Friday, 14 March 2008 11:56 by
Dave Erica Garman’s short story on the increasing number of people getting permits to carry concealed weapons in Loudoun County predictably sparked a flurry of comments to her column on LoudounExtra.com. One comment even pointed out that Garman, who also does a weekly show for Comcast Cable Channel 2, had taken a gun class and written a story in The Washington Post. “I couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling that I had the power to kill in my hands,” she was quoted as saying. You did Erica. And I promise from now on, I’ll watch your show every week.
While more of our neighbors appear to be packing heat, we have nothing on places like Martinsville, VA. I lived there in the early 1980s, and it seemed like everyone had a gun. It’s a place where factories have to close down for the first few days of deer-hunting season, because everyone would call in sick if they didn’t. Knowledge of guns was as routine as knowing how to read and write.
I, however, was among a small minority who somehow made it through life (and still have) without ever firing a gun. My Dad had one. Many of my friends do. I’ve been invited to go on deer hunts many times. It’s just never interested me, and it was never an issue except for the years I lived in Martinsville.
One of the greatest people I ever got to know in life was a man named H. Clay Earles. Clay decided that one day, a lot of people would want to see cars go around in circles, so in 1949 he built the Martinsville Speedway. He was right, as these days hundreds of thousands of people go to Martinsville to see folks like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and a host of others. When I met him, I was in my 20s, Clay (who passed away many years ago) was around 70. And he never went anywhere without a gun.
One day, we were eating lunch together at a place called Clarence’s, and the conversation turned to guns. He pulled out a very small pistol, talked about it the way you’d talk about a good friend, and asked what I owned. I told him I didn’t have one, and in fact, never had fired one.
“Never?,” Clay asked, squinting his eyes as if I had told him I had grown a third arm.
“No,” I said. “Never needed one.”
Clay thought some more on the subject, but couldn’t get his arms around it.
“Never?,” he said.
“Never.”
“Hmmmmmm,” he said. “Well if that’s true, let me ask you this: Do you like girls?”
During my time in Martinsville, I crossed paths with two others who had an impact on sports in Loudoun County this season. Both were at Martinsville High School, which enjoyed state championship caliber football and basketball teams about every year. The Bulldogs had a running back named James “Turk” Dallas, who also played basketball. Dallas came from a very athletic family, and when he was gone, his younger brother Tony starred for the next three years in basketball after James graduated.
Over 25 years after I wrote stories on the teams Dallas played on, a new principal was named at Cedar Lane Elementary in Ashburn: James “Turk” Dallas. And when watching Freedom’s girls basketball team play in the Dulles District finals a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but notice Olivia Dallas on the Freedom roster. She’s James’ daughter, and the number she wore was significant. At Martinsville, Dallas wore No. 12 in both sports. Olivia’s number? Same No. 12.
But it was Dallas’ basketball teammate at Martinsville that may have had the most impact on football in Loudoun County this season. Jeff Adkins was the team star, and would later go on to a nice career at Maryland, playing on a team that won the ACC Tournament. Adkins would later return to the area, and eventually become the athletic director at a private school named Carlisle.
Carlisle would one day have a vacancy for a basketball coach. Among those that applied was a lawyer from New England who had tired of the law, and wanted to be a coach. His interest in coming to a small town in Southwestern Virginia was rooted firmly in just getting a chance to coach, as public schools required previous experience. Private schools didn’t have that requirement, and after many conversations, Adkins gave the lawyer a chance.
Carlisle’s new coach learned the coaching ropes, became good friends with Adkins, even married a local Martinsville girl. When the opportunity arose to become a head football coach on the West Coast, he took the job, but still kept his ties with Virginia. He was a success on the West Coast as well, and after a few years, started to look for a job back closer to the East Coast, and his wife’s home.
Three years ago, he found it. There was an opening at Broad Run High School. The coach’s name is Mike Burnett. Three years later, he would go 10-0, and lead the Spartans to the Dulles District title.
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Friday, 29 February 2008 22:56 by
Dave Perhaps it’s because I’m a shameless homer. Or in my old age I don’t see as well as I used to.
But I’ve played back in slow motion the final five seconds of the Loudoun County-Charlottesville game from Thursday night on my DVR about a dozen times. I still don’t see the foul.
Granted, the perspective is from the center court camera we were using in our Comcast broadcast, so the view from the center jump circle (where the official who blew the whistle was watching) could have been different.
But the ball was loose and players from both teams were fighting to get possession with the score tied at 62-62. The tussle began when Charlottesville’s Shawntae Payne tried to throw a pass in the final 10 seconds of overtime into the lane. Loudoun County’s Kendra Holmes tipped it away, and soon after, she and Elizabeth Von Storch just about knocked each other down to get to the ball. As they both hit the floor, the ball popped free, Payne got her hand on the ball for one dribble, then almost lost her balance stepping over Von Storch, who was on the floor.
In that situation, it’s anybody’s ball. Payne and the Raiders’ Brittany Batts were both going for the ball and they nudged each other when the foul was called. I’ve seem more contact when Paul Draisey reaches across the press table for some honey mustard.
With 3.4 seconds left in overtime, that was a situation demanding a no-call, particularly when only two seconds before, officials allowed Holmes and Von Storch to almost knock each other down. If so, the buzzer would have sounded, and both teams would have played a second overtime.
But that didn’t happen. So now I have some extra time on my hands. Perhaps I can look a bit harder…for that foul…
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