
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006120045
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY COX SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAGNA VISTA AIDE HIRED AT LEXINGTON

Tom Nola offered the Lexington High football program something it has lacked for years: stability.

Lexington, which has had an astounding rate of coaching turnover - almost one a year going back a decade - will be getting a guy who figures on staying put.

"I think that was one of my better selling points," he said. "I have a family and we plan on staying on for a while. I think [Lexington administrators] liked that."

Nola's wife, Eileen, is a teacher, and they have two daughters, Brooke, 10, and Bethany, 6.

Nola, a 36-year-old native of McKeesport, Pa., succeeds Chuck Marrs. Including Dennis Vaught, who directed the Scarlet Hurricane to the Division 2 state championship in 1988, Nola will be the third coach in three years.

He will be taking over a program that will be rebuilding in the toughest Group A district in the state. Covington and Parry McCluer join Lexington as Pioneer District teams that won state titles during the 80's. Bath County was a Division 1 state semifinalist in 1989, losing in an upset to eventual state champion Appalachia.

"Whatever we do, we want to be consistent," Nola said. "To that end, we'll keep it simple. That's what Covington and Parry McCluer do. That's what we'd like to do."

Nola has experience as both an assistant and head coach. He has been on Don Bateman's staff at Magna Vista the past two years (Magna Vista made the playoffs both years). For the three years before that, Nola was the head coach at now-defunct G.W. Carver High.

In the six years before his stint at Carver, he was on Bateman's staff at Drewry Mason.

For his entire time in the Henry County system, Nola was a head baseball coach, a job that he will not have at Lexington.

"I'll miss baseball, but I was looking for another opportunity in football," said Nola, who had Magna Vista in the Region III tournament this spring.

Lexington was the only football job he has applied for since he left Carver, Nola said.

"We wouldn't have left unless there was a real good opportunity," he said."We've heard that Lexington is a real nice, family-oriented place. We'll like that."

by CNB