ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050054
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
TYPE: HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM
Just when it appeared veteran radio man Jim Carroll and his weekly high school football broadcast would disappear from the air after 32 years, a Roanoke Valley tradition has been saved.
Carroll will again pick a high school game of the week in the Roanoke Valley and provide the play-by-play as he has done since he started working at WROV-AM in 1964.
In this case, Carroll's streak was saved by Lloyd Gochenour, the general manager and owner of WRIS-AM and WJLM-FM (J-93). This is the same Gochenour who lost Salem football because he didn't want to make a switch in that weekly broadcast from WRIS to J-93.
Gochenour says he had a change of heart when he heard about Carroll's plight and decided that high school football would be carried on J-93. By that time, Salem football games had been placed on WSLC-AM, thanks to Herm Reavis, another champion of area high school sports broadcasting.
``My program director [at J-93] and staff weren't for it, but I overruled them,'' said Gochenour about agreeing to put Carroll's game-of-the-week on his FM station.
Carroll never thought there would be any problems broadcasting high school games this year. He had a deal with David Weil, who had sold both WROV stations to Benchmark Communications, to continue the series. Weil was supposed to lease WROV-AM, but negotiations fell through.
``I was out of town for a month. When I came back, I asked Benchmark what they would do in sports and they said nothing,'' said Carroll.
At that point Gochenour, who had read in the paper [on August 18] that there might not be a game on WROV, had his station manager, Lloyd Woods, call him.
``He asked if I would do a game, but I said not on WRIS because the signal isn't strong enough. I told him I would be interested in doing games on WJLM. He said he'd get back. Lloyd called and said we're really interested in doing it, so we got together,'' said Carroll.
Carroll, whose main job was to sell advertising at WROV, had no trouble getting a sponsor. Kroger will do the whole broadcast. Carroll says Gochenour and Kroger are the ones who saved his broadcast.
``I would say I was concerned about what the future would be if WROV didn't pursue it,'' said Carroll about his feelings in mid-August when his days on the air appeared numbered. ``After the article in the paper, there was a lot of reaction that spurred me on.''
As for the future of Carroll's popular basketball broadcasts in the winter, it will depend on how football does. Gochenour isn't ruling basketball out although he knows his staff won't be in favor of pulling J-93's country music format off the air for 20 evenings of basketball.
Gochenour says he thinks ratings are made in the daytime. Carroll says his high school broadcasts have always raised WROV's ratings during their time slot.
So Blue Ridge District and Roanoke Valley District high school basketball may have a place. With the addition of Blacksburg and Christiansburg in the Blue Ridge, J-93 could gain because its signal stretches to those areas.
Carroll's broadcasts start this week. As he did at WROV, he'll try to cover the best game of the week. There will will be some overlap when he does Salem football. The first overlap is likely to be his second broadcast when the Spartans play host to Pulaski County on Sept. 13 in what has become one of Timesland's biggest draws.
RU FALL CLASSIC: The Radford University Cross Country Fall Classic is set Saturday with 40 teams and possibly 1,000 runners expected to participate in five races starting with developmental runs at 9 a.m.
The boys' varsity (red division) is set for 11:30 a.m. The defending champion is Cave Spring. Also a year ago, eventual Group AA state champion Christiansburg was far off the pace in eighth. Coach Steve Shelton's Blue Demons had numerous injuries including junior Matt Nolan, a two-time All-Timesland runner, who placed fourth in Group AA state meet.
Cave Spring is led by Ben Dowdy, who last year was second team All-Timesland after finishing fourth in the Northwest Region. Dowdy finished 37th in the Group AAA state meet, but he has hopes of moving into the top 15 this fall and making All-State.
SALEM INFLUENCE: Former Salem footballer Jimmy Wolfe and Rob Bowen, who played at Cave Spring, have jobs as coaches in Roanoke. The two will be coaching the Patrick Henry ninth grade football team this fall. The two played together at Hidden Valley Junior High (now Middle School) before Wolfe transferred to Salem.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD: Cave Spring is the second Roanoke Valley District school to change athletic directors this summer. Joe Hafey, who coached girls' tennis from 1990-95 and boys and girls track from 1983-90 at this school, replaces Otis Dowdy. At Pulaski County, Todd Browning took over athletic director duties this summer from Ron Kanipe.
ACTIVE DEANS: Former Patrick Henry boys' basketball coach Woody Deans will keep his hand in coaching this year after all. No, Deans won't do anything with basketball, a sport in which his teams claimed two Group AAA state championships. Deans is the assistant golf coach to Carl Rydell.
GIRLS BASKETBALL TIDBITS: Mirandia Schechterly, a freshman guard, scored 10 points for James River in its opening game against Parry McCluer. That name might be familiar to some Knights fans because her father, E.D. Schechterly, was arguably the best player in the school's history when he played there in the early 1970s and later he starred for some powerful Lynchburg College teams in NCAA Division III that blasted Roanoke College, which was then still in Division II. ... At William Byrd, there was the oddity that three teams - Martinsville, Northside and Glenvar - all had 33 rebounds in their opening round games. Host Byrd, playing Martinsville, spoiled a rare statistical quartet as the Terriers snared 38 rebounds.
TURNED DOWN: The Virginia High School League, which is looking for sites to hold state championship football games this fall, inquired about using Salem Memorial Stadium after it was learned that the Division III Alonzo Stagg Bowl, scheduled for the same site, is set Saturday, Dec. 14, a week after the high school title games.
The VHSL was turned down by the City of Salem because there would be a risk, with bad weather, that one or two high school games the week prior to the Stagg Bowl might ruin the field. The VHSL was looking to put either a Group A or AA playoff game in Salem.
LENGTH: Long : 111 linesby CNB