bring a teen-ager into our house, will he play by our rules? I knew he would.''
And he does, including the one involving observing curfew.
Shipbaugh contributes to the household in many ways.
``He can make up some mean tuna salad,'' Lusk said.
Shipbaugh also plays a pretty mean game of basketball. At almost 23 points per game, Shipbaugh is the second-leading scorer in Timesland. He's scoring all those points because he's an excellent shooter, as a 57 percent accuracy rate from the floor would indicate. He leads Timesland by shooting 54.1 percent from 3-point range. Shipbaugh started the week with 20 triples.
Talent he has. He's cultivated it, too.
``I've been playing pretty much all my life,'' he said. ``And I've gone to camps. I learn something at camp and I'd bring it home and work on it.''
Occasionally, that would mean jogging a mile (while wearing a weighted vest) to the park in Narrows to shoot, and shoot, and shoot some more. Before school, until dark, hour after hour.
Now, he works on the opposition.
The opposition knows what's coming. Not much of a scouting trip is required to figure out what Narrows is up to.
``Everybody on our team knows Joe has to carry us,'' Lusk said. ``But we have had a lot of players contribute. Jason Mullins, Dallas St. Clair, Dalton Smith, David Turner - all of them have taken turns taking up the slack.''
Shipbaugh hopes that his basketball prowess will be noticed and a college will give him a shot to continue playing. That may be a matter of finding another coach who has as much faith in him as Lusk does.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: RAY COX STAFF. Narrows basketball player Joe Shipbaughby CNBlives with coach Todd Lusk.