Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409230042
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Long
Fears was 13 when he was given his first set of weights by his father.
``It was a 115-pound set from Sears,'' Fears said. ``My father told me, `Once you can bench-press 115 pounds, I'll get you an upgrade.' So, not long after I turned 14, he bought me a 400-pound set of York dumbbells and plates.''
Fears' father, Ernest, has been a radio and television executive, a teacher, a divinity student and the first black selective-service director of Virginia. He also was the head basketball coach at Norfolk State, where he compiled a 147-31 record from 1962-69.
``He had that coach's mentality,'' said Fears, born in Tallahassee, Fla., while his father was coaching football and basketball at Florida A&M. ``My father was a real big influence in my career in athletics.''
Although he wanted to follow his father into coaching, Fears did not have a weight-training career in mind. At the completion of his UVa football career, Fears was a graduate assistant to head coach George Welsh in the spring of 1984.
A master's program in sports medicine and weight training caught Fears' attention the next fall, but little did he realize it would lead to positions as the head strength coach at The Citadel, South Carolina and Washington State.
Fears, whose apprenticeship at Virginia lasted three years, was not stunned during the winter when he learned Gamble had been approached by the NFL's Miami Dolphins.
``I didn't know if he would leave or not,'' said Fears, who had stayed in touch with Gamble on an almost-monthly basis, ``but I knew of other opportunities he had had with Tampa Bay and New England. I knew there was a chance this time.''
Fears had pro aspirations of his own and said there was only one college job - Virginia - that could have lured him away from Washington State after one season.
Some viewed Gamble's departure for Miami as a devastating blow to Virginia, especially when it took 10 weeks to name a successor.
``I knew I had to come in and work fast,'' said Fears, who took over June 1, two weeks before players began returning for the first session of summer school. ``It's not like I saw them before they left and said, `See y'all later.'''
It helped that Fears and Gamble's top aide, Charles Stephenson, formed a quick partnership.
``Charles was working us out and he was doing a good job,'' said center Bryan Heath, ``but he didn't know what was going on and we didn't know what was going on. It was basically between Charles and Eric for the job and we got lucky. We got both.''
What they didn't get was another John Gamble, and the players appreciated that.
``He's not John and he hasn't tried to be,'' Heath said. ``I was real close to John and was real sad when he left. I mean, real sad. Eric came in and it wasn't like he wanted to be everybody's friend. He gained respect by working us hard. He busted our butts.''
Fears and Gamble aren't exactly worlds apart. Both subscribe to the theory of periodization, which involves a high number of repetitions at lower weights, followed by fewer repetitions at heavier weights.
``I wouldn't have hired somebody with a different philosophy than John,'' Welsh said.
Craig Littlepage, an associate athletic director at Virginia, was in charge of the selection process, but Welsh had input. Fears works primarily with the football and men's and women's basketball programs.
``I didn't make a lot of changes,'' Fears said. ``I knew the quality of work that was being done here. There were some people who were trying to test me, but I think we got our point across pretty quickly.''
Before the 1993 season, Welsh said the Cavaliers were in the best shape of his 12-year tenure. When they returned this fall, he said they were at least as well-conditioned.
``We knew John long enough and loved John enough that we didn't want to disappoint him,'' Heath said. ``Eric is more intense. If somebody is slacking off, he's more likely to `crawl' you. Part of that is he's new here. But if he'd come in here and not been serious, it wouldn't have worked.
``It was at a crucial point for our our program. This program has won seven games a year for seven years, but that's not good enough. To have something like that [Gamble's departure] happen when it did, things could have been bad.''
The bottom line will be UVa's ability to hold up over the season and hold up in the fourth quarter of each game. The Cavaliers were up to the task Saturday, when they limited Clemson to a total of 14 yards on five fourth-quarter possessions.
``This guy will really get at you and really get you to do what he wants,'' said defensive back Ronde Barber, who has improved his top lift in the bench press by 50 pounds. ``It's a change, but sometimes change can be good.''
by CNB