Vol. 4, No. 6, March 17, 2008

Vol. 4, No. 6, March 17, 2008

2 PLAY BY PLAY MARCH 17, 2008

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Across from the Salem Wal-Mart (Exit 137 off I-81)

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MARCH 17, 2008 PLAY BY PLAY 3

Articles Ashley Plantation’s Chip Sullivan Gets to Show His Stuff ................10 Probable Kaase: Will He Return to Hampden-Sydney or Not? ........12 Fifty and Counting: Salem’s Got this NCAA Thing Down Pat ...........13 South County Lax Coach Intends to Advance the Sport Locally ....14 The Downs Clan: Radford’s First Family of Tennis ............................16 Gallop 4 the Greenways Hopes to Propel Valley Forward ...............17 Thirty-something Keno Shepherd Remains an Olympic Hopeful ...18 Jimmy Slaughter Took His Roundball Game to South Carolina ......19 Don Meredith, a Legend of the Games .................................................22

Extras Question for the Doctor .........3 Natural Health Tip ...................5 Playmakers ................................8 Ask A Ref ....................................8 From the Bookshelf .................9 Snapshots of the Season ......11

Question for the Doctor Natural Health Tip Playmakers Ask A Ref From the Bookshelf Snapshots of the Season

Question forthe DoctorThis month’s question answered byJoseph E. Alhadeff, M.D.

Dr. Joseph E. Alhadeff

What can I do to prevent injuries while playing softball and baseball?

Baseball and Softball are two of the most popular recreational sports with more than 40 million participants nationwide. Injuries are uncommon and most are preventable. Th e most common injuries involve throwing, base-running, and getting hit by the ball. Excessive throwing can result in serious shoulder and elbow problems. Pitch counts should be adhered to, and pitchers should not pitch more than 8-12 total innings per week. All players should warm up and make some practice throws before the game. If you have persistent pain with throwing, you should not play until the pain sub-sides or you are evaluated by a physician. Baserunning injuries are mostly due to the use of fi xed bases. Th e American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recommends the use of breakaway bases to decrease the risk of injury when sliding into a base. Th e use of metal spikes on the bottom of cleats is also discouraged. Adequate protective gear should be used by all players to avoid getting hit by the ball. Batters and baserunners should wear helmets. Th e catcher should have a helmet, facemask, throat guard, chest protector, athletic supporter, shin guards, and a catcher’s mitt. Also, the playing fi eld should be inspected for glass, holes, other de-bris, and possible obstacles.

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Opinions Dick Williams ............................................. 4 Mike Stevens .............................................. 5 Bob Teitlebaum ......................................... 6 Mike Ashley ................................................. 7

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Players in this Issue

P.O. Box 3285, Roanoke, VA 24015 (540) 761-6751 • E-mail: [email protected] the Web: www.playbyplayonline.net

©Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. No part of Play by Play may be reproduced by any means or in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Play by Play is published every fourth Monday. Deadline for submissions for the April 14 issue is March 31.

Amber Overstreet Mike Stevens Binki Teitlebaum Bob Teitlebaum Bill Turner J. Brett Whitesell Dick Williams L.B. Wood

Sports: one interest I’ll never retire

See WILLIAMS, Page 8

THE DIRT-FILLED CLEATS are hanging on a nail in the garage. The glove is atop a

shelf and the uniform is long gone. My field of dreams is over. Re-tirement from the adult baseball league ended my years on the dia-mond at age 55. Another retirement looms on the imminent horizon. At the end of March, I’m leaving Member One Federal Credit Union after serv-ing as its only CEO for more than 35 years. I’m slowly admitting to myself that retirement should be a gift and not a burden. The credit union has grown from a $2.8 million institution to nearly $350 million, serving 53,000 members. We now have 13 branches and three student-run branches in area high schools. Our mainstream branches are for member convenience, making us competitive with other financial institutions. It is the student branches that I’m most proud of. As an advo-cate for financial literacy, I believe we have a mission for teaching youngsters about saving mon-ey, the wise use of credit, how to save for their future education and their entry into the business world. The students actually run the day-to-day operations at their respective high schools. They are

also on our payroll. In the past few years, I have also been an advocate for sponsor-ing high school sports, from pur-chasing program ads to hosting basketball tournaments. We have sponsored the Holiday Hoopla, the Franklin County High School tournament, and the initial Roa-noke Catholic and Valley Shootout tournaments. Aside from my role in support-ing these events, I have been an ardent spectator at many, many games over the years. Usually, I get a front row seat along with my fel-low basketball junkies. We coach, we referee (we never miss a call) and we discuss what the real game was all about when we played some 50 years ago. Some of us can recall the kind of shot we made and who was guarding us. Was it a jumper, a hook or a two-handed set? Just ask us, we’ll know. I’ve met many friends as the re-sult of being a sports fan and I have had the privilege to meet many professional athletes, coaches and

other sports personalities during my lifetime. The opportunity to meet some of these people — such as Archie Griffin, the only two-time winner of the Heisman Tro-phy; Ty Detmer, another Heisman Trophy winner; and legendary college football coaches Howard Schnellenberger and LaVell Ed-wards — came as the result of vol-unteering to serve on board of the Roanoke Valley Sports Club more than a decade ago. I enjoyed my role as president of the club from 2000-’02 and I am presently serv-ing as program chairman. I look forward to our monthly board meetings with the great people on our board — even though they can be cantanker-ous at times — but nevertheless con-tinue to give un-stintingly of their free time to ensure the viability of the club. This is a job that I don’t expect to retire from. I served on the steering commit-tee of the Big South Conference Bas-ketball Tourna-ment when it was played at the Roa-noke Civic Cen-ter several years ago and currently I am treasurer of the Roy Stanley Miller Charitable Foundation that memorializes for-mer WDBJ sports-caster Roy Stan-ley. Again, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many wonderful volunteers for good causes. Years ago, I began collecting printed sports memorabilia along with a couple of my neighborhood friends. Baseball cards were my first venture into memorabilia. Later, it was college football pro-grams. Through the years, I have amassed more than 1,000 pro-grams and other assorted sports-related books. There are two pro-grams that stand out; the 100th anniversary program of the first collegiate football game played between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869, and the program of a game that was never played between Wichita State and Utah State. One of the Wichita State planes

crashed in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver in October, 1970 killing 31 of that team’s players. I remember long ago meeting Gene Morehouse, the sports in-formation director at Marshall University and former broadcaster of that university’s football and basketball games. I had the privi-lege of talking with him and his wife several times at various sports venues. Unfortunately, Gene was a passenger on the ill-fated plane that crashed carrying the Marshall football team back to Huntington, W.Va. from a game at East Carolina in November of 1970. I cherish a nice letter I received from Gene’s widow about a month following his death.

As a native Roanoker, I attended Jefferson High School and lettered in basketball and baseball in the late 1950s. I attended the Univer-sity of Houston’s Bauer School of Business and hold a lifetime mem-bership in the university’s alumni association. Part of my memora-bilia collection has included sev-eral high school football programs, some dating back to the 1940s, as well as many Houston programs. I donated the UH programs to the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Former sports information di-rector Ted Nance called to tell me that several of the programs had been mounted on the walls of the

IN MY OPINIONby Dick Williams

Three’s Company: football ‘coaches’ Frank Beamer (left), Dick Williams and George Welsh entertained a full house at a summer 2000 Sports Club meeting

Publisher/Editor John A. Montgomery

Graphic Designer Donna Earwood

Contributors Mike Ashley Robert Blades Rod Carter Donald Earwood Sam Lazzaro Gene Marrano Joyce Montgomery Christian Moody

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ing mounds and AstroTurf — furnishings valued at more than $50,000. “We had some real key guys that did all the work in this and made it a real community project,” Helgeson says. “It’s way, way beyond what we expected.” Helgeson’s oldest son Zach (see page 8) is a University of Maryland-bound senior on the Hidden Valley varsity team, and for years Steve Hel-geson has coached his two sons in both little league and AAU compe-tition. He knows that when it comes to honing a young player’s skills, the value of this facil-ity will one day be far greater than the $350,000 value the county has put on it. “The ones who work out over the winter, you can see it from the first day they set foot on the field in the spring,” he says. “We don’t have 80-degree weather here year-round, so this indoor facility is pretty important.” Stilwell, who also has a son on the varsity baseball team, will take on a new job during the next school year when he becomes Hidden Valley’s booster club president, but don’t look for any more capital projects on his watch anytime soon. “I have promised that this is the last project I will ever be involved with that includes building something,” he says.

HV baseball facility rose from the rubble

Natural Health Tip of the Month From Dr. Jeffrey Barker, DC, CCSP

This time of year many people will be doing extra amounts of yardwork. To protect your back from this added physical stress, remember that good posture and balance are the keys. 1. Bend at the knees instead of the waist when lifting, using your legs to lift the load2. Try sitting or kneeling for jobs requiring prolonged bending3. Use both sides of your body when doing repetitive activities4. Take periodic breaks and drink plenty of water, because yardwork is exercise5. If you do overdo things, visit your chiropractor to get things back in balance

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THERE WERE NO ASHES, NO brightly colored birds and, thankfully, there was no fire.

Yet much like the mythical Phoe-nix, Hidden Valley’s baseball and softball facility has somehow risen from the rubble to live again. The ambitious project that in the span of six months went from a long shot, to near reality, to disaster and finally fruition was officially christened on March 1. “The county allowed us to build on this property, but we have put in all of the money, time and man-hours to make this happen,” says Steve Stilwell, the project’s driving force. The 60-foot-by-90-foot cinderblock building provides 5,400 square feet of hitting and throwing space under one roof, and it somehow was built without a penny of taxpayers’ money. “Really, three years ago a group of guys were just sitting around talking about how nice it would be to have an indoor facility for the kids to prac-tice in, and it was just going to be an idea until we decided to make some phone calls,” says Stilwell.

Stilwell knows a lot of people, but more than that he was not afraid to ask them to chip in and sup-port the project. His first stop was Kroger where the valley’s biggest supporter of community projects and athletics kicked in $25,000 worth of seed money to get things rolling. Timber Truss then not only gave materi-als for the roof, but also pro-

vided some skilled laborers, and soon many others began to follow suit. But perhaps the most impressive show of support came Oct. 1, 2007 — the day the initial building collapsed. Trust me; when your pet project suddenly looks like an image from the official Hurricane Katrina scrapbook, you’re going to find out who your real friends are in a hurry. “The first phone call I received the night the building was knocked down was from Sam Lionberger, III who just wanted to know what Lion-berger Construction could do to help,” says Stilwell. Lionberger stepped in to save the project, and with the help of Thomp-son Masonry, Boxley Materials and the Blue Ridge Masonry Council, the facility was in some respects back on track in a day. On Saturday, Oct. 20, 18 masons volunteered their time along with 25 laborers and literally rebuilt the walls. They arrived on site before day-break and laid almost 3,000 blocks in less than eight hours. Once the building was under roof, four dads with players on the junior varsity team who have extensive construction, painting and landscaping skills went to work. Dave Liechty, Tom Porter, Lonnie Turner and Mike Walters basically lived at the facility in their spare time for five months. “I guarantee you they’re going to have to be reintroduced to their wives after this,” says Stilwell. But despite all of this work it was still just a glorified warehouse without the stuff Steve Helgeson had promised to take out of storage and donate. Helgeson previously owned the Hitting Zone in Oak Grove Plaza. When it went out of business, he held onto all the nets, pitching machines, pitch-

Steve Stilwell (left) and Steve Helgeson have been driving forces behind Hidden Valley’s new facility

Eighteen masons and 25 laborers rebuilt the walls, laying 3,000 blocks in one day

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Steve Helgeson donated $50,000 of pitching equipment and nets from his former business, the Hitting Zone Steve Helgeson donated $50,000 of pitching equipment and nets from his former business, the Hitting Zone


Cheating seems more prevalent in sportsTIME FOR ‘T’by Bob Teitlebaum

I ’M SAD TO TELL YOU THIS, but we’ve become a nation of cheaters.

There is cheating in college sports. Major league baseball play-ers try to get away with taking ste-roids to keep their careers going. All of this clogs our system. The NCAA has to conduct an investigation into allegations that Indiana Uni-versity basketball coach Kelvin Sampson was making illegal phone calls to prospective recruits. He did the same thing in his last job at Oklahoma. So what did Indiana expect? In the last few years, they had just fired their two previous bas-ketball coaches — Bobby Knight and Mike Davis — who were squeaky clean in terms of following NCAA regulations. Yeah, I know Knight had his controversies, but he never thought about cheating to get his recruits. The ones he did get had to go to class. Poor Davis. He won with Knight’s players but apparently was too nice of a guy; the Hoosiers fired him and brought in Sampson even after Davis took his team to the 2003 national title game. Also, isn’t this the same state still giddy about a high school team from a small town winning a state title with an upstanding coach that the citizens nearly ran out of town before his team’s march to the championship? Yes. The 1986 movie Hoosiers, starring Gene Hackman, was about the 1954 Milan High School team’s exploits. If you saw the film, it gave you a nice warm, tingly feeling and you said to yourself, “Does this stuff really happen?” Twenty-two years after the film’s release, it almost seems like a fantasy. Of course we now have Spygate in the National Football League be-cause Bill Belichick turned some cameras on his opponents’ practices to pick up their signal calling. He says he didn’t know it was illegal, but that defense doesn’t hold up. It’s breaking the rules — cheating, if you will.

Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens will go one up on all of sports’ cheat-ers if he is ever convicted of lying under oath about using illegal drugs. He says he didn’t, but at least three other people, including his former trainer, Brian McNamee, and his former New York Yankees and Houston Astros teammate, Andy Pettite, say that he did. Tune in next week to find out if the pitcher that threw one of the best fastballs in the major leagues has been thrown into jail. So what happens? Now we have another Senate probe into the world of sports added on to Spygate and other illegal uses of performance- enhancing drugs. Osama bin Laden has to be laughing at all this government work as it goes on and on. He’ll outlast George Bush’s presidency and maybe Cle-mens’ prison time. As long as there are sporting contests there will be cheating. One of the early cheaters was Amos Alonzo Stagg when he coached football at the University of Chicago in the 1920s. In those days, Chicago, a Big 10 school, was considered a major power, as were the Ivy League schools. Stagg recruited players who didn’t exactly meet the Chicago’s high aca-demic standards. All of this was fine until the school saw what was happening and de-emphasized the program. And to think the Division III football champi-onship game held in Salem is named after Stagg. It might be better if it was known as the Knute Rockne Bowl. (To be fair, during his long career, Stagg was responsible for implementing many positive innovations in the game of football.) In the early 1950s, there was trouble at the United States Military Acad-emy at West Point when a number of players cheated on their exams and were later dismissed. The Army football team, which produced back-to-back Heisman Trophy winners during the 1940s in Doc Blanchard (“Mr. Inside”) and Glenn Davis (“Mr. Outside”), hasn’t been the same since that scandal. In 1944 and 1945, Army finished number one in the college football polls, using players who could pass exams without help. Frequently, high school athletes in Virginia have wanted to transfer from one school to another without sitting out a season. It hasn’t been hard to do. Their parents rent an apartment in the school zone where the players want to transfer and keep their permanent residence. This has worked because the Virginia High School League has no way to prove that families have changed residences simply to play sports for another team or coach, no matter how suggestive the evidence. Cheating in the sports world is a way of life. Just think back to the 1919 Chicago White Sox team that made a deal with gamblers to fix the World Series so that Cincinnati would win. The Reds were as big an underdog as the New York Jets football team was when it beat the Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl. By the way, the Colts didn’t fix their game. No one at the time realized how good the Jets were because they were from the upstart American Football League that supposedly had no business playing on the same field with the NFL. The 1919 White Sox at least had some justification for their sins; they conspired to fix the World Series because Chicago owner Charles Comis-key was so cheap that he paid his players little money while he pulled in big profits. For their indiscretion, the players fixing the Series were banned from baseball for the rest of their lives. You might have thought that such a se-vere penalty would deter future cheaters. It doesn’t appear to have even slowed them down.

STARTING WITH THE 1993 STAGG BOWL, SALEM HAS HOSTED 49 NCAA Division III championships in a wide variety of sports — football, basketball,

baseball, softball, volleyball and lacrosse. Championship No. 50 tips off this coming weekend with the Division III Basketball Final Four. Please see Gene Marrano’s story about this remarkable achievement on page 13. Oh, by the way, perhaps one reason Play by Play is so caught up in the number “50” is that coincidentally we have produced 50 issues since the publication debuted in 2004. Here’s to 50 more — for both of us! — Ed.

About our cover....


Separation of sport and state has blurredSIDELINESby Mike Ashley

SO I’M WATCHING REP. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and his fantasy league bud-

dies talk to major leaguer Roger Clemens last month. Next thing I know, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is after Bill Belichick for cheating in the Super Bowl. Suddenly, the separation of sport and state is more tenuous than ever. Are you, like me, asking yourself if these bozos don’t have anything better to do with their time and our tax dollars? The war, the economy, health care, global warming, gas prices, the mortgage loan crisis all come immediately to mind, and I’m just a schlub sportswriter. But noooooooo, apparently these guys want some face time on ESPN, dealing with issues where it would seem Washington big-wigs are liter-ally out of their league. Obviously, steroids and human growth hormone in baseball and vid-eotaped secret hand signals in the NFL must be settled to end our long national nightmare. And since Major League Baseball is run by a former used car dealer and his rich playmates, and the corporate folks at NFL tried to do an end run (Enron?) around normal evidence-gathering pro-cedures, they are in need of help. Just not from my federal government, Mssrs. Waxman and Specter. You guys are gumming up enough works already. I nominate Peter Gam-mons and Chris Mortensen, and yes, I’d vote for either of them in a gen-eral election, particularly if Congress continues to weasel its way into the wide world of sports instead of actually making the country a better place by dealing with our real problems. And so, I sat down and considered all of the things more important to me that Congress could investigate and hear testimony on if they really want to do some good in my life. I want my paid politicos to look into (in no particular order) the follow-ing: • Why didn’t my flu shot work this year? Why didn’t anyone’s flu shot work? Can I get a refund? • What kind of conspiracy is being perpetrated on the American pub-lic to deny us the God-given right to a football playoff among the artists formerly known as Division I-A? • Why did the NCAA take away William & Mary’s feathers on their logo and yet we’ve still got dressed-up Seminoles throwing flaming spears in Tallahassee? • Why don’t people take their shopping carts back to the rack at the su-permarket? (How much trouble is that? Look at yourself, the walk across the parking lot won’t hurt.) • Is it true that people who work at those everything-for-a-dollar stores are paid on straight commission? • Why couldn’t the Mitchell Report have been about Lisa Mitchell, a cheerleader I went to high school with? • Why does every fifth-string wide receiver/deep back on special teams celebrate his tackle on punt coverage like he’s just hit the Mega Millions jackpot? • Can federal funds pour into studies on how Lyle Lovett — for how-ever briefly — actually got Julia Roberts to marry him? (And can this in-formation be distributed to the United States male populace at large?) • Can we establish a special task force to look into the disappearance of UVa football players since the end of last season? • Can we place a cap on the number of timeouts for college basketball coaches in the final two minutes of a game? (Of course this would also entail a cap on the number of beer, truck and car commercials, too. But I can live with that.) • Can there be some sort of clearinghouse to contact when my rasp-berry zinger or Boston crème doughnut just has filling in one small bite instead of the whole inside? • Why don’t I ever hear about cooties anymore? Has medical science finally caught up with this scourge of elementary school, and if so, what’s next? Restless leg syndrome? • Can’t we get behind some sort of federal law that would prohibit

61-year-old Sylvester Stallone from making any more Rambo or Rocky movies? • Or that would keep Eddie Murphy from appearing in any movies were he plays multiple roles including at least, but not limited to, one fat woman? • Shouldn’t there be a Blue Ribbon commission formed on how a res-taurant on Mill Mountain will affect Roanoke? (If the restaurant — and shouldn’t it be a Ruby Tuesday, in memory of our Tiger? — is bigger than the star do we have to change the nickname to “The Restaurant City”?) • There needs to be a full investigation into why football, basketball and baseball bubble gum cards don’t actually have bubble gum. • Could we make it mandatory for fast food restaurants to provide a federally-mandated minimum of catsup at the drive-thru window com-mensurate with our order of fries? • What did this guy Phillips actually look like to get the Phillips head screwdriver named for him? • How about a study to see how airport employees can afford to park and eat at airports every day? (They must be the highest-paid segment of our population.) • Let’s look into why there’s so much air in potato chip bags. Couldn’t they put peanuts in there to help protect the chips? No, not Styrofoam peanuts, real peanuts! • Why doesn’t everyone have to turn in a written paper with their tax return every April? (Hard for illegal immigrants to pull that one off — huh? — and then we can give American jobs in the NBA and NHL back to Americans.) If you have a really great idea (like the peanut one) to help the coun-try, you get a full refund that year. And every April, writers would get paid like accountants to help you file. I could finally open H&R Writer’s Block.


PLAYMakersZack Helgeson

Playmakers is sponsored by Professional Therapies of Roanoke

Ask A Ref

Q.

The Hidden Valley High School se-nior first baseman was featured in

the March 3 issue of Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd.” Helgeson was se-lected for his impressive showing at the recent International High School Power Showcase Home Run Derby at Tropicana Field in Florida with two rounds of eight homers. Helgeson, who is headed to the Uni-versity of Maryland, hit .437 with 10 homers and 43 RBIs last year in leading the Titans to the Group AA state final. To view Zack’s highlights, go to takkle.com/videofaces. You may also want to read Mike Stevens’ column from last Septem-ber at playbyplayonline.net.

WilliamsFrom Page 4

In a recent game there was a play where the ball was passed from one player be-hind the 3-point arc to another and, while it was inside the arc, a defender batted the pass and it went up and fell into the hoop. Since this was a pass and it was last touched inside the arc, is it a 2-pointer or a 3?

— I.R., Roanoke County

A. Three points are scored since it was thrown from behind the arc, even though the defense touched it inside the arc.

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hall of fame and that a donor plaque would be placed under each program’s display. When I visited, it was flattering to see my name surrounded by such Houston leg-ends as Andre Ware, the Heisman winner in 1999, Robert New-house, Bill Yeoman, Carl Lewis, Steve Elkington, Fred-die Couples, Elvin Hayes, Clyde Drex-ler, Hakeem Ola-juwon, basketball coach Guy Lewis and broadcaster Jim Nance. In 2005, my life changed some-what when an all-day tummy ache turned out to be a rare form of cancer. Surgery removed the first tumor. Another tumor reappeared last fall that was treated by radia-tion. My oncologist tells me “that if the tumor comes back is not the question. It will only be when and where.” A funny thing happened be-

Some of Williams’ game programs mounted at UH

tween last year’s MRI and the actual diag-nosis. I was vacation-ing in northern Min-nesota when my cell phone rang. I told my wife that I couldn’t believe my employees were calling me while I was on vacation. She answered the phone and promptly stated, “It’s for you.” The caller was Col-lege of Charleston basketball coach Bobby Cremins (a prospective Sports Club speaker) who quickly asked, “Where are you?” I replied that

I was in the backwoods of Min- nesota. He asked me what I was doing there and I stated that I was looking for a 6-10 post player for him. People ask me what I intend to do in retirement. I answer by say-ing sports will be in the mix of my activities. Who knows, I might even knock the dirt off of my cleats, put on my glove and get the old arm loosened up.

In an effort to inform fans of the finer points of the rules of the games, Play by Play regularly publishes the feature, “Ask A Ref,” a chance for fans to ask a question about specific sports rules, preferably those related to high school or the NCAA. Questions can be sent to [email protected]. This month’s question is posed to L.B. Wood, a retired official who has called high school and college basketball.

MikeStevens

PROFESSIONALTHERAPIES, INC.

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From theBookshelf

Even in death, Williams found no peace “Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero,” by Leigh Montville, Broadway Books (2004), 496 pp. $ 28.95. Baseball has always been a met-aphor for spring, and this winter, I couldn’t wait, so I pulled Mont-ville’s definitive bio of Williams off the shelf and was rarely able to put it down. The former Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated veteran grew up a Williams fan, but that doesn’t stop him from painting a nuanced picture of the Splendid Splinter, one of the game’s greatest but most polarizing figures as a player. As brilliant as he was on the ball field, and as many unparalleled accomplishments as he compiled with a bat, Williams never truly let baseball fans embrace him. His upbringing in San Diego in a fatherless home left a hole in his swing at life. “The Kid” was unable to allow anyone — not his three wives, not his children, not die-hard Red Sox fans — get too close. Personally, I only knew Wil-liams from statistics, old video and crotchety interviews he did in his later years. The statistics are truly amazing: two triple crowns and two MVP awards spaced over four seasons; the last player to hit over .400 in a season; the highest career batting average (.344) of any player who played his entire career after the 1920s, and power numbers ri-valed only by Babe Ruth (another Montville bio target) and Barry Bonds (everyone’s target) in terms of percentages. Yet Williams’ playing legacy is an unusual one, shrouded by con-troversy usually of his own mak-ing. The reverence a younger gen-eration of players afforded him at the 1999 All-Star Game remains a stirring testament to his greatness, but it seemed he only enjoyed such adoration long after retirement. So why hadn’t he tipped his cap to Boston fans after that fa-mous home run in his final at-bat in 1960? Why had such a bril-liant, driven ballplayer struggled so much in his day-to-day deal-ing with a media you would think would have longed to adore him?

The answers are as compli-cated as the man himself. The uncompro-mising drive that made him arguably the greatest striker of a baseball in the history of the game also made him prickly and opin-ionated on all matters. He detested the way fans booed him or team-mates after a groundball out and then turned around and cheered for hits. That behavior was incon-sistent and erratic, and Williams was all about consistency — at least in his own mind and specifically in the science of hitting. He could be cordial and warm one-on-one with fans and no oth-er Boston player was as welcom-ing to Pumpsie Green, Boston’s first black ballplayer, as Williams. During his Hall of Fame induction speech in 1966, he made an im-passioned plea for the inclusion of players from the Negro Leagues in the Hall. His efforts as a decorated Marine Corps pilot in World War II and the Korean War, alone, should seem to make him one of sports’ most beloved heroes. But Montville exposes a Wil-liams that was his own worst en-emy throughout his life, blowing up personal relationships and un-able to quell his legendary temper. Ultimately, his inability to muster any respect for pitchers — even his own — led to his demise as a man-ager in Washington and Texas. The story of Williams’ life tailed off for me in the book after Wil-liams left baseball. He was still a larger-than-life personality caught in a sad, downward slide that end-ed with his death in 2002. He was in the news more then than he had been in decades thanks to the fight among his heirs about the disposi-tion of his remains. Ultimately, his son John Henry Williams’ wishes were carried out and his father’s head was separated from the body and cryogenically frozen. It’s as if even in death, the con-troversial Williams could have no peace.

— Mike Ashley

Sometimes you find old books that you had forgotten were in

your library. Last summer, my wife, Binki, suggested putting in more shelves as I had books double-stacked all over the place. You see, I collect and she’s trying to get rid of things as we enjoy our senior years. Sports books have been my pas-sion and I have built up quite a collection. We finally got the new shelves in place in February and it became my task to clean up the overflow and figure out what exactly I had.

As a kid growing up in the 1950s, I always read the sports section of The (Nashville) Tennessean. In the pile of books waiting to be discovered were the 1952, 1953 and 1954 editions of the All-Sports Almanac put out by that paper. The prices of those books were $1

Spring cleaningunveils memories

for each of the first two years and 25 cents for the ’54 edition that contains only 96 pages of informa-tion (the first two editions are 256 pages each.) I searched eBay hoping to find out something about the worth of the almanacs. At least two other newspapers in Philadelphia and Cleveland issued journals with basically the same covers and prices. People trying to sell their copies on eBay started the $1 journals at roughly 10 times their face value. Not surprisingly, there were no bidders. What makes these almanacs worth more than money, however, is the information they provide. In football, there is every college score from the previous year plus summaries of all the major bowl games. Remember there were fewer major bowls then — just the Cotton, Sugar, Orange and Rose. For the lesser bowls, such as the Gator, Sun and Cigar (?) bowls, there are only scores. The 1952 book also provides full coverage of the Davis Cup, AAU boxing. duck pin bowling and bil-liards. There is a gallery of mug shots of the top names in sport

See ALMANACS, Page 18

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KiwanisPancake Day

— 11th Annual —

Sat. Apr.8 • 7am-2pmRoanoke Civic Center

Fun for the whole family!

Tickets: $5.00 in advance; $6.00 at the door

Children under 5 FREECall 761-6751 to order tickets

Silent Auction begins at 8amLive Auction begins at 10am

Supports local non-profit organizations

— 13th Annual —

Sat., May 3 • 7am-2pmRoanoke Civic Center

Fun for the whole family!

Silent Auction begins at 8am

Tickets: $5.00 in advance; $6.00 at the doorChildren under 5 FREE

Call 761-6751 to order ticketsSupports local non-profit organizations


See SULLIVAN, Page 20

Chip Shot

by Christian Moody

Sullivan revisits the big time

EVER SEEN A TITANIUM head on a golf club break in two?

Chip Sullivan hadn’t. The idea of this extremely rare and unfortu-nate occurrence victimizing him had never entered his mind. And so he stood on the 17th tee box of El Camaleon Golf Club in Cancun, Mexico, last month — needing two birdies to make the cut in the

Mayakoba Golf Classic, his first PGA Tour event of the six he will enter this year, the most since he qualified for the Tour in 1997. Sullivan needed a good drive to carry a lake and put himself in po-sition for an up-and-down to keep alive his hopes of making the cut at even par. But what happened was the head of his driver broke on impact; among the debris, the golf ball heaved forward a couple dozen yards and plopped into the lake, sinking Sullivan’s hopes of making this February excursion to Mexico pay for itself. “We all just looked at each oth-er,” Sullivan says. “No one had ever seen anything like that.” Among the lessons learned is this: have more than one driver along on the trip. Don’t fret that Sullivan has to spend some cash for a new driver — he gets them free from Taylor-Made, his sponsor. Not that the story of the shattering head is a testament to the company’s qual-

ity, but it’s fair to say that Taylor-Made’s reputation for excellence in quality golf equipment is strong enough to withstand the hit from the story of one oddly-defective club. “TaylorMade has a program for 24 of the top echelon of club pros where we’re treated exactly like the Tour players,” Sullivan says. “It gives us the ability to call at any time and get anything we want shipped to us.” By contract, 13 of the 14 clubs in his golf bag have to be TaylorMade — putters being the exception. Putting is such an idiosyncratic skill, and the va-riety of putter de-signs is so broad, that companies allow pros to use whatever putter they want. How-ever, Sullivan says he has been practicing with a TaylorMade putter, so that should keep the sponsor happy. And as an aside, because Taylor-Made is owned by adidas, should Sullivan see Sergio Garcia on television sporting a pair of shoes

that catches his fancy, one phone call will have a free pair delivered to his door the next day. And no, before anyone asks, TaylorMade knows his size, so only friends with a size 11½ foot could hope to ask for such a favor, but don’t. Sullivan is not about to do something to jeopardize his spon-sorship or call his own character into question by giving out the equipment meant for him alone. Sullivan might need a few new pairs of shoes this year. He in-tends to put enough miles on them with all the golf he’s going to play.

Thanks to winning the 2007 PGA National Cham-pionship in Oregon, Sulli-van gets to play in six PGA Tour events this season. Last month’s event in Can-cun was the first one. This month he will be in events on consecutive weekends — The Puerto Rice Open in Rio Grande, P.R., March 20-23, and the Zurich Clas-sic in New Orleans March 27-30. Because those week-

ends bookend spring break, Sulli-van is taking his entire family. However, father-in-law Tom

Sullivan has been using a TaylorMade putter

Chip Sullivan and wife, Kari,celebrate the PGA title in Oregon

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Sullivan’s regular caddy is his father-in-law, Roanoke County Schools adminstrator Tom Hall (right)

Sullivan’s regular caddy is his father-in-law, Roanoke County Schools adminstrator Tom Hall (right)


Snapshots of the season

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State ChampsFaith Christian of Roanoke defeated Grace Christian of Staunton 56-41 March 1 tocapture its fi rst-ever VACA state championship. Tournament MVP Rachel Sherman(center, 26 points and 18 rebounds) hugs teammates Morgan Oliver (left) andMonica Pollard after the win.

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Roanokers for RipkenWhen major league baseball great Cal Ripken appeared at the Feb. 11 First Annual Baseball Night in Blacksburg, a fundraiser for the Virginia Tech baseball program, he was surrounded by support-ers — including this Roanoke contingent (l to r): Bill Shrader, John Montgomery, Ken Briggs, Joanne Perry, Pat Bartlett, Dick Bartlett, Shirley Shrader and Larry Perry.

Remember When?Earl Morrall (above), the NFL’s 1968 MVP, held an autograph session at Roanoke’s Pine Spur Sports on March 1. Morrall started at quarterback for the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowls III and V and also backed up Bob Griese on Miami’s undefeated 1972 team that won Super Bowl VII. Morrall was the NFL’s come-back player of the year that season.

40th ReunionThe 1968 Andrew Lewis High School state basketball champs gathered at the River Ridge District Tournament in Salem in late February. Those present included (l to r): head coach Dick Miley, broadcaster Jim Carroll, referee Dan Wooldridge, Charlie Hammersley, assistant coach Deke Summers, Pat Trammell, Denton Willard, Gary Walthall, Dave Petersen, John Givens, Fred Genheimer, Steve Mullins, Frankie Hough and Larry Cecil.

Star SoccerDanny Beamer (left) greets NSCAA director of coaching and devel-opment Jeff Tipping, who addressed a group of soccer coaches and club members at Frank’s Pizza on Brambleton Feb. 28.

Steve BlassThe former Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher spoke at this year’s Salem-Roa-noke Baseball Hall of Fame banquet Feb. 10.

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by Mike Ashley

Probable Kaase:HAMPDEN-SYDNEY SENIOR

forward Troy Kaase has a big decision ahead of him.

The Roanoke native was injured just eight games into the 2006-’07 basketball season and had to have reconstructive knee surgery, end-ing his season prematurely and earning him the chance to play a fifth year if he so chooses. So pose the post player the ques-tion: Does he want to come back? “To tell you the truth, I still have no idea what I’m going to do next year, whether I’m going to gradu-ate and go on to grad school or hold off on graduation and come back another year and play,” says the 2004 Cave Spring High School graduate. “There are so many op-tions open right now, it’s hard to decide.” Tigers head coach Bubba Smith will make a strong case for Kaase to come back because if you can

get another year out of a guy who scored 15.6 points, led the team with 7.1 rebounds, earned sec-ond-team All-ODAC honors and emerged as a team leader, you take it. Corner the coach on the conun-drum and how many times he has queried Kaase on the concern, and the answer is, “Every chance I get.” Smith adds, “We’re trying to work it out. I’d sure like to have him back another year. If he can work the finances out, it might happen but that’s a big ‘if.’” Of course a year ago, Kaase play-ing even one more season for the Tigers was a pretty iffy proposition. Over Christmas in 2006, on a team trip to Aruba, Kaase (befitting his style, he says it’s pronounced like the end of “kamikaze”) went down with that nasty knee injury. “It was the last game of the trip and it was on a fast-break when I got the ball, I landed and tore my ACL,” he recalls. “Two weeks later in January I got surgery and 12 hours later I was at school rehab-bing.” Kaase pushed himself so hard that he turned the traditional six-month, long-haul knee-surgery rehab into a 4½-month sprint, and as an added bonus, that time on the bench has actually made him a better player this year, says Smith.

“ L o o k -ing back at the injury he had to go through, it forced him to become a guy on the sideline who all he could do was encour-age and motivate the other guys to get better,” says Smith. “He kind of became a coach on the floor. I think it really prepared him for his senior year, being a leader.” The best leaders lead by ex-ample and that’s just what the 6-7 forward has done. He was named a team captain in the preseason and when he wasn’t encouraging teammates with his actions on and off the floor, he was encouraging opponents on the floor to double down on him by hitting nearly 60 percent of his shots from the field. “If I get the ball early in the game and they start double-team-ing hard in the post, it’s easy to kick out for open shots,” he says. “Once they start getting out on the guys that can shoot the ball well, it pretty much opens up things for me inside.” One of those guys who can shoot the ball well at H-SC is fellow Roa-noker Turner King, a sophomore from Roanoke Catholic who fin-ished third in the ODAC in scoring at 19.3 ppg and was a first-team

all-conference selec-tion. The duo combined in H-SC’s biggest win of the year, Kaase stick-ing back a King miss with 3.4 seconds left to propel the Tigers to the ODAC semifinals in Sa-lem Feb. 29 with a 69-67 upset of Randolph-Macon. Kaase and King didn’t know each other in Roanoke, but they’ve proven a great tandem for the Tigers. A third Roanoker, freshman Matt Partsch from Hidden Valley, is also aboard the H-SC ros-ter, though his playing time was limited this year as the Tigers fin-

H-SC senior has a choice

See KAASE, Page 20

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Kaase scored the winning basket in Hampden-Sydney’s upset of Randolph-Macon Feb. 29

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50 NCAA championships and counting for Salem

–GOLDEN–

by Gene Marrano

THIS WEEK’S NCAA DIVI-sion III Basketball Men’s Championship in Salem will

make 50 — 50! — national college championships at the Division II or Division III level since 1993 for the Little City Th at Could. It began with the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, Division III’s football champion-ship game, which has remained at Salem Stadium ever since. Along the way there have been basketball, baseball, softball, vol-leyball and lacrosse. Some sports have come and gone while others linger in the Roanoke Valley, cap-tivated by the facilities and service in Salem, which prides itself on doing these things right.

John Saunders is the assistant director of facilities at the Salem Civic Center, which also hosts the meeting and banquet rooms avail-able for year-end awards ceremo-nies nearby the playing fi elds. “We took football to a higher level,” says Saunders, remember-ing the fi rst Stagg Bowl. “Basketball took a look at it [next]. Once we got the NCAA’s attention, the committee started

looking at us…and it became like a steamroller eff ect. Everybody just kept coming.” Attending NCAA national meetings helps give Salem better visibility when the city sub-mits a bid to host the championship tournaments. Having the Old Dominion Ath-letic Conference headquarters in Salem doesn’t hurt either. Th e ODAC staff , under the direction of Brad Bankston, has provided support for many of the events. Th e only city with more national champi-onships under its belt is Omaha, Neb., longtime home of the Divi-sion I College World Series. “In two years I plan on catch-ing Omaha,” says Saunders with a smile. Even USA Today noticed and made Salem a page 3 story last year. Th e NCAA Insider magazine also recognized the city in a recent issue, ticking off the numbers: 15 football championships, 14 in soft-ball, 12 for men’s basketball, fi ve baseball, two volleyball and one lacrosse. With more to come. Director of Civic Facilities Carey Harveycutter acts as the tournament director when the NCAA comes to town, for play at the James I. Moyer Sports Com-plex, the football stadium, the new Spartan Field or the civic center itself.

In the past, Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium and Kiwanis Field have also served as champi-onship venues. “Sometimes it’s being in the right place at the right time,” says Harveycutter, recalling early meet-ings with the NCAA football com-mittee where City Manager Forest Jones and Chief Planner Joe Yates (now both retired) played a part. “We had no idea that sports mar-keting would grow into what it has become.” What it has become for Salem and the rest of the Roanoke Valley is a multimillion dollar economic engine, not only for the 50 NCAA championships but for all the soft-ball tournaments, AAU basket-ball, volleyball and other sport-ing events that draw thousands of athletes and their families to the region every year. Harveycutter recalls skepticism from then-Mayor Jim Taliaferro and city council members, believ-

ing his trip to Marco Island, Fla. might net him a little sun but not much else. Instead he came back with the D-III football champion-ship game, a nation-ally televised event. Th e rest is a history still being written. “We felt it would fi t very well in our size stadium,” says Harveycutter. Th at was 1993. Th e next year Divi-sion II and III were looking for a new

home for championship softball. He worked with Parks and Recre-ation Director Charlie Hammer-sley (also now retired) to clear a spot on the calendar at the Moyer Sports Complex, and soon Salem had a second notch in its belt. Th e NCAA told Harveycut-ter that Moyer looked nicer than some of the other venues where the championships had been played. Salem now rotates D-II and D-III women’s softball, with each division coming here for two years before going elsewhere, then returning. Attendance for the events rang-es from very strong, especially for the Stagg Bowl and basketball, to primarily parents and school sup-porters, but the city’s attention to detail and clockwork-like organi-zation appeals to NCAA offi cials and keeps Salem on the short list. Basketball was bid next and

See GOLDEN, Page 21

Veteran tournament overseers Brad Bankston (left) and John Saunders admire their work

Last year was the fi rst time Salem hosted a lacrosse championship


NEW SEASON, NEW COACH

by Gene Marrano

THE NEW COACH of the Cave S p r i n g / H i dd e n

Valley Girls Lacrosse Club doesn’t intend to be around for long. Katie Russo, still in school at Virginia Tech, plans to pursue her edu-cation further in the fall and coach elsewhere, but in the meantime she wants to help set Southwest Roanoke County la-crosse on a path that might lead it to full varsity status, with teams based at both Cave Spring and Hidden Valley high schools. Right now, the CS/HV lacrosse team is a mix of athletes from the two South County attendance zones. Spirited rivals in other sports, the two high schools join forces to play club-level lacrosse.

Salem and Patrick Henry are the only two high schools in the val-ley with varsity squads. “I think it’s kind of unfortunate that the school systems aren’t willing to fund it, be-cause it is such a grow-ing [and] great sport,” says Russo, a senior at Tech who was recently

hired by the local program. She was on the Hokies lacrosse team for three years but is sitting out this spring due to several in-juries that have caught up to her. She works practices with the Cave Spring/Hidden Valley team at the American Legion field in Salem around her class schedule. With no field of its own, the CS/HV squad will play home games at Green Hill Park in Roanoke Coun-ty west of Salem.

In Maryland, lacrosse teams typically play on the football field, but until last fall, when artificial turf was installed, Dwight Bogle Field was typically in such rough shape that the high schools even moved their junior varsity and middle school football programs away from Bogle in recent years. Other sports like lacrosse and soc-cer were not even an option. The FieldTurf now installed at Bogle is one of Russo’s favorite surfaces. “No matter what the weather [conditions], you can practice on it,” she beams. In contrast, the Legion field on Apperson Drive “has hills in it,” like rolling cow pasture. Raised in Annapo-lis, Russo came to Virginia Tech from a lacrosse-rich state where varsity high school programs are the norm. As a high school player, she was no slouch — all-American, all-State and all-Montgomery County, where she holds the record for most goals scored in a game at 14. The support for lacrosse in Maryland as compared to the Ro-anoke Valley “is like night and day. It’s huge [in Maryland].” Russo hopes to return home this fall, enrolling in the University of Maryland-Baltimore County’s graduate level education program. She may coach at a private school as well. Her mission therefore this spring is to set up a feeder system in Southwest Roanoke County that can identify next year’s head coach, most likely from the as-sistants Russo will work with this season. Former Virginia Tech goalie Caitlyn Thomas is one of those assistant coaches. “When I leave she will take over the system, hopefully,” says Russo. Several other Tech grads have expressed an interest in taking over the top spot and will also help out this spring. “There’s a whole style of lacrosse

they haven’t been introduced to around here,” says Russo, who was busy reworking the mechanics of her players early this season. Some of the Cave Spring/Hidden Valley girls are very new to the game and will be brought along more slowly. She has helped coach teams at the amateur levels for years and played competitive lacrosse since the sixth grade. “I’ve always helped out with oth-er teams in the area,” says Russo, who has gone back to her old high school to pitch in as well. Locally she’s assisted at Roanoke Catho-lic and also during the summer goalie camp run by Roanoke Col-lege men’s coach Bill Pilat. Russo would pepper the goalkeepers with shots, something that came natural to an attacker and mid-fielder with a nose for the net. In her native state, recreation leagues introduce children to the game as early as 5 or 6 years old. The youngest teams are co-ed in what is called the Fiddlestick League. “It was such a big deal,” says

Russo, also remembering an all-star middle school game every year that pits northern Maryland versus southern Maryland. Ankle, back and pelvic injuries took their toll at Tech, but Russo may saunter back on the field in the future, perhaps in European adult leagues where she can coach as well. The U.S. National team is a bit too competitive for her to con-sider, she says. “There are girls that want to play [here], they just don’t have acces-sibility to lacrosse,” says Russo. Long travel times to fields makes it a hassle for Cave Spring and Hidden Valley parents doing the transporting; equipment is hard to find as well. “They make lacrosse inconve-nient around here,” she says. Katie Russo hopes to do her part over the next few months, laying the groundwork for future growth of the game in Southwest Roanoke County.

South County lacrosse A VT player, Russo once scored 14 goals in a high school lax game

Katie Russo

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South County Girls team (l to r): Sarah Bingham, Laura Reese, Emily Claytor, Nicole Munsey and Leah Durham take a break during practice

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Who says theRoanoke Valleyisn’t a hotbedfor sports?


LOVE-LOVEDowns family has found its tennis niche

IT’S NO BACKHANDED COM-pliment to say the Downs clan may be Radford’s first family of

tennis. Father Ron played on the first Radford College men’s team in 1975, and later coached the High-landers to NAIA national tourna-

ments in the early ’80s. By the time his two daughters came along, he had quite a racquet going, Caro-line and Ashton both claiming multiple state championships at Radford High School. Now the net results of all those years on the courts are paying dividends for the Downs sisters, Caroline, 23, a successful USTA Community Tennis Association Representative in Roanoke, and Ashton, 20, in her senior season at Radford University as one of the quickly improving Highlanders’ top players. “My dad got us into it and he

absolutely loves the game,” says Caroline. “I think it was great for our family. We’re very close-knit and we always traveled together, not that traveling together all made us happy with each other all the time. But it was a bonding experience and Ashton and I were both doing something that we en-joyed.”

Two years after graduat-ing from Radford University, where she was a two-time tennis team MVP, Caroline is still enjoying the game, this time as one of Roanoke’s leading ambassadors for the sport. Janine Underwood, exec-utive director of the Virginia USTA, remembers seeing Caroline play as a teenager on the USTA circuit and at regional training centers the organization sponsored. “I met Caroline and Ron Downs when she was a teen-ager and she always struck me as a leader in tennis and the groups she was in,” re-calls Underwood. “Watch-ing her play college matches and how she carried herself, she was clearly a leader yet very humble. You could see what a role model she was for those around her.” Underwood remembered all those traits a couple of years back when a program assistant’s job came open in her office. She called Ron, longtime director of RU’s Dedmon Center, and asked if Caroline might be in-

terested in the Roa-noke-based posi-tion. A criminal jus-tice major, Caroline was thinking about a post-graduation internship in that line of work, not be-tween the lines. In-stead she landed a job in the sport she has adored since she was old enough to hold a racquet. This past January, Underwood promoted Downs to her current

position where she is a key player in Virginia USTA’s promotion and marketing. Downs is currently at work on getting a Roanoke junior program up and run-ning, along with continuing to introduce potential play-ers to the game through in-school appearances and the formation of local leagues. It’s a natural fit for some-one who grew up traveling the state USTA circuit and just lov-ing the game. “The USTA has been great to me,” Caroline says. “You get so much out of it, not only the tennis aspect but I still keep in touch with tons of people that I met as a junior growing up in the USTA.” Ron Downs, who knows his way around tennis at all levels, thought it was vital to get his daughters, once they decided it was some-thing they wished to pursue, top competition. “For them to even think of play-ing at a high level in college, they had to get on the road and find some better players,” said Downs, who has coached, recruited and spread the word on tennis as a col-legiate coach and USTA volunteer. The Roanoke and New River regions still lag behind the Com-monwealth’s more metropolitan areas in terms of the level of com-petition, largely because of sheer population and accompanying opportunity. Now Downs’ eldest daughter is working to help cor-rect that for future Southwest Vir-ginia players and Papa couldn’t be

prouder of his own homegrown dou-bles team. “They just start-ed messing around with the game when they were 6 or 7 years old,” he says with a laugh. “I did it mostly to teach them a life-time sport. Even when both were se-niors in high school and winning state championships, I thought they would

go Division II (to play in college). It really surprised me when Caro-

line decided she wanted to come here (to RU).” Downs volunteered to coach collegiate tennis again, assisting head coach Bruce Harrison, and Paula Downs, Ron’s wife and Car-oline’s and Ashton’s mom, came as part of the deal, too. “She’s like the team mom,” Har-rison says. “She’s so supportive, bringing food for all the girls, sup-porting them all. She’s into tennis like the rest of the family.” Caroline was recruited hard by Division II Tusculum in Tennes-see and she had told then-new coach Harrison that she definitely wasn’t coming to Radford where her dad ran the athletic complex and she had grown up playing on the university’s pristine courts. But ultimately, a scholarship and the chance to compete at the Divi-sion I level to test her game to its fullest won her over. Shortly thereafter, Ashton, who graduated a year early from Rad-ford High School, followed her sis-ter to Radford University. “I was just kind of tired of it and wanted to move on to the next lev-el,” Ashton says. “I really wanted to play college tennis.” Harrison, in his seventh year coaching RU women’s tennis, has a different story. “I think she graduated early so she could play while Caroline was in school,” he says. “That was our theory, not that she would admit it. When I was talking to her in high school and she said she was graduating early, she wanted to know if she could play doubles with Caroline. I thought that was really sweet.” The two had won a Group A doubles title in high school and

by Mike Ashley

Caroline Downs, a two-time Radford MVP, works in marketing for the Virginia USTA

Ashton Downs plays No. 4 for Radford’s women’s tennis team this season

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Working together to build the communityGALLOP 4 THE GREENWAYS

by Christian Moody

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO THERE were no greenways in the Roanoke Valley. Fifteen years

from now there could very well be a network of greenways that stretch from Montgomery County to Smith Mountain Lake along the Roanoke River. That’s the goal, but there’s no reason to think it will take another 15 years. Maybe it could be completed in five years. A vision of a vast spider web of greenways offering safe and peace-ful places to walk or bike is on the minds of many, but only a couple of groups are working to make it happen. And thanks to a unique fundraiser, anyone who wants to see that vision become reality can be a part of the effort. Valley Forward’s Gallop 4 the Greenways will hold its second annual event on Saturday, May 10 — a 5K race and mile walk that’s more about community building and working together than com-peting for awards. Valley Forward is a Roanoke-based non-profit volunteer organization of young professionals seeking to improve the Roanoke Valley on a variety of fronts. One of those ways, says Valley Forward board member and race organizer Gretchen Weinnig, is to expand the network of greenways around the valley. The money raised in the Gallop 4 the Greenways is not destined for Valley Forward’s bank ac-counts. It is passed on to another local non-profit volunteer organi-zation, Pathfinders for Greenways, a group that assists with building and maintaining greenways in the valley. In the inaugural event last year, a check for $35,000 was presented to Pathfinders for Greenways at the post-race gathering. When Valley Forward decided to take action toward helping the effort to improve greenways, We-innig decided to do what she knew well — organize a race. But sim-ply holding a 5K was not enough. Weinnig and Valley Forward wanted to make the event stand apart from the plethora of road races in the area. So a committee was formed of people who — de-spite being on a committee — got things done. Plans were made, publicity disseminated, sponsors found, the race course was plot-ted. And last spring, the race was

held. It was immediately heralded as a resounding success. A total of 371 people entered — quite a fig-ure for a first-time event. Weinnig says Gallop 4 the Greenways has features quite dif-ferent from typical 5K races. In-stead of starting while the dew is still on the grass, the starting gun will fire at 5 p.m. By making the race an evening activity, it will be more conducive to families who want to go to downtown Roanoke to enjoy the event. The course starts along the Wil-liamson Road Greenway near Community Hospital and ends next to the main branch of the Ro-anoke Library, at the entrance to Elmwood Park. The perfect place for a post-race party. “We wanted to make it more at-tractive to people who don’t attend every 5K race in the valley,” says Weinnig. Not to say it’s not competitive. It is. “We have some tremendous athletes in the neighborhood,” Weinnig says. Still, this event fo-cuses on the average person, may-be someone running their first 5K. “We just want people to be ac-tive.” Two legs of the race are on gre-enways in the downtown area — the Williamson Road Greenway and the Roanoke River Greenway. The part on the Roanoke River Greenway runs from Walnut Street to Jefferson Street along Piedmont Street and Hamilton Terrace. The party in the park is the sec-ond part of the event. Instead of having a race just for the sake of a race, this event combines the run with a post-race party that has

food, music and the presentation of a large check. Entry into the party is free to race participants, including those who choose to be in the mile-long walk/fun run, as is a pass through the food line. For non-racers the party costs $5 and there is an additional cost for food — likely $10 — although it might

be the best deal in town consider-ing that food is being supplied by some of the finest restaurants in Roanoke. And since kids are of-ten more interested in pizza than a unique delicacy from Trio, piz-za and other kid favorites will be available. The party will run 5-8 p.m. Music is being provided by the local band Monkey Fuzz. The entry fee is $25 through April 15, $30 after, and $35 the day before the race. A family can par-ticipate for $40. Ted Melnik of Novozymes Bio-logicals, Inc, is challenging local companies with a Gallop Corpo-rate Challenge. Companies will be recognized in three categories — most participants, including fam-ily members, most dollars raised as a team, and most dollars raised per team member. Weinnig says sponsorships are the profit of the event. She says en-try fees barely cover the cost of the take-aways offered because she believes in offering quality items.

Last year’s inaugural Gallop 4 the Greenways drew an impressive 371 entries. This event focuses on individuals often running their first 5K

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Shepherd keeps his Olympic dream aliveWRESTLING

by Gene Marrano

including New York Yankees man-ager Casey Stengel, slugger Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals and Willie Hoppe, representing billiards. Something else made the 1952 book special. Members of The Ten-nessean sports department were pictured on the back cover, a team picture of sportswriters. The edi-tor, Raymond Johnson, stood in front of the group. It was Johnson who gave me my real chance to be a sportswriter, 10 years later.

The 1954 All-Sports Almanac has extra special value for me because the inside back cov-er staff picture includes many people I worked with: John Bibb (Vanderbilt beat writer and the sports editor following Johnson); Jimmy Davy (high schools) who taught me most of what I know; Bud Burns (backup baseball writer and chief copy editor who laid out the sports pages); Bob Steber (outdoors); Bill Isom (copy editor); and F.M. Williams (University of Tennessee beat re-porter).

Grantland Rice, II (a nephew of the famous writer) was also on the 1954 staff, but he was no longer with the newspaper when I started working there. All of my associ-ates, except for Davy, have passed away. I still go to lunch with Davy when I visit Nashville. “I remember those almanacs,” says Davy. “They were FYI books. They wouldn’t work today because you can get the same information on the Internet. To compile the in-formation in those books took a lot of letter writing. “They were produced to give

away to customers, not for adver-tising.” Another reason the 1954 alma-nac is special is because it includes a local section featuring college and high school championships (team and individual) in every sport, as well as football scores for each school. The 24-page supplement is printed on yellow stock to set it off from the national content. All this comes from cleaning dusty bookshelves. You never know what you might find.

— Bob Teitlebaum

From Page 9

Almanacs

FORMER WILLIAM FLEMING High School wrestler Keno Shepherd is a seasoned 34-

year-old now, but the one-time Colonels standout is still on the mat competing in regional and na-tional events as he keeps his eyes on the grand prize. That prize is a berth on the United States Olym-pic wrestling team that will travel to Beijing, China, this summer. It’s a long shot, but Shepherd will attempt to make it through a series of tournaments, a course he followed in 2000 during a previous bid to become an Olympian. This past winter Shepherd took on another duty, becoming the as-sistant varsity wrestling coach for Jax Ring at North Cross School, helping that revived second-year program end up as one of the strongest small private school pro-grams in the state. Shepherd was named “Keno” in honor of former Kenyan mara-thon runner Kip Keino. He began wrestling in the eighth grade, win-ning a city championship at Ruff-ner Middle School in spite of often spotting his opponents a weight advantage. At 5-foot 3-inches tall, the plucky Shepherd was also a defensive back for Fleming’s foot-ball team. “I was probably the smallest guy [on the wrestling and football teams],” he recalls. In high school, he won the Big Orange wrestling event three times and finished in the top six several times in the Group AAA state championships, wrestling at 103 and 112 lbs. Shepherd was set to transfer from Virginia Western Commu-

nity College to Virginia Tech to play football but fathered a baby daughter and instead went to work to help support her. That daughter, Alexis, is now 13 and a basketball player at Northside Middle. “I still kept wrestling,” Shepherd says. There were junior world cham-pionships and then open tourna-ments as he got older. He won sev-eral regional freestyle titles and was a member of the Virginia na-tional team at one point. Freestyle wrestling as opposed to Greco-Ro-man (which is more popular in Europe) allows Shepherd to take advantage of his quickness. “It’s a faster pace and I love it,” he says. Now he wrestles in a senior divi-sion, recently traveling to tourna-ments in Las Vegas, Arizona and New York City. “It’s for any age,” says Shepherd. Most of the competitors in his weight class are typically in their early 30s. “We don’t mature until probably 28 or 30,” he says. In 2000, Shepherd was a top-5 regional finisher at a qualifier in New York and he will return there in April at 121 lbs. Only the overall winner gets to move on, however. After that, a top-3 finish in Las Vegas and a May tryout where he would have to again land in the top three would get him closer to an Olympic bid. “It’s a long process,” says Shep-herd, who has been to a World Championship event in South Korea, where the athletes were housed at the Olympic Village. That’s as close as he has been to the real deal. Sponsors help pay for his training and travel. Former Northside High School

wrestler Jason Hawes has been training with Shepherd since last summer. “He had to get back in shape …so we did a lot of running and cross-training,” says Hawes. That included running up the Appala-chian Trail to McAfee’s Knob and to the top of Mill Mountain from Riverland Road. That also meant jogging on downtown streets and through parking garages. Hawes doesn’t wrestle much with Shepherd since he is several classes heavier, but focuses on stamina instead. Hawes says that Shepherd won a first-round match last November at the New York Athletic Center against a tough Russian component “strictly on his stamina alone. He took over in the second and third periods.” Working with North Cross wres-tlers this winter also kept Shepherd on his toes. He worked mainly on polishing techniques used by the Raiders. “I feel like I did when I was 17. It helps being around these guys,” Shepherd says. “They have the athletes here and they really want to learn. They

have a fire and want to get bet-ter.” North Cross made big strides this season; both Shep-herd and Ring want the squad to believe they can compete with larger schools. In an up-per school that only features about 80 boys, Ring hopes the success of this year’s squad will bring more athletes out of the woodwork next winter. “Big things are about to happen,” says Shepherd of the North Cross program. “When Keno came in he improved

the technique a lot,” adds Ring, who wrestled for William Byrd High School on its 1982 Group AA state championship team. “We got better and better all year.” “I feel really good…better than I did the last time I went,” says Shepherd of his Olympic quest. With six qualifiers available, in-cluding the one in New York next month, he’s not willing to concede anything at this point. “He had the heart of a lion,” says George ‘Kila’ Miller, his former wrestling coach at William Flem-ing and now director of athletics for Roanoke City Schools. “Keno respected all wrestlers but feared nobody. Very seldom did he lose [while at Fleming]. He’s not get-ting any younger, but I still think Keno Shepherd can accomplish any goal he wants to.” Shepherd remembers Miller, a former championship wrestler and college football player him-self, as being “a good motivator. He helped a lot.” “The lion” is betting he has at least one more good roar left as he prepares for the Beijing games this summer.

Keno Shepherd (l) and Jax Ring coached North Cross wrestlers this year

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Slaughter towered on the basketball courtby John A. Montgomery

EVEN PEOPLE JUST VAGUELY familiar with Roanoke history associate the name Slaughter

with the decade of the 1940s. June 6, 1944 — D-Day — is when Roanoke native and World War II military hero Bob Slaughter, along with thousands of other American soldiers, distinguished themselves on the beaches of Normandy. Bob’s younger brother, Jimmy, was a towering figure of that era as well — in more ways than one. He was a basketball star at Jeffer-son High School in the mid-1940s, played his senior season at Augus-ta Military Academy in Fort Defi-ance in 1947, and then played four years at the University of South Carolina, earning Helms Athletic Foundation All-American honors his senior season (1951). Jimmy Slaughter was recog-nized by USC last month as part of its celebration of 100 years of bas-ketball. Slaughter’s widow, Genne, and nine other family members attended the ceremony honor-ing Slaughter, who died in 1999. Genne lives in South Carolina, five minutes from Clemson. “He was a good man,” she says. “We had a wonderful marriage.” In November, The State, Colum-bia’s newspaper, ranked the 100 best Gamecock players during the past century — including such memorable names as John Roche (No. 1), Alex English (2), Kevin Joyce (7) and Bobby Cremins (63). Nearly 500 athletes have played for South Carolina’s storied program. Slaughter, a 6-11 center, checks in at No. 35 on The State list. Slaughter scored 1,521 points dur-ing his 91-game career (16.7 ppg). In his senior season, he averaged 16.5 rebounds per game, second highest in school history. In another poll conducted by the school, Slaughter was one of five players to make the 1950s all-decade team. Slaughter was inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame in 1975. His son, Bo (James W. Slaughter, II), is leading an effort in an attempt to gain his father a position in the state’s athletic hall of fame. Bo Slaughter points out that 57 years after his father last played, he still ranks in the school’s top 10 in nine different categories — in-cluding most rebounds in a season (413, third), highest scoring aver-

age in a season (22.8, sixth), and most field goals made in a career (595, sixth). As rebound statistics were not kept until Slaughter’s senior year, it stands to reason that he should also rank high on the career re-bounding list. After finishing at USC, Slaugh-ter was drafted in the fourth round by the Tri-Cities (Illinois and Iowa) Blackhawks of the NBA and played the 1951-’52 season for the Baltimore Bullets. The NBA was still in its infancy then, but names such as George Mikan, Paul Ari-zen and Bob Cousy dotted oppos-ing rosters. Slaughter scored 147 points and snared 148 rebounds in his 28-game NBA career. Longtime Roanokers will re-member that Slaughter also made a significant impact in Jefferson annals, leading his team to the I-A state title game his junior year, 1946. The Magicians fell to Thomas Jefferson of Richmond by a single point, 23-22, after overcoming a 10-point deficit and forging a tie in the game’s final seconds. A double foul was called at the end of the game, but Jefferson’s Louis McLelland, brother of famed World-News sports edi-tor-to-be Bob McLelland, missed his free throw while the TJ player, Don Howren, converted his. As a junior in high school, Slaughter scored 365 points (16.6 ppg), smashing the previous school record of 307 set by Rex Mitchell eight years earlier. At the

time, Slaughter stood 6-8, dwarf-ing most of his teammates and op-ponents. The Jefferson News of Jan. 18, 1946 reported that Slaughter “is adept at handling rebounds, enjoys sleeping and [will] be back next year.” But Slaughter did not return the following year. USC basket-ball coach Frank Johnson, who ultimately offered Slaughter the school’s first full basketball schol-arship, convinced him to transfer to AMA, partly to hone Slaughter’s game and partly to shield him from other recruiters. Slaughter’s performance at Au-gusta was stellar, as evidenced by a column penned by Ted Cutright in The Jefferson News a year later: While looking over the sports page of a local paper and reading of the basketball achievements of one Jimmy Slaughter, we could not help thinking of ‘what might have been’ had this former Magician cager elected to remain at Jefferson this year. Instead, the six-foot-nine-inch star decided to cast his lot with the Augusta Military Academy five. In 21 games with the Acad-

emy, Slaughter poured 481 points through the hoop, once hitting 45 points against the VMI Jayvees. With Slaughter in the Magician lineup, the Jeffs might well have captured the state championship which they missed by so narrow a margin last year. Consider that Slaughter’s point total during his Augusta season, 481, was 57.8 percent of what the entire Jefferson 1946-’47 team managed (832) and the Magicians played one more game. The Jeffs were 9-13 in ’46-’47, a considerable drop-off from their 15-7 record a year before. “Jefferson was I-A,” longtime Slaughter friend, classmate and current Roanoke resident Jim At-kinson recalls. “There might have been 10 schools that large in the entire state.” Slaughter’s great nephew, Josh Henderson, was a 6-10 sophomore center for Cave Spring High School this past season. Henderson is lean but shows substantial promise — not unlike the figure his great uncle Jimmy cut some 60 years before.

Jimmy Slaughter is ranked No. 35 among all-time Gamecock greats

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GreenwaysFrom Page 17

ished 15-12. “We’re getting quite a few guys from the Roanoke area,” says Kaase, who helped recruit the two younger Star City products. “It’s been a good individual season (for King and Kaase) but it’s been a rough team season. We’ve had a few more losses than we wanted and we really didn’t imagine the season going like it did.” So does that mean Kaase is start-ing to imagine next season back in Hampden-Sydney? “If I do end up graduating this year, I’d have to take classes to get another major but if I don’t grad-uate I could take the minimum required classes in the fall, and probably one class in the spring in order to graduate,” says the phys-ics major, obviously grappling with the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go question. Somewhat ironically, despite the injury last year over the holi-days, Kaase says the Christmas breaks spent with his teammates are among his most memorable moments at HS-C. “I think my favorite time of the last four years has been Christmas break when it’s just the team back

From Page 12

Kaaseon campus before everybody else comes back,” he says. “Because that’s a time when everybody re-ally gets to know one another and we really get to bond together as a team.” That chemistry at H-SC first convinced Kaase it was the right school for him among the oodles of ODAC offers he garnered com-ing out of Cave Spring, where he averaged 19 points, 10 rebounds, six blocks and earned team MVP honors as a senior in 2003-’04. Kaase credits then-Knights junior varsity coach Chris Morris (now the varsity coach at Hidden Val-ley), who pulled him up to the JV team when he was a freshman, with much of his development. Morris, Knights coach Billy Hicks and H-SC coach Smith all had the same experience with Kaase, too, the talented forward getting better each season. And that’s a commodity that may earn Kaase yet another option heading into next year. He and his family are hoping to explore opportuni-ties for Kaase to play overseas. “I’ll talk to my parents and see what’s feasible,” Kaase smiles, knowing that somewhere, some-how there’s probably more basket-ball to be played.

From Page 10

SullivanHall, his usual caddie, cannot make it to Puerto Rico. Local golf-er John Lucas, who holds down a job as an emergency room doc-tor to fund his passion of golf, will head to the island with the Sullivan clan to carry the bag. Late spring and sum-mer will also be busy times for Sullivan. The PGA of Japan invited him to participate in that country’s 75th PGA championship May 15-18. That trip includes all expenses paid for Sulli-van and wife, Kari. A free trip to Japan — what’s not to love? How about a trip to England, regardless of who pays? Sullivan is scheduled to play in the Maryland and Virginia state opens in July. They run consecu-tively, July 14-16 in Maryland and July 17-20 in Virginia. But if Sulli-van happens to qualify for the Brit-ish Open, also July 17-20, he would head to Southport, England, rather than Baltimore and Richmond, to take his shot at arguably the most storied tournament in the world. Like the U.S. Open, the British Open is not as “open” as the name might imply. Even Tour play-ers must qualify through various routes. The world rankings are the front door to the big names. For non-tour players or those down the list on the rankings sheet, there is qualifying the old-fashioned way: having a ridiculously low handi-cap, being one of a handful of play-ers — the number varies, but it’s a couple dozen at most — to score the best at a regional qualifying tournament, that earns a berth into a sectional tournament, when again only the very few best scores earn a trip to the opens. Thanks again to his national championship in 2007, Sullivan is exempt from the regionals in each open, needing only a great round in the respective sectionals to make the field. No easy task, but winning the national champion-ship was no easy task, either. And shooting the best score against par a club pro had chalked since 1969 in the 2004 PGA Championship was no easy task, but Sullivan has managed to pull off those feats. If he makes a few cuts in the spring, Sullivan could pump up his world ranking high enough to qualify for the fields in either open.

Should Sullivan qualify for the U.S. Open, it will be played the week after he defends his title in the PGA National Champion-ship — the tournament strictly for club pros, separate from the PGA Championship, which is really

dominated by the guys on Tour. The British Open has a sectional qualifier a little west of the isles — Michigan. Twelve golfers from the Michigan sectional will earn a trip across the pond to compete. Michigan, however, doesn’t pres-ent the typical British golf course — a brown, windswept, nearly treeless tract pocked with pits and studded with mounds. “The British courses suit my game well,” Sullivan says. “I play well in the wind. I’ve played all over Scotland and I really like golf over there.” If Sullivan doesn’t manage to find a way to Royal Birkdale in July, both state opens are on courses where he has won previous tour-naments. If Sullivan qualifies for the PGA, it will be the seventh Tour event of the year for the Daleville pro. In addition to Cancun, Puerto Rico and New Orleans, Sullivan will play relatively nearby when the Tour comes to Charlotte for the Wachovia Championship May 1-4. The fifth event will be the Reno-Tahoe Open July 31-Aug. 3 in Ne-vada. The sixth and final tournament has not been definitely selected, but Sullivan says he’s leaning toward the season-ending Chil-dren’s Miracle Network Classic at Disney World. That’s the plan, but it could change. “I have the luxury of signing up for an event the Friday before,” he says. ”If I feel I’m on a run and my swing feels good, I might jump on [another event prior to Novem-ber].” Of the six, Sullivan had to schedule three opposite world

majors. That does not mean ma-jors as American golf fans think of them. While the British Open is a world major, so is the tourna-ment formerly known as the Doral Open in southern Florida, which is the same time as the tournament in Puerto Rico. The Cancun tour-nament last month was the same time as the World Golf Champi-onships-Accenture Match Play Championships. The Reno-Tahoe Open is op-posite the World Golf Champion-

ships at Firestone Country Club in Ohio. Sullivan says in between all of the golf trips, he still has to do his job at Ashley Plantation, where he is now director of golf, the high-est position a professional golfer can hold in a club. He won’t have much time to give lessons on the driving range anytime soon. He’ll be on ranges with guys you see playing on television. With luck, he’ll be one of those guys this summer.

Sullivan enjoys taking his entire family on trips to golfing events whenever possible

Instead of the usual cheap T-shirt, a tech-fiber shirt will be given to each racer, along with a nice water bottle and a cinch sack. The point is to make the offerings something worth having, in an effort to retain participants year after year. Weinnig thinks this year there will be upward of 700 to sign up.

Most are already aware of green-ways and their benefit, but more awareness cannot hurt. Plus, when the total greenway mileage in the valley increases from its current 15 to enough to cross the valley on one contigu-ous path, there will be ample op-portunities for those who helped support them to enjoy them, end to end.


From Page 13

Golden

DownsFrom Page 16

“with great support from the ODAC” and the Salem Rotary Club, it too has been a fixture at the civic center for years. Bob Johnson, then the head coach at Emory & Henry, was instrumental as a member of the NCAA men’s national committee in helping bring basketball here. “We’ve been able to keep those three [sports],” says Harveycutter of the football-basketball-softball troika. A trip to Kansas City landed NCAA Division III baseball for five years, including one at old Municipal Stadium when the new stadium was not quite ready, but the Memorial Day weekend event

never drew especially well and it left town when the contract was up. In recent years, D-III volley-ball and then D-II lacrosse — at new Spartan Field — have had their turns in Salem. Harveycutter says Salem will bid on volleyball again, which is moved to different venues every few years. Division III women’s la-crosse comes to the FieldTurf sur-face of Spartan Field this spring. The weather can’t always be helped at outside events but “con-trol everything you can…and po-sition yourself to deal with any eventuality” is his best advice. In the past, Harveycutter has ar-ranged to have Stagg Bowl teams practice at Virginia Tech’s indoor football facility and the Moyer

ground crew’s work during the of-ten thunderstorm-plagued spring softball championships is almost legendary. It’s all about adapting and mak-ing decisions on the fly, says Har-veycutter. Other departments in the city, like water and public works, have chipped in to overcome past ob-stacles. “That’s the hallmark of a com-munity,” says Harveycutter. “We don’t have a lot of egos [here]. We just want Salem to look good.” He estimates the yearly impact of the NCAA events alone at $3-5 million. Salem’s work to keep the NCAA happy has been noticed else-where and has helped land na-

tional AAU tournaments, along with other major amateur sport-ing events. “We’ve tried to make a mark [and] do what’s best for the stu-dent-athlete,” says Harveycutter, who wants collegians to have a “great experience when they come to a championship.” Keeping the detail-oriented NCAA happy is one goal. “They’re not hard to do [but] they’re very detailed,” says Saun-ders of hosting the championships. He echoes what his boss believes as well. “The most important thing is the student-athlete experience.” Remember that, says Saunders, and the rest is easy. At least the city of Salem makes it look that way.

they were both successful in col-lege, too, though as with all sisters, there was a little rivalry at times growing up under the same roof with racquet in hand. “It got really competitive and I always wanted to be able to beat her, and whether she admits it or not, I did a couple of times,” Ash-ton says. “We were competitive and if she wasn’t such a hothead she could have beaten me,” counters

Caroline with a veritable verbal forehand smash. “I guess when we were younger I would obvi-ously beat her because I was three years older. When we got older she would come closer to beating me but I just knew how to get in her head and get her mad. And I’d do it every time.” Caroline laughs the laugh of an older sister. Turns out that Ashton may have the last laugh, though. The once-proud RU women’s tennis pro-gram had struggled in recent years

MeredithFrom Page 22

Ed Green coached there. “Don was the social director,” says Green. “He was in charge of finding some place for us (the counselors) to go each night after we put the campers to bed.” Green was well-known for using all sorts of trick defenses such as the triangle-and-two, where three players form a zone and the other two defenders shadow specific players man-to-man. It was Meredith who taught Green the defenses that he used to help make the Maroons a national Division III power. “He knew them all,” says Green, “and we always talked a lot of basketball strat-egy. He was a very knowledgeable coach.” Spickard says that players on his team liked to perform imperson-ations of Meredith — when they

as the university grappled with its commitment to athletics, but last year — after Caroline’s gradua-tion — they seemed to turn a cor-ner, posting an 11-10 record and becoming noticeably more com-petitive in the southern-based Big South Conference. Ashton posted a 14-6 singles record for Harrison, who is now a full-time coach and has more money to work with in recruiting and budgeting. This season there are three new players in the top six, and Ashton has bumped down to the fourth

seed where she may shine as a se-nior. In an early season showdown with BSC kingpin Winthrop, Ash-ton registered Radford’s lone sin-gles win. Her father, who must have men-tioned it to her coach, too, points out the pressure is on Ashton be-cause she’s the only Downs to have played tennis for the Highlanders and not carted home at least one MVP award. “She’s off to a good start,” Har-rison says. “She’d be the favorite right now.”

were out of his sight. “During one season a couple of players were impersonating Coach while we were waiting for him to come make a halftime speech,” Spickard recalls. “We were get-ting beat and weren’t playing very well. “One of the players was yelling at us like Coach used to do. He picked up a lunch tray and threw it across the floor. Then he kicked a floor fan. “When Coach came in, he walked over and picked up the same lunch tray and hurled it against the wall. Then he kicked the floor fan. “All the players looked at each other and we had to hide our faces in towels because we were laugh-ing so hard.” Meredith was a star basketball player at now-defunct Fincastle High School, class of 1958. He re-

calls scoring more than 40 points in three consecutive games dur-ing his senior season. He went on to play for Ferrum Junior College, which has since inducted him into its athletic hall of fame. It’s as a coach, how-ever, that Meredith has achieved his greatest fame. His intensity has seldom been matched. These days, Meredith sits on the Botetourt County Board of Su-pervisors, represent-ing the Fincastle Dis-trict, the largest in the county. This is his second term. “It’s almost like being an official,” Meredith says with a grin. He still oversees a 505-acre farm, but because of health issues, he doesn’t do physical labor any-

more. He has also curtailed his once-famous golf game. “I get blood work and [right

now] every as-pect of my body is good,” says Mer-edith. “I can’t put any weight on be-cause that’s hard to do when you’re a diabetic.” He remem-bers participat-ing in a supervi-sors’ meeting not so long ago and leaving due to an emergency. He had to be rushed

to the hospital because of enlarg-ing nodules in his esophagus. “I nearly bled to death,” he says. Dandy Don is still here, how-ever, and the party is far from over.

Meredith in the 1980s

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IT WAS ONLY NATURAL TO call former Lord Botetourt High School boys’ basketball coach

Don Meredith “Dandy Don.” After all, that tag had been pop-ularized by former NFL star Don Mer-edith when he quarter-backed the Dallas Cowboys in the 1960s. When he joined How-ard Cosell and Keith Jackson in the television broadcast booth for ABC’s “Monday Night Football” in 1970, Meredith was often called “the Danderoo.” Both the NFL quarterback and the basketball coach have long been colorful, flamboyant, well-dressed characters. Football Don Meredith’s most famous line — at least prior to his Nestea commer-cials — might have come when he sang, “Turn Out the Lights, the Party’s Over,” when-ever a MNF game was decided. Basketball Meredith was well-known for his beefs with the officials who called his games from the mid-1960s through the mid-’90s. There are tons of sto-ries about those con-frontations. “I miss the battles with the officials. They were part of my life,” says Meredith, who posted an overall ca-reer record of 328 wins and 262 losses at three schools. Most of them came at Botetourt where he was 252-175 and took his teams to

The party’s still going for ‘Dandy Don’LEGENDS OF THE GAMES

by Bob Teitlebaum

See MEREDITH, Page 21

11 regional tournaments — seven in a row — before retiring after the 1995 season. Early in his career, he was 19-20 in two seasons at Floyd County (including a District 6 championship in his first year as head coach) and 57-67 during a six-year stint at Liberty High in Bedford County. “I don’t think there were any grudges with the officials,” he says. “I did blackball a few of them but not that many over the years. I had a job to do; they had a job to do.” One trait that set Meredith, 67, apart from other emotional coach-es was the way he would often whip off his crisply-cleaned sport coat a few minutes into a game — when-ever he became frustrated with an official or one of his players. “One night, I ripped off the coat and threw it,” Meredith says. “The coat wrapped around the head of our principal (Bill Lee at Liberty). He came down to sit with me on the bench.” Almost 40 years after

the incident, it re-mains fresh in Mer-edith’s memory. “At Floyd, I got one technical after another. Ray Hol-landsworth, the principal, pointed out this was bad for my image and that I needed to calm down. He told me he’d give me $2 a game when I wasn’t called for a techni-cal. I think I only got $4.” One night after Botetourt lost to Alleghany in the Region III tourna-ment, Meredith chewed on his team for a long time, ranting about the officials. When he was talking to the press (including this report-er), he hadn’t cooled down. Reminding Meredith that his

quotes could lead to sanctions such as a sus-pension, his longtime assistant Ed Purdy kept telling him, “You don’t want to say that,” while tugging on Mer-edith’s arm. Somewhat reluctantly, Meredith relented and asked the reporters to strike his comments. They com-plied. Rodney Spickard, a formidable player from some of Meredith’s Botetourt teams, is put-ting together his old coach’s legacy. While neither Spick-ard nor Meredith agree exactly with the career won-lost totals in this

story, they were supplied by Mar-shall Johnson, who meticulously keeps all the won-lost records for the state in both football and bas-ketball. According to the Virginia High School League, his records are official. All sources agree that two of Meredith’s teams advanced to the Group AA state tournament. A legendary coaching match-up for nine seasons pitted Botetourt’s Meredith against Northside’s Billy Pope. The schools, separated by about 10 miles and a county line, have a fierce district rivalry that raged during Meredith’s tenure. When the teams played from 1986 (Pope’s first year at Northside) through Meredith’s retirement, both gyms were routinely packed. On the court, Meredith’s intensity was countered by Pope’s low-key approach. Meredith also assisted at a Roa-noke College summer camp when

Forty-four seasons ago, Meredith (center) coached his first Floyd County basketball team to a district title in 1963-’64

Don Meredith (left) helped honor former Botetourt basketball great Robert Johnson in January, 2008

Legends ofthe Games

Forty-fourth in a Series

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Vol. 4, No. 6, March 17, 2008