Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 7, 1994 TAG: 9403070033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
The NIT?
"I would think so," he said Sunday.
The NCAA Tournament?
"With one more win, who knows?" he added.
The Big East Conference?
"Count on me being there," Foster said. "I'm signing a new contract. It's been on my desk since December. We have a verbal agreement."
If the overachieving Hokies weren't .500 in a conference the Ratings Percentage Index says is the fourth-best in Division I, Foster's renewal would be the biggest stunner of Tech's season.
When Tech athletic director Dave Braine hired Foster in the spring of 1991, there was a notion - that neither Foster nor Braine dispelled - that the veteran coach might only stay through his original four-year contract.
"I told Dave I'd give him four good years," Foster said after Tech's 61-57 victory Sunday against UNC Charlotte at Independence Arena. "And I told him that any time it wasn't good enough before then, he could walk in and tell me and I'd walk out the other door."
Foster's third season has produced a 17-9 record and fourth-place finish in the Metro Conference regular-season race. The team goal, he said, was realistically "a winning season, 14-12," after two straight 10-18 winters.
Foster said his contract extension will add three years to the remaining season on his original deal, taking him through the 1997-98 season. In '95-96, the Hokies should be making their Big East debut. The league's expansion vote is expected this weekend at the Big East tournament.
"I'm looking forward to the new league," Foster said. "That first season we ought to have an awfully good senior class [current sophomores Shawn Good, Shawn Smith, Jim Jackson, Damon Watlington and Travis Jackson].
"If we can just add a couple between now and then . . . "
It would have been no surprise if Foster, 58 next month, had been only a short-term answer at Tech. Although his base salary is slightly more than $100,000, he's not coaching for big bucks - although they will have to get much bigger to compete with his future peers in the Big East.
He doesn't need the money. He doesn't need to coach, unless you consider that he would miss a game in which he ranks 19th among active Division I coaches in wins, with 468.
Recruiting at Tech hasn't been easy. Braine "was very up front" about the school's academic requirements that are tougher than most peer institutions. What's been a bigger obstacle is that Tech hasn't appeared on ESPN since 1988-89, Bimbo Coles' junior year - three years before Foster replaced Frankie Allen.
Foster's coaching acumen was well-chronicled before he was hired at Tech after a season as a telecast analyst for Raycom Sports, a time "when the only thing I had to do every day was make a tee time," he said.
His Hokies have been downright defensive in their improvement. In 45 years, only one Tech club has held opponents to less than the 65.8 points per game that Foster's 27th team has. That was the 1983-84 NIT semifinals club, at 65.5. Tech's 26 opponents have shot a 39.8 percent average.
In this day of parity in college hoops, the chalkboard ability of a Foster or a valued veteran assistant such as Bobby Hussey is more important than it used to be.
With the top recruits flocking to only a select number of schools, with shooting percentages falling and the 35-second shot clock removing patience from the game, many programs may be only an X or an O away from success.
Foster has been to one NCAA Tournament as a Division I coach, taking his 1980 Clemson team that reached the regional finals and lost to eventual runner-up UCLA. That's because he's spent his days at UNC Charlotte, Clemson and Miami doing just what he's doing at Tech.
"I like programs that kind of give me a challenge," Foster said. "I saw that. There's another one coming down the road [with the Big East]."
Foster coached UNCC's first game at Sunday's site, the old Charlotte Coliseum, in December 1970. That was the 49ers' first Division I season. His return brought a new historical date for UNCC to ponder. Tech's defense held the 49ers to 25.4 percent shooting, a record low in the school's 29 seasons of basketball.
Foster, however, prefers to look ahead. When Braine was considering a coaching change three years ago, he gave Foster a list of seven names and asked the coach-turned-analyst to evaluate the candidates.
He did. Then Tech evaluated the evaluator. Foster became an analyst-turned-coach. If his program keeps improving, he'll be back on the air again.
by CNB