
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 9, 1994                   TAG: 9404090086
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From staff reports
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

VMI CONTINUES COACHING SEARCH

Pete Strickland, a former VMI assistant, will be in Lexington on Sunday to formally interview for the institute's vacant head basketball coach's job.

Strickland, currently an assistant at Old Dominion, will meet with Davis Babb, VMI's athletic director, and the institute's search committee. He is likely the fifth and last candidate to be interviewed.

Others under consideration: Navy assistant Emmett Davis, Emory & Henry coach Bob Johnson, North Carolina-Charlotte assistant Kevin Billerman and Gay Elmore, VMI's all-time leading scorer who is an attorney in Charleston, W.Va.

Elmore was on campus Thursday and said his meeting with Babb and the search committee heightened his interest in the job.

"It's my school. I played there," he said. "It's in my blood and in my nature. I wouldn't consider getting in the [coaching] business anywhere but there.

"I think the key to my situation is that I understand basketball and how it relates to the rest of the school," said Elmore, who has been rallying alumni support since March 21 when Joe Cantafio became Furman's head coach.

by CNB