Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 15, 1992 TAG: 9202150075
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By JOE TENNIS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
BANANAS OVER HOKIES
Meet "The Sweater Man."His name is John Roller. And he sits with his wife, Fay, on reserved seats on the front row, behind the goal, in section one, at Cassell Coliseum during all Virginia Tech home basketball games.
Hokie fans know him as "the old man with the sweater." Hokie opponents, on the other hand, know him as trouble.
Here's why:
A typical Sweater Man scene starts when a player - on a team opposing Tech - gears up to shoot a free throw. From his seat, Roller leans over a steel, black guard rail and swings his fuzzy, wool, yellow, Izod sweater "so it's making a big circle at the guy looking up at me. . . . If I swing it over my head, I'd probably blind somebody behind me," he said.
Roller, 71, first twirled his sweater about three years ago during a close game. "I was just trying to distract the shooter. We used to just wave our arms a lot," he said.
The crowd loves his act.
"Go to work, Mr. Sweater Man!" Tech sophomore Tony Feher cheered from the stands as University of Southern Mississippi senior Joe Courtney, a player for the Golden Eagles, tried a foul shot Thursday night.
Courtney missed the shot.
Chalk one up for Roller, who kept his sweater swinging as Courtney tried another shot.
"Oh!" the crowded howled each time the old man's sweater rotated.
Unfortunately for the Hokies, Courtney made the second shot.
"I've told several people that I feel like my sweater thing would swing, like, one point of the game," Roller said.
Feher, of Virginia Beach, commented: "I think he does a pretty good job of distracting the shooter. . . . Everybody's bringing their sweaters this year. The place is going nuts over it."
Each game, about two dozen others are scattered in the stands, twirling more yellow sweaters.
Roller, a 1942 Tech grad, said he's pleasantly surprised his trick caught on. "I wasn't expecting to start a yellow-sweater campaign. It just developed."
A few weeks ago, Roller made a beeline for Cassell Coliseum in such a hurry that he forgot to tag along his trademark. But, he rushed home to Pearisburg to grab it and made it back by halftime. "I listened to [the game] all the way back on the radio," he said.
Besides basketball, the Rollers are also die-hard fans of Hokie football: They have traveled to every Tech pigskin competition in the past three years.
Still, Roller's life is more than sweater-swinging and the Hokies.
He studied horticulture while a student at Tech. "At that time, it was mostly apple growing," he said.
During World War II, he served in the Army for three years in Africa, Sicily and Berlin. Exiting as a captain, Roller received two battlefield promotions and won the silver star three times.
Of the five officers in Roller's company who went overseas in 1942, Roller was the sole survivor.
Returning home, he and his wife opened Roller Floral Company, a chain of floral shops with outlets in Pearisburg and Blacksburg plus three stores in West Virginia.
These days, the couple operates the White Horse Antiques Shop in Narrows.
John Roller has served on the Pearisburg Town Council for 38 years. He's also chairman for the Red Cross blood program for Giles County, having donated 18 gallons during his life.