College notebook: Roanoke College gets former Radford High School star

Very few southwestern Virginia athletes have generated as many headlines as former Radford High School standout Dontae Carter and, apparently, he’s not finished.

Roanoke College men’s basketball coach Page Moir confirmed Wednesday that Carter has paid his deposit for the 2013-14 school year.

Carter, a 5-foot-9 guard, was named the state player of the year after leading the Bobcats to the 2011 Group AA Division 2 state championship.

Carter spent the 2011-2012 school year at Fork Union Military Academy and had received a scholarship offer to play for West Virginia Wesleyan before returning home to attend to a family matter.

“He’s the reason — or part of the reason — that we won a lot of games here,” said Radford coach Rick Cormany, whose 2009 and 2011 teams won state titles. “I don’t think we’d have those two state championships without that guy. It was one big play after another.”

Carter, also a standout quarterback for the Bobcats, scored 1,426 points in his Radford basketball career. He averaged 18.9 points as a senior, when he was named first-team All-Timesland.

“We thought he’d be a very good [Old Dominion Athletic Conference] player out of high school,” Moir said, “and he didn’t disappoint at Fork Union.”

Carter was one of two late additions to Moir’s recruiting class, joining 6-5, 215-pound Forrest Buterbaugh from St. Maria Goretti High School in Hagerstown, Md.

• Buterbaugh’s teammate, 6-9 Lithuanian Martin Geben, has an offer from Virginia for 2014 and already has taken an official recruiting visit to Notre Dame. Geben, who also has offers from Maryland and Miami, is scheduled to visit UVa officially over the weekend of Sept. 6-8.

Climbing the ladder

Cormany reports that another former Radford basketball standout, Darris Nichols, has joined Mike Young’s basketball staff at Wofford.

Nichols played at West Virginia, where he was a double-figure scorer in his final two seasons. He played overseas before beginning his coaching career at WVU, where he was a graduate assistant.

He goes to Wofford after two seasons at Northern Kentucky, a Division I newcomer.

Like Nichols, Young is a graduate of Radford High School, and the connection doesn’t end there. Older brother Shane Nichols ended his college career at Wofford after transferring from St. Peter’s. Shane Nichols is on the staff at Hofstra after stints at Wofford and Niagara.

Cougars’ loss

Brigham Young, which opens the college football season Aug. 31 at Virginia, will be without the services of defensive back Jordan Johnson, who started 12 games and had 15 pass break-ups in 2012. He sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament in practice.

Also gone for the year with a pectoral tear is defensive lineman Tuni Kanuch, last year’s Mr. Football in Utah and a candidate to start at nose tackle for BYU as a freshman.

Remembering Pirro

At the burial service for former Roanoke College lacrosse player and coach John Pirro, former teammates and players were asked to come forward and each fill a small gardening shovel with dirt gathered from Roanoke Alumni Field by Pirro’s collegiate running mate, Bob Rotanz.

After the players had spread the dirt atop Pirro’s casket, with former head coach Paul Griffin completing the task, ex-teammate Doug Mackenzie kept the bucket “with hopes that we wouldn’t be needing it again anytime soon,” athletic director Scott Allison said.

Allison confided that the bucket is blue and that a case could be made for repainting it in Roanoke’s maroon color.

Revamped forecasters

Vinton Mayor Brad Grose has agreed to serve as the guest picker for the first week of this year’s Fearless Forecasters, which will have a new format and a wider display starting with games of Aug. 29-31.

I will be defending my title against a panel that includes past winners Randy King and Mark Berman, as well as Aaron McFarling, winless since his debut in 2001. Former panelist Katrina Waugh rejoins the group, as does WFIR talk show host Greg Roberts, a former guest.

Online participants will have a chance at weekly prizes as well as the grand prize, a smoker grill. Look for details in next Thursday’s Roanoke Times sports section.

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