Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 10, 1993 TAG: 9308100179
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ Paul Rice, one of the "Five Smart Boys" who brought Roanoke College basketball to national prominence in the 1930s, died Monday after becoming ill at Countryside Golf Club in Roanoke.
Rice suffered a massive heart attack shortly before 3 p.m. and could not be revived after being transported to Community Hospital, golfing partner John Waynick said.
"We were in the middle of the 15th fairway and he said his stomach hurt," Waynick said. "After he hit his second shot, he turned around to me and said, `I feel like my legs are going out from under me. I can't focus. I've got to get back to the car.' "
Waynick said he was in the process of driving Rice home when it became apparent that Rice would need medical attention.
"He had been in good health," said Waynick, part of a regular foursome that included Frank Scharf and Randy Becker. "Paul was having the best golf game I'd ever seen him play. We played at least twice a week. We had been playing for years.
"I've known him 65 years and, as a friend, he was always there for you. He was very unassuming, very low-key and never wanted to talk about his accomplishments. I'm glad he didn't suffer. It's the way he would have wanted to go."
Although he was best known at Roanoke College for his basketball exploits, Rice also played baseball for the Maroons and later became a city tennis champion. A football standout at Jefferson High School, he was the only one of the "Smart Boys" from Roanoke.
"I was just telling my wife that two guys caused me to come back to Roanoke eight years ago, [former Washington and Lee star] Bob Spessard and Paul Rice," said Johnny Wagner, who was Rice's best man in his wedding, as Rice was his. "Now, they're both gone."
Wagner and Rice played on Roanoke College teams that went 39-5 and won consecutive state championships in 1938-39. Other members of the "Five Smart Boys" lineup who played in the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Invitational tournament in 1939 were Bob Lieb, Robert Sheffield and Gene Studebaker.
"We just went up just last week and saw Bob Lieb at a nursing home in Buena Vista," Wagner said. "I'm happy that Bob was able to see him one last time."
Rice, who would have turned 77 in September, served in World War II as a lieutenant in the Army. He went to work for the Fruehauf Trailer Co. as a salesman in 1947 and became manager before his retirement in 1981.
"We was a gentleman, a hell of a success in business and he had plenty of friends," Wagner said. "If every yankee and every rebel got along as well as we did, the Civil War would have ended a lot sooner."
Rice is survived by his wife, Dorothy, and a son, Pete. Funeral arrangements will be handled by Oakey's of Roanoke.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***