DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711090261

SECTION: SPECIAL                 PAGE: Z2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: 1997-98 BASKETBALL PREVIEW

SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   43 lines

CAA'S COACHING CARROUSEL WELCOMES 4 NEW FACES THIS YEAR

The Colonial Athletic Association clearly is not a place coaches go to put down roots. Coaches either:

Move onward and upward, as Oliver Purnell, Eddie Payne and Kevin Eastman have done in recent years.

Or they are are down and out, which Lefty Driesell, Bill Dooley, Chris Knoche and Paul Westhead discovered when they were shown the door last spring.

A new year always brings new faces in college basketball, but this year those new faces in the CAA will not only be the players, but the guys on the bench wearing the suits.

``I feel sad for the guys who lost their jobs,'' UNC Wilmington coach Jerry Wainwright said. ``There were a couple of guys there who had young families.''

Only one coach in the league has been at his school longer than any of his players - Sonny Smith is in his ninth season at Virginia Commonwealth. Smith is in his farewell tour, and his replacement - former Tennessee-Chattanooga coach Mack McCarthy - will be on the Rams' bench with him this season.

``I think I'm going to welcome retirement,'' said Smith, who turns 61 Saturday. ``It's something I thought I'd do at 55 and looked at my bank account and figured I couldn't.''

Since Smith's Rams are entering just their third year in the league, a trio of fourth-year coaches constitute the CAA gray beards: Old Dominion's Jeff Capel, UNC Wilmington's Jerry Wainwright and William and Mary's Charlie Woollum.

Almost half the teams in the league will feature new coaches: former ODU and Maryland assistant Art Perry at American, Jim Larranaga at George Mason, Sherman Dillard at James Madison and John Beilein at Richmond.

With new coaches comes a degree of the unknown.

``It's scary in one regard,'' East Carolina coach Joe Dooley said. ``Obviously there's been a lot of turnover and we'll have to adjust a little bit.'' ILLUSTRATION: HUY NGUYEN/file photo

VCU's Sonny Smith... KEYWORDS: SPECIAL SECTION SUPPLEMENT BASKETBALL

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