Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 2, 1995 TAG: 9502020028
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
``The owner and the head coach called a meeting, and I told myself, `Heck, they're getting ready to fire me,''' said Hall, who was the club's player personnel director and assistant coach.
Instead, Hall was asked to take over as coach of the Crawdads, a Continental Basketball Association team that moved to Louisiana this season from Columbus, Ohio.
``My greatest fear was perception, because I was replacing the man [Mike Newell] who had hired me,'' said Hall, a former athlete at Cave Spring High School and Virginia Tech. ``I hoped that nobody would question my loyalty.''
Newell, previously the coach at Arkansas-Little Rock and Lamar, became the Crawdads' vice president of sales and marketing.
``Obviously, the record had something to do with the change,'' Hall said. ``I've been named the head coach, period. As the owner said, `It's my job to lose.' But, I'm not stupid. We've got to start winning.''
The Crawdads are 9-22 overall and 2-3 under Hall, who remains in charge of player personnel.
``In Steve Hood, we had the most successful free-agent pickup in the league,'' said Hall, who knew Hood had been an outstanding player at James Madison. ``Steve was a first-team all-star and the second-leading scorer in the league, but he left us about 31/2 weeks ago for an incredibly lucrative offer to play in Spain.''
If anything, Hall, 36, is resilient. As late as 1991, he had a full-time job in sales, which he gave up to become an assistant coach at Roanoke College. After spending one year at the Division I level, he found himself out of a job when his boss, Russ Bergman, resigned under pressure at Coastal Carolina.
``I certainly have a strong interest in college coaching,'' Hall said. ``I've been told I have a knack for recruiting, but my priority now is to coach one game at a time. I would like to keep this job.''
CANTAFIO STRANDED: Although he has changed addresses, former VMI basketball coach Joe Cantafio has seen no end to his travel problems now that he has taken over Furman's program.
The Paladins were on their way home early Tuesday morning after a 75-68 victory at Marshall when their bus pulled into the parking lot of a Kroger supermarket in Marmet, W.Va. The driver, in his haste to get to a bathroom, drove the bus into a pole. When he attempted to put the bus in reverse, the pole snapped up and left the vehicle with its front wheels off the ground.
``It defies description,'' Cantafio said. ``The next bus they sent was old and uncomfortable, but the worst part was, where do you get a bus driver at 2 in the morning? Our guy was visibly shaken. I mean, how do you explain wrecking a $132,000 bus in an empty parking lot.''
After a three-hour delay, during which Cantafio slept on the conveyor belt at Kroger, the team did not return to Furman until 9 a.m. Earlier this season, the Furman bus ran out of gas on the way to James Madison, and, when Cantafio was at VMI, a team bus caught fire once. Another time, the team couldn't leave for the Southern Conference Tournament because the bus didn't show.
``I was talking to [former VMI assistant] Pete Strickland,'' Cantafio said, ``and he said there was only one thing left for me to do: I need to fire one of my assistants and hire a mechanic.''
VMI ON RISE: The copied likeness of VMI's first-year basketball coach was affixed to 500 Bart Bellairs ``Fans'' distributed before Monday night's game with Tennessee-Chattanooga, won by the Keydets 72-63.
It was the first time VMI (4-12) had posted back-to-back Southern Conference victories since 1990-91. One key to the Keydets' recent turnaround has been the play of freshman Bryan Taueg, who did not play more than eight minutes in the Keydets' first nine games.
Taueg, a 6-foot-3 guard from Indianapolis, has scored in double figures in seven consecutive games since the start of conference play. He is 24-of-53 on 3-point attempts in the past eight games and has missed only one free throw (18-of-19) all season.
PAUL BALL: In its first 15 games, Virginia averaged slightly less than 74 possessions a game. Saturday night, against George Mason and second-year coach Paul Westhead, UVa had 104 possessions in a 128-98 victory. That's a shot, or maybe two, every 15 seconds.
NON-REVENUE: The Roanoke College women's basketball team needs to win Friday at Guilford to have a realistic chance at a sixth consecutive regular-season championship in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
It will be the fourth game in six days for the Maroons, who are 11-3 in the ODAC after Wednesday night's victory over Hollins. The Roanoke women have not lost more than three conference games in a season.
Coach Susan Dunagan has 399 victories in her 21-year career, including 124 in seven seasons at Cave Spring High School.
LOCAL UPDATE: Lynchburg College basketball player Kelly Fackler, a sophomore from Fieldale-Collinsville, is second in the ODAC in scoring and rebounding and ranks in the top five in three other statistical categories.
Kim Stewart, a sophomore guard from Cave Spring, is averaging 10.1 points and a team-high 4.2 assists for Elon College (4-14). Stewart is first in the South Athletic Conference and ninth in Division II in free-throw shooting at 86.7 percent (52-of-60).
by CNB