Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 30, 1993 TAG: 9310300103
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ Dustin Fonder, a decision-maker on the soccer field, usually recognizes a bad choice when he makes one.
As a 5-foot-1 ninth-grader, he was Ohio's club-soccer player of the year but nearly was cut from his high school team because the coach stressed physical feats Fonder couldn't perform instead of soccer ability. Fonder dropped soccer.
Three years ago, the frustrated two-sport athlete decided to leave Roanoke College for Radford University. He wanted to play with Radford All-American Dante Washington.
He changed his mind both times and has collected handsomely.
The midfielder has set season scoring records in goals, assists and points for Roanoke's soccer team, which today faces Virginia Wesleyan in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament final. Victory would reward Roanoke with its first bid to the NCAA Tournament.
"That would be fitting," Fonder said.
Nothing, however, seems tailored better to Fonder than playing midfielder. A defender until this year, Fonder had scored 14 goals and had 42 points in his first three seasons.
This year, Fonder has 21 goals and 59 points.
And Fonder, starting point guard for Roanoke's basketball team, plays soccer like a politician makes promises: Be sure everybody gets something. His 17 assists this year are four fewer than Roanoke's all-time leading scorer, Ted Delledera, had in his career.
"I always want the ball to come through me," said Fonder, whose take-charge moments may or may not include keeping the ball.
"I try to make the goal as easy as possible. I'm still going to make that pass, even if it's a tight game."
Fonder averages three shots on goal per game; six other Maroons average at least one, so Roanoke coach Scott Allison can't argue. Much.
"We can encourage him to shoot the ball and try to finish," Allison said, stepping carefully. "[But] you've got to let Dustin play his game.
"Dustin sees the field as well as any athlete I've ever had. He has a knack for knowing what the tempo is and when to create it."
First, Fonder had to create himself. His father Doug, a swim coach, says Dustin avoided a knee-knocking growth spurt during high school that could have sent his coordination on vacation.
Dustin's love of diversity probably helped, too. When he shunned soccer for a while in ninth grade, his sport of choice wasn't basketball but tennis.
Soccer made a quick comeback when he moved to Richmond later that school year.
"I missed doing everything," said Fonder, who moved to Roanoke before his sophomore year. "It's not fun just doing one thing."
Still, he needed at least some size and stamina to excel as he got older.
Although he didn't top 6 feet until he got to college, the little kid who once couldn't do enough pushups to satisfy his ninth-grade soccer coach now is a fitness freak. During summers he plays basketball, bikes, runs, lifts weights and does almost anything else heart-pounding.
"Now, I feel in soccer I'm pretty big," said Fonder, a North Cross graduate. "I kept the same work rate, and I have size."
And, anyway, he says of his high school years, "I was, like, the tough little guy."
He thought things got a little too tough, though, in his freshman year at Roanoke. He wasn't playing much in basketball after a hard-to-take 10-6-3 soccer season.
Fonder, whom Allison said could have played Division I soccer if he hadn't moonlighted with another sport, told his family he was leaving Roanoke.
"I was pretty much out the door," he said.
Then he talked to Allison, a former Maroon soccer and lacrosse player, who gently brought Fonder in off the stoop.
"I'd probably been in the same position he was in: One's going well and the other one's not," Allison said. "You start to get focused on the thingsthat aren't the most important things. He had an opportunity to have an impact not only in basketball or soccer, but on our campus. [I told him], "You have a chance to be somebody.' "
Turns out Fonder, who believes he was overlooked by college recruiters, just needed to be reminded.
"I knew once I got here I could really do some great things before I graduated," he said.
Beginning today, he and Roanoke could do it together. Odds are, Fonder will be the hub.
"One thing I'm best at," he said. "I have my best games against the big teams."
by CNB