http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=2088&dept_id=346228&newsid=10505355&PAG=461&rfi=9
BLUEFIELD - A couple of Bluefield High School graduates will face each other across the field as head coaches in this weekend's prep playoffs in Virginia.
What does the coaching success of former BHS athletes say about the Beavers' training ground? "You can't speak highly enough of the program," said Tom Buzzo, coach of Liberty (Bealeton) High School in Fauquier County, Va. Buzzo was a senior on the 1984 Bluefield state championship team.
"I'm very fortunate to come through the Bluefield program. I'm very thankful, every day."
On Friday night, Liberty's Eagles will play the Harrisonburg Blue Streaks, coached by Tim Sarver. Sarver graduated in 1963 from BHS where he played halfback for Coach Merrill Gainer as a member of the 1962 state champions.
Explaining the success of the Bluefield alumni, Sarver said, "That's what happens when you have great leaders. You're motivated to be like them. ... You saw people respected, you saw coaches who liked to be with kids. Some of that rubbed off."
It will be the first meeting of the two teams other than preseason scrimmages, though Sarver said the two have "known each other for years."
Buzzo has directed the Liberty (Bealeton) High School team to a 10-0 regular season mark this fall. On Monday he was named coach of the year in the Northwest District of Group AA, Region II.
Sarver's Blue Streaks are the champions of The Valley District. The school just moved up this year to Division IV, where Liberty had already been playing.
"We've been in the playoffs a lot of years," Sarver said. He has been Harrisonburg's coach since 1985, a span in which the team had just two losing seasons. HHS has made the playoffs four of the past five years, and won the state championship in 2001, beating Graham in the finals.
Buzzo said Bluefield Coach John Chmara molded him as a coach and as a person. "He was a great man, a big influence on my life. ... A lot of what I do was instilled in me by him," Buzzo said.
Speaking of the discipline he expects from his team, he said, "We still wear ties on Fridays around here."
On Tuesday night, he met with the coaches and board of his area's youth football league. "I used Bluefield as the basis for my speech," Buzzo said. "I told them that I would hope that their players would use their experience as a way to get ready to play high school football.
"I told them that when I was a young football player, all I ever wanted to do was to play football at that high school. And to play in a state championship? I was living out my dream."
Liberty is in its 10th year, Buzzo said, and in that time the team has played for a regional championship and been in two state semifinals. "I think we're moving in the right direction," he said.
The Eagles' last regular-season win was against Fauquier High School, which is coached by former Bluefield coach Tommy Farrell.
Buzzo said that when he got word of Chmara's death, he drove five hours to be at the funeral home for most of Saturday evening. He then drove five hours back to northern Virginia so he could meet with his football staff starting at 7 a.m. Sunday morning, the day of Chmara's funeral.
"If there was anything that man would understand, he would have understood why I wasn't able to be at his funeral," Buzzo said.
Sarver said of Buzzo, "He's an excellent coach. He took over a real fine program, and ... he's kept one of the best programs in the state at the top."
Speaking of Sarver, Buzzo said, "he's an outstanding person and a heck of a football coach."
- Contact Tom Bone at
tbone@bdtonline.com
Buzzsaw
Is the paper correct in stating that Tim Sarver graduated from Bluefield in 1963? I was thought he was younger than that, not saying that's old...lol
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