I must admit that I am experiencing Olympics withdrawal. I love watching the Summer Olympics.
I first got hooked watch the Summer games from Mexico City in 1968, when we saw Bob Beamon shatter the long jump record, Bill Toomey win the decathlon, George Foreman wave the flag and Dick Fosbury change the art of high jumping forever.
It was also exciting to watch Olympic men's basketball in 1968 and realize that Richwood native and former West Virginia Tech star Mike Barrett was on the team. Barrett was a great source of pride to his hometown of Richwood and was a legend in Montgomery and the upper Kanawha Valley. East Bank native Jerry West played for the USA basketball team in 1960 in Rome, but those games did not have the television coverage of the '68 games.
Former Greenbrier East star Bimbo Coles played for the USA in 1988 under John Thompson. Mullens native Mike D'Antoni did not play in the Games, but he helped coach USA basketball to the Gold Medal in 2008 and 2012. I could not help but think of all of these state natives as USA basketball won the Gold Medal last Sunday.
n I often wondered how the 1980 U.S. Olympic basketball team would have fared at the Summer Games. You will remember that President Jimmy Carter had the U.S. boycott the Olympics in Moscow. Tensions were high and beating the Russians in Moscow would not have been easy. That 1980 team would have also been the youngest in U.S. history.
Former Big East commissioner Dave Gavitt was scheduled to coach the team. Among the players would have been Isaiah Thomas (Indiana), Mark Aguirre (DePaul), Sam Bowie (Kantucky), Buck Williams (Maryland), Michael Brooks (LaSalle) and Al Wood (North Carolina).
n Longtime football fans in Charleston will remember the name of Perry Moss, a popular name in the region in the 1960s as he coached the Charleston Rockets professional football team and then coached at Marshall. His grandson Jacob Moss is now a high school football standout in Florida. His father Les played high school football at Poca and in college at UCF. One of the younger Moss's teammates is junior Lorenzo Lingard, one of the top running back prospects in the country.
n One of the top high school offensive linemen in the country has state ties. His name is Tyler Fannin and he plays at Mill Creek High School near Atlanta. He made several preseason high school All-America teams and has verbally committed to play at Virginia. His father, John Fannin, was a high school standout at Ceredo-Kenova High School in the early 1980s and later played at Marshall for George Chaump. Tyler's older brother Josh plays at Middle Tennessee State but will miss this season due to a hamstring injury.
n On Friday night, Hurricane and Winfield played the latest chapter in their long football rivalry. The series reminds me of one of my favorite area sports stories.
In the early 1970s, John Holliday was a young high school athlete at Hurricane and graduated in 1975. Leon McCoy was coaching at Winfield and his conditioning and weight-training techniques were attracting a lot of attention. Holliday was a football, track and wrestling athlete at Hurricane and won a state wrestling championship in Fairmont. Even though he was undersized, his competitive nature drove him to want to play major-college football at West Virginia. He asked McCoy, the coach of his high school rival, for his training help.
McCoy did help, and the rest is history. Holliday walked on in football at WVU, earned a scholarship and a starting position and was given the nickname "Doc" by former WVU assistant and current Alabama staffer Joe Pendry. Of course, Holliday is also now the head coach at Marshall.
n Last spring, when former WVU running back Wendell Smallwood was drafted in the fifth round by the Philadelphia Eagles, I thought the Eagles got a steal.
Smallwood has a couple of things going against him. He missed some time early due to injuries, and the Eagles backfield is fairly crowded.
However, according to reporters covering the Eagles, Smallwood has "turned some heads" early when he has been healthy. Philadelphia can be a tough town on players who don't perform up to expectations, but there are really no expectations for Smallwood. I am guessing he may be a guy who is "active" one week and "inactive" the next, but eventually he may get a good opportunity in Philly.
n I enjoy high school cross country meets. There are no losers in cross country, as even the slowest runner there is healthy and physically fit. Here are some names I think about as I watch high school cross country this fall.
Bryan Canterbury is a rare combination. He was a great lineman in football who went on to play at West Virginia State, and he later became a runner. He has been a longtime cross country coach at Ravenswood High School and impacted hundreds of lives in his community.
Bubby Dent, the former Glenville State star, is also a rare combination - a distance-running state track champion in high school who was also an outstanding football player. That combination does not happen often, at least not in our state.
John and Jerry Dotson, brothers from Rand, were cross country and track stars at both DuPont High School and Marshall. John is in the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame and Jerry is a high school coaching legend in North Carolina and is in that state's track coaching Hall of Fame.
Dennis Eye was a strong runner at George Washington High School in the early 1970s and a "tough guy" as a runner. He had an intimidating presence about him for a distance runner and was also a Golden Gloves boxing champion.
Kim Nutter, a legendary distance runner at Parkersburg High School, also served his country at a time when it was not easy or popular to do so. Sadly, we lost him too young as he passed away earlier this decade.
Wilson Smith was one of our state's greatest track stars, a great runner in the 1960s for Huntington High School. He went on to run on great NCAA teams at Villanova. His brother Steve was also a great runner for the Pony Express.
Tex Williams is best known as a legendary basketball coach, but many may not remember he was also a terrific cross country coach. He coached St. Albans High School to four state cross country championships.
Reach Frank Giardina at flg16@hotmail.com.