under par, 269 score and then turned around to claim the state title.
Marty Gordon
This time of year, it is hard to look back and pinpoint the top sports stories of the year, and we had our share of headlines.
We said goodbye to one of the state’s winningest high school basketball coaches when Radford’s Rick Cormany stepped down. He was one of the area and state’s winningest high school basketball coaches.
“It’s Just time. I’ve been year to year since 2019,” he said.
After almost four decades, Cormany will finish his career with 773 wins, good for second-most in VHSL history. He previously served as assistant coach at Radford University before accepting a job as the head man at Rocky Gap. He was there for five years before accepting the post at Radford in 1993.
Cormany said he doesn’t know what he was thinking in those early days at Rocky Gap.
“I just knew I had to try and out work everyone and try to learn everyday if we had any chance to be successful. I was way too young to be a head coach anywhere, but I had hard working kids that would get to gym at 6 in the morning and would get better,” he said.
The 773 wins puts Cormany in some elite company with the likes of Bluestone’s George Lancaster (724 wins), former Maury head man Jack Baker (746 wins) along with retired coaches Bill Littlepage from Hopewell (755 wins) and Robert E. Lee-Staunton legendary sideline boss Paul Hatcher (897 victories).
Cormany just finished his 30th season at Radford and over 560 of his wins have come for the Bobcats.
Radford won 21 of the last 22 regular season championships in the Three Rivers District, 16 of 17 tournament championships, the last four Conference 45 championships, four Region C championships (2001, 2002, 2004, 2013), three Region 1A West Championships (2014, 2016, 2017), two Region 2C Championships (2018, 2019), three state runner ups, nine state Final-4’s and state champions in six of the last 12 years.
In November came the announcement that would area racing to a screeching halt. The parent company of Calfee Park Baseball and the Pulaski River Turtles said it was resuming management of Motor Mile Speedway and Dragway beginning November 30.
The ownership said after leasing Motor Mile Speedway & Dragway to Rusty Wallace Racing Experience owner Mark Ebert for the 2021-2023 seasons, Motor Mile will resume management of the venue for the 2024 season.
Current plans include several special events such as the always-popular Monster Truck, Nights of Destruction and JJ DA BOSS Tours. Other types of events such as concerts and live-action events are being considered.
But, according to a press release, there are no plans at this time for a weekly racing series for either the Speedway or Dragway tracks.
Both tracks will be available for rental for individual days, for special events, or for a recurring series if there is interest by an outside party or organization.
In August, officials from the Rusty Wallace Racing experience said there would no operating contract extension after this year.
In 2020, the Rusty Wallace Racing Group took over the speedway, which is celebrating its 34th year anniversary this year. The track has been known over the years as the New River Valley Speedway and has changed its name four times since its opening over 20 years ago.
The multi-year lease agreement allowed RWRE to take over venue operations, with the speedway becoming the home track for the RWRE and its companion companies.
At the time, former NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace called Motor Mile Speedway and Dragway, one of the finest grassroots motorsports facilities in the nation.
The track has a long, rich history in the New River Valley. In 1952, a dirt track originally opened on the former farm site between Radford and Dublin. In the 80’s, a paved 0.416-mile oval was built on the site.
The track announced that it had cut all sanctions with NASCAR and discontinued its oval track racing in late 2017 but reopened under NASCAR sanctioning in 2019.
It was purchased by Shelor Automotive Group in 2004 and was subsequently renamed Motor Mile Speedway. The track is most famous for hosting four NASCAR Busch Series events between 1989 and 1992, which included future NASCAR champions like Jeff Gordon.
In July, A Radford City general district judge extended Radford University’s basketball coach Darris Nichols probation from a Driving Under the Influence (DUI), The new court appearance deals with a positive reading on an ignition interlock device, which was placed on his vehicle after a February traffic stop.
The court could have suspended all of his probation and sent Nichols straight to jail, but the Commonwealth Attorney and Nichols’ attorneys agreed the coach should have another chance.
He faced up to 180 days of a suspended sentence, but now, Nichols will remain on probation through April 2024.
During the initial arrest, Nichols had a blood alcohol level of .025, twice the legal limit. He was fined $2,500 and had his drivers license suspended for a year. He was also required to use the interlock device, which alerted the court to the use of alcohol.
Nichols made no statement following the ending of hearing.
The Radford native Nichols was hired two years ago after serving as an assistant at the University of Florida. Nichols played basketball at West Virginia University and climbed the ranks as an assistant coach all the way to the University of Florida in the SEC.
Nichols helped lead Radford High School to four appearances in the state Group A playoffs, averaging in double-figures every season. He coached seven seasons at Florida, helping lead the Gators to a 108-65 record, including four straight 20-win seasons and three consecutive NCAA Tournament bids.
Nichols garnered a spot in ESPN.com’s 40 Under 40 in the summer of 2020, rated #17 on the national list that included both head coaches and assistant coaches. He was also rated the #2 assistant coach in the SEC in a Stadium poll of coaches around the league.
A four-year letter winner at West Virginia under Bob Huggins and John Beilein, Nichols helped the Mountaineers to a 26-11 record and a trip to the 2008 NCAA Sweet 16 his senior season.
At WVU, Nichols shined as a player in the Big East. He scored 993 career points and dished 399 assists while shooting at a .375 clip from 3-point range. He averaged 10.7 points per game as well as 3.2 assists per game as a senior on the way to WVU’s Sweet 16 run. He was also a member of the 2007 NIT
Championship, 2006 Sweet 16 and 2005 Elite Eight teams and finished his collegiate career as a top five most winningest player in Mountaineer history. After graduation, he played professional overseas in the Hungarian League.
Blacksburg High School golfer Jake Albert has announced plans to continue his career at Auburn University after another great summer season.
Albert, who is only a junior, is currently ranked 17th in the American Junior Golf Association after picking up a win at the recent Jack Burke Jr. Invitational and 18th at the Junior Players Championship presented by Rolex. The 16-year-old also finished third earlier this year at the Will Lowery Junior Championship. His biggest accolade was last year as the national champion at a high school golf national invitational at Pinehurst, N.C. Albert’s 10-under for the three-day, 54-hole event was the lowest score in the
tournament’s history. He finished the event with 16 pars.
The invitation-only tournament field featured more than 330 of the top high school boys’ golfers from across the country. They had each won their respective state championships as a team or as individuals. Albert would also finish one-hole out in the 2023 VSGA Amateur Championship for second place.
In October, Blacksburg claimed another state golf championship, shooting a 282 total for a minus-6 at the Williamsburg National Golf Club. Monacan was a distant second at a plus-3. Jamestown and Loudoun County finished tied for third at plus-4. Woodgrove was fifth at plus-23.
Albert finished tied for second for the individual championship with his own teammate Major Ewing and Salem’s Kathryn Ha, all at minus-5 67. Joe Johnson of Heritage was the state champ with a minus-6 at 66.
Albert and Ewing’s teammate, Piece Campbell completed a course plus-one 73 for a tie for 15th and Cameron Sharp a tie for 23rd with a plus-five 77. Blacksburg was also the Region 4D champ.
Blacksburg High School cancelled its 10th football game of the year with Salem. Blacksburg principal Chris Stewart issued this statement at the announcement:
“With student safety as our primary focus, BHS will forfeit the varsity football game with Salem High School. This decision comes in response to the high number of injuries our student-athletes have experienced that prohibit their ability to return to play and out of an abundance of caution for the limited number of student-athletes that remain active on the roster.”
“We also believe that this is the best decision for the long-term success of the program, we want to see our younger student-athletes stay in the sport and build upon the positive outcomes they have gained during the JV season,” Stewart said.
Besides the high school athletic area, Riner’s own Matt Hagan won another NHRA world championship. Number Four was celebrated, and he is already looking for number five. Hagan is the 2011, 2014, 2020 and 2023 NHRA Funny Car World Champion and has had a total of 49 Career Event titles, 87 Career Final Rounds, and 21 Career No.1 qualifying positions.
This year, Hagan clinched a Fourth NHRA Funny Car World Championship at the Camping World Series finale in Pomona, CA on November 12. Hagan’s title places him in an elite group of only four racers to have won four funny car championships in the history of the sport. Racing greats John Force (15 championships), Don Prudhomme (4), and Kenny Bernstein (4) round out the list.
The Virginia Tech women’s basketball team reached the top of the mountain with the school’s first ever ACC tournament title. Tech’s women’s basketball team knocked off Miami (Fla.) and Duke enroute to the championship game as part of the 2023 Ally ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament. The third-seeded Hokies pulled away from No. 4 seed Louisville down the stretch to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament, while Georgia Amoore was tabbed tournament MVP after draining a tournament-record 14 3-pointers.
And speaking of the ACC, the year finished with lots of question on whether the conference would still be looking the same when the new year gets here.
The expansion of collegiate athletic conferences means there will be a log jam in both football and basketball, and the ACC is one of those examples. The ACC announced a new football scheduling model that will go into effect beginning with
the 2024 season.
With the additions of Cal, SMU and Stanford, each ACC school will continue to play eight conference games per season with all 17 teams facing each other at least twice through the next seven years (once at home and once on the road). Under the new schedule rotation, the league’s current 14-team membership will also play three times each in California before 2030 with no team traveling to the west coast during consecutive seasons.
The new schedule will continue with no divisions, feature 17 schools and will increase the number of annual conference matchups from 56 to 68. The top two teams based on conference winning percentage will compete in the ACC Football Championship Game.
“We are extremely excited to welcome Cal, SMU and Stanford to the ACC and look forward to having them compete beginning in the fall of 2024,” said ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, Ph.D. “Throughout the entire scheduling model process, the membership was incredibly thoughtful and purposeful in building a creative, flexible and aggressive conference scheduling model while keeping the student-athlete experience at the forefront. The excitement and anticipation for our teams, alumni and fans will undoubtedly build as we look ahead to the future of this incredible conference.”
The approved format will continue to have each member institution play eight conference games preseason, with all 17 teams playing each other at least twice over the next seven seasons – once at home and once on the road. The current 14 conference teams will play a total of three times each in California over the seven years and none will travel west to California in back-to-back seasons. But the question remains whether some teams and schools will bolt and leave the ACC.