THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512090486
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
The old coach will be visiting his parents today on the Eastern Shore when Indian River wins the state Division 6 high school football championship.
And the Braves will win. He is sure of that. Just as surely, John Dukes will be with Indian River in some form or fashion. You don't give 20 years of your life to a football program and have no presence in its finest hour.
It is an hour Dukes never approached in nine years as an Indian River assistant and 11 as head coach, ending in 1988. He never won the Southeastern District. Never made the playoffs, back when only champions gained automatic berths.
Oh, some of Dukes' teams were plenty good, particularly the '79 bunch that featured future All-Pro William Fuller. They just never were good enough.
Look now, though, if you can stand the irony. Dukes, 56, still teaches at Indian River but is an assistant coach at Deep Creek. Deep Creek routed the Braves this season, as did Western Branch, making Indian River third-best in its own city.
However, those two are Division 5 schools, not 6, according to the Virginia High School League's enrollment breakdown implemented in the late '80s to increase the postseason field.
Yet Western Branch didn't make the playoffs, and Deep Creek bowed out last week. But Indian River is alive, as it should be. The Braves played by the rules, won their playoff games and deserve their title shot.
Dukes wouldn't have it any other way.
``It's not something I haven't thought about, that the No. 3 team in Chesapeake is going to win a state championship,'' he says, sitting in his driver's education simulator at Indian River. ``People think I probably want them to lose. I hope they win 50-0. If I didn't want them to win, why, I'd go home, retire, go set a net, fire a shotgun.
``Why would I want them to lose? I put 20 years of my life into it. I don't know how I could be upset when good things are happening.''
A son of Chincoteague, Dukes resigned when he no longer was up to the all-encompassing challenge of head coaching. He stayed in football, though, for three years as an assistant at Nansemond-Suffolk and the last four at Deep Creek, where he's lived for 20 years.
As for his life at Indian River, you'd think it would include constant conflict, good-natured needling. But Dukes says his divided loyalties are pricked only occasionally.
``Every once in a while I'll kid with the kids,'' Dukes says, meaning his Indian River students. ``The only time I'm very scarce around the kids is the week we play Indian River.''
And that's never been much fun, playing Indian River. Not under Dukes, not under Lee Fowler and not under Bob Parker, who has put the Braves into the state semifinals in each of his three seasons.
The rules are different, but Parker's success lengthens the lingering perception of Dukes' tenure as one of underachievement, which Dukes doesn't necessarily argue.
``I don't think that's unfair,'' he says. ``We were consistent. Some people would say, `Yeah, consistently second or third.' I had two or three teams that were capable of playing with anybody in the state. But you need a little bit of luck. Then there's always a game you've got to win, and we didn't win it.''
Today, on a larger scale, is one of those games. A moment that takes some schools decades to reach, that most never do. A moment that John Dukes always wished for Indian River. And that he wishes still. by CNB