Notes ‘n’ quotes ...
Coach K wants to be the next head boys basketball coach at East Rowan High School.
No, not that Coach K.
This Coach K is Derek Kurnitzki, a young, enthusiastic twenty-something jayvee and assistant coach at Davie County High School.
He is 56-4 as a jayvee coach and says he is ready to try his hand on the varsity level.
Coach K has sent two resumes to East athletics director Worth Roberts and principal Harry Starr. Roberts told us the other day that Coach K would be contacted.
That’s good. Coach K molds himself after that wacky guy coaching the boys team at West Rowan, Mike Gurley. Like I said, Kurnitzki is enthusiastic.
And being like Gurley is a good thing, Mr. Roberts. What’s Gurley’s winning percentage? How many times have his teams beaten East?
You know the ol’ saying: If you can’t beat ‘em ...
The bottom line is this. It is time East Rowan looks for a coach that will bring something different. Like knowing how to turn around a basketball program.
Coach K came from Florida to Davie County when the War Eagles were rotten and pretty much of a laughingstock within the Central Piedmont Conference. And along with head man Jim Young, he helped turn it into a 20-game winner within a three-year period.
It’s also time the powers that be at East begin to take this sport seriously. They can start now by interviewing someone who can make young basketball players believe in him and the program.
And the crack staff here did enough checking to point out one more item. Coach K teaches social studies — a spot on the roster, er, faculty, that is open.
So my advice to Starr and Roberts: Call the man.
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Sleepless in Salisbury.
That will be Howard Platt’s motto starting tonight for the next two months.
Platt, the popular voice of Rowan Legion baseball for the past 23 years, puts the headsets on for Rowan’s opener tonight at Newman Park (7:15 p.m.) against King.
Considering Platt seldom gets home until after midnight and has to be on the air at 6 a.m. at WSTP-1490, he might be stocking up on No-Doz.
Things will be a little different this season for Platt, who isn’t planning on one analyst. He mentioned names like recently retired Jim DeHart, ol’ reliable Jerry Johnson, former Legion star Tim Kirk and high school coaches Chris Cauble of West Rowan and Mike Herndon of Davie County as sidekicks at one time or another.
“It’s easier with one guy,” Platt says, “but the variety will be listener-oriented.”
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Remember Rashad McCants? He was a sophomore star for Asheville Erwin a couple of years ago, whose team was thrashed by Scooter Sherrill and West Rowan in the Western 3A Regionals.
He’ll apparently get another shot at Scooter.
McCants, a rising senior, has committed to North Carolina. He played in a New Hampshire prep school this past season and is recognized as one of the top 15 juniors in the country.
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With Trey Guidry’s announcement that he was transferring from N.C. State, it just makes the cloud over coach Herb Sendek darker.
Guidry becomes the ninth player since April 1996 to leave the Wolfpack and fifth since 1999.
And a week later, he lost his top recruiter, Sean Miller, who will be an assistant at Xavier.
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The LAXtreme won the XFLchampionship and fans wanted to tear down the goalposts. Then, they realized they couldn’t do it with just six fans in attendance.
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After interviewing Jose Canseco, who’s trying to bat his way out of the minor leagues — he plays for the Bridgeport Bluefish — at 36, writer Tom Keegan wrote of him: “Think of him as a recording star who used to pack stadiums and who now works Holiday Inn lounges.”
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The XFLhas decided it will no longer use instant replay.
Which makes sense, considering no one was watching the first time.
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Minnesota’s Terrell Brandon decided he’d break out a new line of signature sneakers — electric blue — for the first game of the playoffs.
Didn’t help. In a loss to San Antonio, he slipped five times and sprained his left ankle.
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The XFLdidn’t have a MVP. It had an OVP— the “one valuable player.”
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Donte Minter and Junior Hairston aren’t the only big names scheduled to play in the realigned North Piedmont 3A Conference next year. Statesville’s Dion Dacons is thought to be one of America’s top 10 players of the Class of 2003.
But wait. His father, Pierre, who is also the Statesville coach, hints that he might not coach his talented son in his junior year.
Dacons might be headed to a prep school.
“He is interested,” Dacons’ father told the Record and Landmark in Statesville. “I think that may be a good move for him. I would hate to lose him but we’re looking out for his best interests.”
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Hard to believe: The people who run major league baseball are hoping A.J. Burnett’s no-hitter last Saturday passes into history more quietly than did the only other no-hitter pitched in San Diego.
On June 12, 1970, Dock Ellis of the Pirates pitched a no-hitter against the Padres.
Ten years later he said he was so high on LSD that night that he needed help finding his locker before the game.
“I was really out to lunch that night,” Ellis said in a 1980 interview.
“Sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I saw the hitter, sometimes I didn’t see either one.”
Ellis said he and his girlfriend were dropping acid the afternoon of the game when his girlfriend, who was reading a sports section, said, “Dock, it says here you’re pitching tonight.”
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There’s a kid in Bristol, Conn. whose parents named him ESPN, after the sports network.
The middle school kid is doing OK with the name, but he is really jealous of his little brother, ESPN2.
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And finally. ...
The big thing for fans nowadays is looting and rioting after a championship game and the LA Xtreme’s win over San Francisco was no different.
Only this time, the looters broke into stores to return all XFLmerchandise.
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Contact sports editor Ronnie Gallagher at 704-797-4256 or rgallagher@salisbury.com
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