ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512150058
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-15 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX
(TYPE} Commentary
This is the way it goes in one varsity sport at a New River Valley high school:
When the athletes arrive for preseason practice, they have not been involved in the sport at all since they turned in their gear to end the previous season.
For many of these athletes, there had been no previous season, this being the first time they'd ever tried out for the sport.
Many of the aforementioned group of novices had never even so much as seen the sport played. The coach is obliged to stage a mock match for the education of the masses.
There is no feeder program of any description at the middle school level. Thus, every single athlete has at the maximum only a year or two total experience in the sport.
What is a coach to do?
In the case of Blacksburg wrestling coach Lee Worley, the key is to be patient and to learn to appreciate the little victories because the big ones are so infrequent.
In four years at the Blacksburg helm, Worley has had to learn that there are different degrees of success.
He just wishes his guys could be in a little better wrestling shape when he gets them.
``I'm getting them cold,'' Worley said. ``The football players I get are only one step above those who come straight off the couch.''
Certainly it is jarring to many of these neophytes to discover that there is a difference in being in shape and being in wrestling shape.
Yet they soldier on and at length, they get better.
``The improvement often doesn't come to fruition until the end of the year,'' Worley said. ``Then the season is over and they get away from the sport completely for another eight months.''
Worley knows it's this way all over. He also knows that it is unfortunate Blacksburg is in the same region as Grundy, where it is not this way.
``I know this sounds negative and I don't want to convey anything to indicate that I don't love these kids to death and I'm not proud of them,'' he said. ``But you have to put our program in context.''
There are some good wrestlers. One of them, heavyweight Nathan Cumbee, has a shot at returning to the state tournament again this year. Worley has a crack coaching staff of volunteers Rob Weneck and Jim Horne. Weneck is from wrestling-rich Pennsylvania and grappled in college. Horne got his mat education in the great and powerful program at Grundy.
Worley points out that the program has other things going for it such as his wrestlers are wonderfully committed during the season.
Unfortunately, most if not all championship wrestlers and teams are made in the offseason.
Worley tried one summer to encourage offseason conditioning and came to school three days a week to be there for his guys to lift weights and run. One or two wrestlers a session showed up.
Part of the problem is the Blacksburg student population itself. Students here have so many activities open to them, both athletic and otherwise, and they take advantage of the variety in droves.
``It's call being well-rounded,'' Worley said. ``As a I teacher, I prefer it in a student. As a coach, it doesn't do me much good.''
BACK DOWN SOUTH: Brody Smith, who may still be fresh in the minds of those who tried to pitch to him in his days on the Radford High baseball team, has bagged college baseball at Virginia Commonwealth University and returned to Clemson, where his college days began.
Smith closed out his VCU career by hitting .311 with 16 doubles and 26 runs batted in 57 games, 54 of which were starts.
IN THE LINEUP:Bryan Pruett, who spent most of the autumn hobbling around on an injured ankle, was finally in the Narrows High basketball lineup this week.
Pruett had had three days of practice before playing in the Green Wave's 75-70 loss to Giles Tuesday. His contributions: 18 points and a couple of a 3-pointers. As occasionally happens when an important player returns to the lineup after a lengthy absence, it took people a while to become reacquainted.
``There was a little too much standing around watching Bryan play,'' Green Wave coach Todd Lusk said.
Once Pruett returns to form, Narrows ought to be good. Joe Shipbaugh has stayed the Narrows course while Pruett recovered. Shipbaugh led the team with 19 points in the game with Giles.
Perhaps the most challenging assignment for all concerned will be to strike a proper chemistry with the two big scorers.
``I told Bryan that he wouldn't be playing too much, but you get in a close game with your biggest rival and he got left in there probably more than I would have liked,'' Lusk said.
SOUND ADVICE:Kip Kenyon, the defensive leader of Blacksburg High's football team, underwent arthroscopic surgery on his chronically sore knee shortly after the football season ended. That was bad news for the wrestling team, for which Kenyon would have competed for regional and state honors.
As a junior last year, Kenyon was in the top-four in the 189-pound class at the 1995 Group AA Region IV tournament and would have gone to the state had he not wrenched his already sore knee (the same one that was scoped recently) during regionals.
Kenyon has been attracting some interest from I-AA colleges for football, so he's being counseled not to even think about wrestling. The sources of that advice?
Lee Worley, the wrestling coach.
CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE: Bizarre injury of the year was the broken right hand of Floyd County basketball player Tony Erchull.
Erchull was in a lay-up drill when another player went up for a rebound and somehow kicked Pruett on the hand.
Erchull, a reserve post player, will be out four to six weeks.
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