By Brian Hoffman, Sports Editor
High school coach and athletic director is one of those jobs where whatever you do, sooner or later somebody’s going to have a problem with you. So, what’s the deal with Chuck Pound?
Pound retired last week as Lord Botetourt’s athletic director after working at the school for 35 years, and you’d have to search far and wide for someone to say a bad word about him.
“They don’t get better than Coach Pound as a leader, coach and person,” said LB girls basketball coach Renee Favaro, who spoke at a retirement party for Chuck at the Botetourt Golf & Swim Club on June 5. Renee played for Chuck as a student and was an assistant coach under Pound for the girls basketball team.
“We are all better coaches and people for having the opportunity to work under him,” she said. “I’m lucky enough to have been able to call him my coach, teacher, boss, mentor, work dad and friend. His role in my life is special and he has tremendously helped my growth as a person and coach.”
Even Cavalier football coach Jamie Harless has nothing but praise for Pound, and Jamie is known to wear his feelings on his sleeve. When it comes to Chuck, Jamie needs to wear long sleeves.
“I have known Chuck Pound for over 10 years now and there would be an endless list of positive things I could say about him,” said Harless. “Great human being, cares a lot about everyone, hard worker, dedicated and the list goes on and on. I appreciate him for giving me the opportunity to coach at LB and will be forever grateful for his support and guidance throughout the years. I will miss him greatly!”
Glowing recommendations after 35 years in the county, and his path to Daleville took some twists and turns. Under different circumstances he could have been a doctor, or running a hardware store for the past 40 years.
Chuck was born in Pulaski County and is the adopted son of Winston and Madeline Pound. He has one sister, Carolyn, who now lives in Powhatan. He grew up when Pulaski County had two high schools, Dublin High and Pulaski High. He lived in the Pulaski area but went to Dublin because his dad was the principal at Dublin Elementary.
Pound was exposed to some great basketball coaches as a kid as “Suitcase” Sonny Smith was the coach at Dublin and Carly Tacy was the coach at Pulaski. Smith went on to great success at Auburn University and was known as one of the top recruiters of his era, hence the nickname, while Tacy was a successful head coach at Wake Forest University for 13 years.
“Sonny sang in the church choir with my mom and dad,” recalls Pound.
With mentors like that Chuck grew to love basketball. Dublin and Pulaski High Schools combined to form the new Pulaski County High School in 1974 and Chuck went out for the Cougar team upon reaching high school. Allen Wiley was the varsity head coach by then and Chuck started on the jayvee team as a sophomore. His junior year he was on the varsity but saw more time on the bench than on the floor.
“I could shoot, but I wasn’t a good ball-handler and I didn’t play much defense,” he admits. “It’s funny, because once I became a coach I preached defense and ball-handling.”
Chuck decided not to play basketball his senior year, concentrating on track. He also ran cross country after playing one year of football, his sophomore year. After that he was still on the field, but only at halftime as he played trumpet in the band.
“My senior year I was actually the drum major,” he said. “I wore the hat with the little plume on it.”
Summer (Plunkett) Underwood, who was Chuck’s assistant for years and friend for life, had Chuck play the wedding march on his trumpet at her wedding.
After high school Chuck enrolled at Virginia Tech. He’s still a big Hokie fan to this day.
“That’s where I wanted to go, it’s the only place I applied,” he said.
With a dad for a principal and a mom who was a school teacher it isn’t surprising how Chuck ended up, but that wasn’t the original plan.
“My dad wanted me to be a doctor,” he said. “I was a chemistry major for one quarter, but it just wasn’t for me. I wanted to teach and coach so I changed to Health and PE.”
Chuck lived at home to save money. He figured he missed out on some of the social life in college but it turned out okay, as he met his future wife, Michelle LeNoir, at Tech.
“I was on the intramural softball team and she was the scorekeeper,” he said. “The following fall we were on the same co-ed flag football team and we started dating.”
And that’s how that romance started, and they married right out of college. They graduated in late June and were married on July 9.
“At that time, neither one of us had a job,” said Chuck with a chuckle. “Then Michelle got a job as a corporate accountant in Richmond, but we didn’t have a place to move into right away. We were married for a month and she was staying with a friend and I was in Pulaski living at home.”
After a month they were able to find a place and Chuck got a job working at a hardware store. Not surprisingly, his boss was impressed with his work ethic and Chuck almost ended up selling shovels and brooms for a living.
“They were going to open up another store and they wanted me to run the store,” he said. “But I went to school to be a teacher and I wanted to at least give it a try.”
Chuck had a great “in” with his father-in-law, Bob LeNoir. Bob was a teacher and coach at William Fleming High in Roanoke and was also a sports official of note in the Roanoke Valley. He was able to get Chuck an interview to teach and coach at Lucy Addison Middle School and they hired him to teach and coach baseball, basketball and soccer. Coach Pound knew baseball and basketball, but soccer was something new to him. In fact, it was new to Addison.
“They had just started soccer and I was the first coach,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about it, but Michelle went to the library and checked out some books and I did a quick study. It’s funny but one of my soccer players was Randy Eller, and he had two boys, Adam and Evan, who would be good athletes here at LB.”
After three years at Addison, Chuck got a break that landed him in Daleville. Lord Botetourt High School had an opening for a math teacher and Chuck had been taking classes at Roanoke College to qualify as a math teacher. There were also some coaching positions open, and it just so happened Chuck’s father-in-law was best friends with Charlie VanLear, who was an assistant principal at LB.
“Sometimes it’s more who you know than what you know,” commented Chuck.
Chuck got the job and started at Lord Botetourt High in the fall of 1987, just months after his first son, Matthew, was born in the spring of that year. He started out as an assistant coach in two sports, helping the jayvee basketball team and the varsity baseball team. At the time, Don Meredith was coaching varsity basketball at LB and Dewitt House was the baseball coach and athletic director. Chuck credits Meredith with a lot of his basketball knowledge.
“When I came here I didn’t know who he was,” said Pound. “He loved basketball so much, he once told me his ideal job would be an offensive coordinator in the NBA.
“Don had a friend who owned a carpet shop, and there was an office in the back where we’d go late at night to go over X’s and O’s. He just loved it. I remember one time when we all went up to Paul Hatcher’s (legendary coach at Robert E. Lee High in Staunton) house because Don wanted to run some kind of offense he was using. I just learned so much from Don and wanted to soak it all up.”
In the years to come Chuck would move up the ladder, and that’s not a reference to his days at the hardware store. He was a boys varsity assistant under Meredith, and then Ed Purdy when Don retired. He coached the LB baseball team for 10 years, two as an assistant and eight as the head coach. When the girls head basketball coaching position opened he moved to the other locker room at the LB gym and had some of his most memorable days as head coach of that team, climaxing with a state championship in 2018. He won over 300 games with the girls in 22 years as head coach before stepping down in the spring of 2019. Coaching girls was different, but he made it work.
“Obviously, the speed and the athleticism was different than with coaching boys,” he said. “Now I had to call timeouts so that they could fix their ‘scrunchies,’ and you had to learn which ones you could get on and which ones didn’t take it as well.
“I had great help with Summer, first, and then Renee. They served as a buffer between me and the girls. They were a big help.”
For a dozen of those years, Pound also served as athletic director, following Larry Carter when he retired. It’s unusual for someone to serve in a dual role these days, but as you would expect Chuck was quick to credit others, just like he did when he coached the girls.
“I had good help,” he said. “I knew things would be taken care of. Everyone chipped in and made it easy for me.”
For the past three years, Chuck remained as athletic director through some of the most difficult times for that position. He had to steer the department through the coronavirus pandemic, missing an entire spring season then working around COVID protocols in the following school year. Many times games were cancelled or changed with short notice, but you never heard Chuck complain. He always had a smile on his face and time for everyone.
“Chuck is one of the most humble humans on the planet,” said former LB softball coach Cheryl Shockley. “Athletic directors have the real thankless jobs. Chuck would be busy as a bee in his office but if any coach stopped by he would always stop what he was doing, take his glasses down and sit back in his chair to listen. His advice was always appreciated and used.”
One of the toughest things athletic directors have to deal with is unhappy parents.
“When they called me I always asked if they talked to the coach,” he said. “If you have an issue, go to the coach first. I’ve had situations where I would have handled it differently, but I never told a parent the coach was wrong.”
During his time as athletic director it was rare to be at an LB game and Chuck wasn’t there. He was often sitting in the corner on the school golf cart with trainer Tracey Driscoll, ready to handle any situation that might crop up. And he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.
“Words you will never hear Chuck Pound say…‘that’s not my job,’” said Summer Underwood. “He literally does anything and everything. If he sees a need he will step up; from pulling weeds in front of the school, to weed eating the fence line at the athletic fields on a Saturday, pruning the rose bushes, driving the bus for teams because he couldn’t get a bus driver, picking up trash in the bleachers after a basketball game and helping direct the car rider line. The list could go on and on. A conversation I foresee happening a lot at LB in the coming year; ‘who typically does that?’ Oh, Chuck Pound used to always do that, who is going to do it now?”
Chuck is quick to point out that he’ll still be around, much like Larry Carter has been willing to help since his days as athletic director.
“I’ll still be around, I’ve been going to games all my life so I’m not going to stop now,” he said. “I still have to substitute teach and I’ll be helping Tim (new athletic director Tim Fulton). I’m leaving it in good hands. He’ll be great.”
As Chuck looks back on his days at LB, he has a lot of memories and a lot to be proud of. His girls won the state Class 3 basketball championship in 2018 and in 2019 Chuck was inducted into the Lord Botetourt Athletic Hall of Fame. However, his favorite memories are of the folks he got to meet and worked with.
“All the people I got to meet,” he replied when asked what he would remember. “Pat Summitt (legendary women’s basketball coach from the University of Tennessee) and Muffet McGraw (Notre Dame) when Nikki Moats was here. Pat Summit called me on the phone and I thought it was someone playing a joke. She came to the school and met everyone and even sang ‘Rocky Top’ for us. She asked me to work at her camp, and that was quite an honor.”
In his years at LB Chuck’s family has grown. Chuck and Michelle have two grandchildren, as Matthew and his wife Stacy have two boys, 5-1/2 year-old Fuller and 3-year-old Tate. They live in Goochland County.
Younger son Andrew is engaged to Rachel Polanco and lives in Williamsburg. Both Matthew and Andrew played sports for Northside, which is where Michelle also went to high school, and both boys have jobs in the golf industry.
Michelle’s father is retired and his wife, Alm, passed away several years ago. Chuck’s parents are deceased, although his father lived to be 98.
Chuck’s other family includes his many friends at Lord Botetourt High, and they’ve grown as well. He’ll miss them.
“What I’ll miss is being in the building and the interaction with people,” he said. “Eating lunch and talking to everyone. Those were special times.”
Some, like Summer Underwood, have become so close to Pound they’re like family.
“I started coaching with Chuck Pound in 1997,” she said. “I never imagined when I started coaching with him 25 years ago the connection and life changing relationship I was about to be a part of. Chuck Pound is the most genuine, kind hearted and selfless person I know. Our families have grown together, celebrating many special occasions, enjoying numerous cookouts, ball games, amusement parks, beach trips and making memories. To be around Chuck makes your heart smile. God blessed me when he allowed my path to cross and grow with Chuck Pound’s path.”
Chuck’s last day was June 13. At his retirement party folks from all walks of life showed up to pay tribute to a guy who touched their lives; players, coaches, officials, teachers and many, many friends. If you were going to find someone to say a bad word about Chuck, this wasn’t the place to be. In fact, that place likely doesn’t exist.
“Coach Pound is a pure example of what an educator and leader should strive to be,” said current boys basketball coach Andrew Hart. “He is patient, calm, understanding, and, above all, humble. He built great relationships with the students, players, coaches and administrators and dedicated thousands of hours to the LB community. He was an absolute pleasure to work with and our faculty, staff, and students will miss having him around every day.”
Like Underwood, the folks who have worked with Chuck the past 35 years have been blessed to have known him. And, the feeling is mutual.
“I appreciate the people of Botetourt and being a part of the community,” said Pound. “This is home. I’ve always said if you treat people the right way it usually works out.”
