DATE: Thursday, September 4, 1997           TAG: 9709040628

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

EX-NSU COACH STILL REBUILDING UNION HE HARBORS NO ILL WILL TOWARD HIS OLD SCHOOL, WHICH HIS CURRENT TEAM PLAYS HOST TO ON SATURDAY.

When he resigned as Norfolk State's head football coach five years ago, Willard Bailey could called it a career.

With 158 victories, six CIAA titles and five NCAA Division II bids in 21 seasons, Bailey had little left to prove.

But late in 1994, came a call from an old friend, Virginia Union athletic director James Battle.

We need you, he said. Our program is falling apart. We've won six games in three seasons. We've fired two coaches during two of those seasons. When I look at our roster, I see maybe five football players, and one is ineligible.

Bailey, who coached at Union in the 1970s and early 1980s, accepted the offer, calling it the biggest challenge of his career.

As the Panthers prepare to host Norfolk State Saturday, it's clear the challenge remains daunting.

The Panthers opened his third season with a 56-7 loss at Livingstone. That follows records of 0-8-2 his first season and 2-7 last year.

``We had 10 turnovers against Livingstone,'' Bailey said. ``We just weren't ready to play. We hurt ourselves more than Livingstone hurt us.''

The tortoise-like pace of rebuilding has been frustrating to Virginia Union followers, who are accustomed to watching Bailey win championships.

Bailey, a Suffolk native and Norfolk State graduate, was 106-32-4 and won five CIAA titles as Union's head coach from 1971 through 1983. At the time he was the toast of the media in Virginia's capital city, which marveled at how he was winning at a school with 1,300 students and modest financial means.

He vows that Union will return to those glory days.

``Our recruiting is getting better,'' he said. ``We're beginning to get the caliber of athlete we need to turn it around.

``There's no reason why Virginia Union shouldn't be winning CIAA championships. But we will need at least a couple of more years to get the program back where it was when I was here before.''

Bailey says he left Norfolk bearing no ill will toward anyone, though perhaps he had reason to. Alumni and students complained that he should have been able to duplicate his success at Union, given Norfolk State's larger enrollment and greater financial resources. The criticism reached its height in 1992, when the student newspaper called on him to quit.

Bailey insists that his resignation after the 1992 season wasn't forced, but he acknowledges the criticism helped wear him down. He quit, he says, because he needed time off to recharge his batteries.

Shortly after leaving Bailey was accused by several players of violating NCAA rules on grade changes. Norfolk Police then busted a drug ring in which several of Bailey's players were involved.

Bailey was exonerated by a university investigation into the alleged NCAA violations and nobody has alleged he had any knowledge of the drug ring.

Bailey, a deeply religious man who keeps a Bible on his desk, says he has forgiven those who spoke ill of him.

``I still love Norfolk State. It will always be a very special place to me,'' he says.

``I could have continued to teach there and I would have been happy. But the choice for me was to teach a few classes, then sit around the rest of the day, or to get involved in something a little more challenging.

``Anything you do has some risk involved. I knew there was risk in this move. But I don't have any regrets at all about coming back in. I certainly think we can and will turn the tide.''

Bailey says playing Norfolk State won't be any more special than playing Livingstone. The last of the players he recruited are gone, including quarterback Aaron Sparrow and wide receiver James Roe, who set school records.

``It was difficult playing Norfolk State the first time,'' Bailey said of the 1995 game, which NSU won 59-32.

``I was coaching against the kids, like Roe and Sparrow, we thought would win a Division II national championship, kids I'd recruited, kids I knew. We figured to win a CIAA title their junior year and compete for a national title when they were seniors.

``Those are still my boys. I'm still very close to all of them. That's why I got back into coaching. I think I still have a lot to offer young men today. When you look at the difficult things young people go through in these times, I still think I can help them.'' ILLUSTRATION: PAM ROYAL/File photo

Willard Bailey, left, admits that his critics at Norfolk State

helped drive him from the Spartans' head coaching position in 1992.

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