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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 12, 1995                   TAG: 9508140027
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV5   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RAY COX
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COLD COMES EARLY AS TEAMS READY TO PLAY FOOTBALL|

By the standards of the frosty day on which Giles and Pulaski counties were playing state championship games a couple of years ago, the latest snap is a relatively mild one.

But this is August. We're supposed to be slathering on the sunscreen and reaching into the ice chest, not pulling on wool socks and fumbling around for some matches and kindling.

Not saying it's been frigid this week, but when your lips start going blue during an early-week visit to the windblown steppes of the Christiansburg High practice field, you know these dog days have turned on you with the wrong kind of bite.

``We got real cold in practice yesterday,'' said Giles linebacker Brandon Steele. ``The rain started falling and the wind started blowing ... ''

Brings back some good old teeth chattering memories of congealing mud and breath emerging like frozen fog from behind a turf-decorated face mask. But all in good time. November will be here before we know it.

Odd thing about it was, last week was perfect: A modest 98 degrees, sunshine, and 97 percent humidity. Preseason drills should have opened then, when conditions were ideal.

Real football guys know what we're getting at. A guy I know was nervously checking on how his 6-year-old was doing after his second day of Pee Wee football practice in Roanoke County earlier this week.

``Are you having fun?'' the father asked his soon-to-be pint-sized pit bull.

The kid glared and pulled up his droopy kneepads.

``Coach sez we're not out here to have fun.''

Absolutely. They don't call the NFL the No Fun League for nothing.

But a check around some of the high school football boot camps this week revealed a disturbing surplus of smiles. That and a shortage of sweat-soaked shirts.

``The first week of practice, we're supposed to be in shorts getting acclimated to the heat before we get in pads,'' Blacksburg coach David Crist said. ``That certainly isn't going to happen now.''

This should be purgatory, not the gridiron Promised Land.

Speaking for those of us who like our sports to come accompanied with a bounty of release forms and ice bags, I say, go cry on somebody's else's shoulder.

It's time to play football and to prepare to do so properly, one must undergo some rigors.

Look at the Marine Corps. They don't send aspiring leathernecks to sparkling Waikiki to train, they send them to Camp Lejeune, N.C.. or Parris Island, S.C., where the tidal flats steam under the midday sun, mosquitoes are as big as sparrows, and the spiders, gators, and snakes await to carry off the unsuspecting.

To drill instructor and football coaches, it all amounts to the same thing. Character building, they call it.

Making the rounds of these August endurance tests is a tradition in this business. Some of us (me included) get a huge kick out of visiting the various practice fields, renewing acquaintances and sizing up the current crop of players. Bill Brill, the former sports editor of this paper, was such a fixture on the ACC Football Tour that he could have made money on the side moonlighting as the bus driver.

Saddling up and doing it all over again year after year was what made the late summer interesting. Gas up the car, break out some Dead tapes, and hit the road.

Ray Cox is a Roanoke Times sportswriter.