Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 18, 1993 TAG: 9303180475
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
GLORY DAYS: KOFC MEET MAKES STARS
The 24th annual Knights of Columbus basketball tournament begins this weekend at Roanoke Catholic.Actually, there now are three tournaments - the Junior League, for players ages 13 to 15, the Little League, 11 to 13, and the Midget League, 9 to 11. The Junior League is the original tournament, the Little League is in its 10th season and the Midget League is in its fourth year.
One wonders if there is any other tournament going on in the state for young boys' basketball players that has produced more high school stars. Or for that matter more high school sports writers.
My beat is high school sports, and when dealing with the Knights of Columbus tournament, I've been there as a coach, as a spectator and now as the timer for the championship games.
The Knights of Columbus has given me a preview of what I'm to see in high school, though sometimes I'm not sure what I'm seeing.
For instance, Derrick Hines, William Fleming's outstanding point guard who led Timesland in assists this year with an average of 8.4 per game, played in the Little League tournament of 1988 for the YMCA 76ers. I know that because Hines is listed as making the all-tournament team that year. I just don't remember seeing him play.
The team also included Curtis Staples, who was Timesland "Sizzlin' Sophomore" of the Year a winter ago when he helped lead Patrick Henry to the Group AAA state championship.
Staples now is a junior, playing for Prospect Hall in Frederick, Md.
Hines, though, led the William Fleming Colonels in their recent quest to give Roanoke back-to-back Group AAA state champions.
Kelly Dampeer, Jonathan Stewart, Greg Journette and Aaron Church also were on that all-tournament team. None built his high school athletic fame in basketball.
But Dampeer came closest. He was a guard for Northside last year when the Vikings finished as the Group AA basketball runners-up. This year, though, Dampeer made the All-Timesland team in football and started for Northside in basketball. He also is likely to be one of Timesland's top baseball players.
Stewart and Church didn't play high school varsity basketball, but they were part of Northside's crack cross country team this year. Stewart, who finished second last year, also is a threat to win a Group AA state track title in the 800-meter run.
Journette, whose career was hampered this year by an injury, was an outstanding Fleming football player.
The year before this group played, the Little League all-tournament team included Bobby Prince and Brad Martin, members of the Lord Botetourt team that came within a game of making the Group AA state tournament last year. Fleming football and baseball player Tommy Page and Jim Porter, this year's Northside's starting forward, also were on that team.
Richard Morgan might be the tournament's most famous alumnus. He played in 1979 as a Junior League player on the way to an outstanding career at the University of Virginia.
Eric Walker gave a preview of things to come when he played in the 1984 Little League tournament four years before he helped lead North Cross to the first of two state private school championships.
That's the idea.
The Knights of Columbus is like a preview of who's who in high school athletics for the Roanoke Valley. There are so many athletic stars who have played in the tournament that it's impossible to list them all.
But, not all the valley's outstanding athletes have appeared in the tournament. George Lynch, Patrick Henry's outstanding junior in 1988 who made the All-ACC basketball team this year for North Carolina, never played, as far as I can tell by looking over past rosters and all-tournament squads.
Neither did Curtis Blair, another outstanding Patriot from the 1988 team who also had an outstanding career at the University of Richmond.
Blair, however, beat Lynch in the 1988 Knights of Columbus tournament one-on-one championship.
The one-on-one started in 1977 to get high school players involved in the Knights of Columbus program. The list of finalists is like an all-star team of past outstanding Roanoke basketball players. Morgan became the first player to win back-to-back titles in 1984-85. Prince repeated that the past two years.
Even underrated tournament players are memorable. Take Steve Gibson, a 6-foot-7 player who helped lead Northside's first good teams under coach Billy Pope.
In 1987, Gibson was cut from his junior high team and wound up playing for the North Roanoke Lions. That was my second year of coaching the Cave Spring Stars, the defending tournament champions.
My first look at Gibson came that winter when I was scouting the Lions for a game in the Roanoke County recreation league. I couldn't believe he wasn't on the junior high team.
Gibson and his teammates blitzed us in our one meeting during regular season.
But the Stars won every other game, and the Lions were upset; so the teams tied, forcing a playoff for the Roanoke County title. This time the Stars stayed close to the Lions, and, when it came time for the obligatory fouls, Gibson was the man picked to foul. He wasn't supposed to be a good free-throw shooter, but he hardly missed as the Lions took the county championship.
Gibson and I always joked about that while I was covering him in high school.
At the time, I figured we had one more shot at Gibson's team in the Knights of Columbus tournament. It was Stars' last chance at redemption.
Alas, it was never to be. The Inner City Hawks, a team the Stars had beaten for the 1986 title when the Hawks were led by Joe Fitzgerald, future Timesland player of the year, gained revenge by knocking us off in the semifinals. They then beat Gibson in the championship game.
The rest is history. I'm out of coaching, now writing and analyzing the talent. Gibson is gone, but there will be others like him and other stories.
That's what keeps the Knights of Columbus tournament going year after year.