ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290058
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
From a finalist in the Jim Boeheim look-alike contest:
Third base may be the hot corner at Salem Memorial Stadium this baseball season, but the hot tub will be behind first base.
That's right, if you want to really soak in the atmosphere at Salem's new ballpark starting with the April 8 home opener, the Avalanche and a couple of sponsors have installed a hot tub and surrounding deck area between the end of the right-field grandstands and the bullpen.
Groups of fans (six to eight) may call the club and reserve use of the tub for $10 per person, which includes the price of a reserved seat to occupy when you're not warming up. However, exiting pitchers still will have to go to the showers.
LUCKY 13: The recent retirement of Lou Henson, Pete Carril and Gene Bartow has moved Virginia Tech's Bill Foster up to 13th among active NCAA Division I coaches in victories, with 517. Arizona's Lute Olson also passed 500 this season.
How much longer will Foster coach? The guess here is one more season. His stomach problems flared more often in 1995-96, and when recruiting season is over, Foster is going to ask doctors whether the pain inside is doing any other damage. When the masterful and great-guy Foster exits, it would be stunning if longtime assistant Bobby Hussey didn't get the Hokie head coach's job he deserves.
HEY, BABY: That V-chip being introduced to filter and censor TV ... Is that named for Dick Vitale?
BIG BUCKS: With another basketball season about to end, the Salem Rotary Club deserves some applause. The Rotary often is overlooked as the sponsor of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament, but shouldn't be. Since the tournament was moved to the Salem Civic Center in 1980, the Rotary has donated $120,000 in ODAC proceeds to community projects.
NAME GAME: The nicknames in minor-league baseball just get crazier. This season, Class A will have the Lansing (Mich.) Lugnuts, Piedmont Boll Weevils (in Kannapolis, N.C.) and Savannah (Ga.) Sand Gnats. Just to show that the game still does have some tradition, the New York-Penn League has the Auburn (N.Y.) Doubledays.
EARLY POLL: Sure, it's early, but how about the 1996-97 hoops preseason poll? For starters, try Louisville, Georgetown, Kentucky, North Carolina and Kansas.
KNIGHTS OUT: For years, because it has sent football coaches on to bigger and better things, Miami of Ohio has been known as the ''Cradle of Coaches.'' Does that make Cave Spring High School, seeking its seventh basketball coach in 14 years, the ``Coffin of Coaches?''
WAKE UP: What's the delay at Wake Forest on giving coach Dave Odom a contract extension? Odom only has done one of the top four or five jobs in hoops during the past several years. He's guided Wake to six consecutive NCAA Tournaments and back-to-back ACC tournament titles and is a three-time ACC coach of the year.
Maybe Odom should go to some place where he'd be really appreciated, like N.C. State - but he probably won't, despite his friendship with State athletic director Todd Turner.
'PACK MEN: The two names being mentioned most for the N.C. State vacancy are Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson and Georgia's Tubby Smith. Sampson is a Lumbee Indian native of North Carolina. Smith, who took the Bulldogs to the NCAA Sweet 16 in his first season after two years taking Tulsa to that level, reportedly may not have signed his six-year contract and already has a rift with UGa athletic director Vince Dooley.
Another ACC school that may have a new coach next season is Florida State, if St. John's hires Pat Kennedy, whose program hasn't enthused Tallahassee ticket-buyers or new athletic director Dave Hart.
OARS UP: It only was a month or so ago that Clemson football legend Frank Howard died. Now, the campus has a rowing club. Howard on rowing: ``I wouldn't put in no sport where they sit on their butts and go backward to win. If they want to row, they can go to one of them Yankee schools, but not here. We play football in the South.''
GUESS WHAT: Who would have figured that a year ago, it would be possible for O.J. Simpson to be driving a vehicle for which F. Lee Bailey could have made the license plates.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Boeheim. color.by CNB=v jack Bogaczyk