Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993 TAG: 9306200173
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
One day in February, Del. Chip Woodrum, D-Roanoke, was sifting through legislation on its way through the House Committee on General Laws.
House Bill No. 1514 would establish the Virginia Board on Physical Fitness and Sports. Woodrum paused.
"The title intrigued me," he said. "I like sports."
Then he read a paragraph that authorized the board to endorse and choose sites for the Virginia State Games - the annual event put on by a Richmond-based group that since 1990 has competed for attention, participation and recognition with the bigger, nationally sanctioned, Roanoke-based Commonwealth Games of Virginia.
"I said, `Ohhhhh,' " Woodrum recalled.
He went to House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, who has been the Commonwealth Games' friend in a high place since 1989.
"I said, `Not only do you smell a rat, you've got him cornered,' " Cranwell said.
Woodrum stalled the bill in his subcommittee because he and Cranwell felt it threatened the Commonwealth Games, which has attracted thousands of athletes and their money to the Roanoke Valley.
"I tried to bite its throat out," Woodrum said. "I wrestled it to a draw."
Meaning: Instead of trying to have the bill killed, Woodrum back-scratched Richmond and Tidewater legislators who favored the bill, and wrote in a re-enactment clause. The General Assembly passed the bill and Gov. Douglas Wilder signed it in March, but it won't become law unless the next General Assembly approves it.
By then, Woodrum and Cranwell hope, Patrick County native Mary Sue Terry will be governor. That, Cranwell said, "puts us in a better situation to protect these kinds of things in Southwest Virginia. We hope she would be more sympathetic."
The bill still will have plenty of support. Richmond Del. Shirley Cooper, the bill's patron, sides with Sports Virginia of Richmond, which runs the Virginia State Games. They want a single state games under somebody's control - in this case, the state board - that may or may not rotate the event from city to city.
Their common complaint: Just because the Commonwealth Games started in Roanoke doesn't mean the event should stay there forever.
"[Different] areas should vie for the games," Cooper said. "They could stay in Roanoke."
Asked why the bill mentioned the Richmond-run games specifically and not state games in general, Cooper said, "I can't answer that." Art Buehler, division director at the Department of Conservation and Resources, helped Cooper write the bill. He said the proper name wasn't intended to mean the Richmond games only.
Sports Virginia's Frank Maloney claimed his group didn't lobby legislators this year as it has in the past. Richmond Del. Frank Hall called Sports Virginia representatives his "friends" and had a hand in No. 1514, but it apparently isn't a priority for him. "I vaguely recall it," he said.
The Cooper bill didn't authorize site selection by the board it would create. That language came from a similar bill introduced by House Speaker Tom Moss, D-Norfolk, that later was combined with the Cooper bill.
Moss said the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce wants a shot at the Commonwealth Games - despite an agreement with Sports Virginia that will put the Virginia State Games in Tidewater in 1994 and '96. He said the bill's intent is to bring the Commonwealth Games under control of the state board instead of Roanoke-based Virginia Amateur Sports.
"It's probably a good tourist thing, good for the economy," Moss said of the Chamber's motives.
Cranwell and Woodrum hint that Cooper and friends never intended to publicize the bill and hoped to sneak it into law. "This thing sprang up like mist in the night," Cranwell said.
Cooper disagreed.
"No one can say it was pulling the wool over anybody's eyes," she said.
In any case, competition in statewide Olympic-style festivals now covers two venues: the playing field and the General Assembly. The Richmond games run from June 18-27. The Roanoke event is July 15-18. Legislators convene again Jan. 12, 1994.
"We'll have had more time to do the Lord's work, to make sure we've touched base with all our friends," Cranwell said.
by CNB