Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 20, 1994 TAG: 9407200075
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The city, which in the last eight months has staged Division III football and softball title events, will announce today that it has been recommended as the new site for the Division III men's basketball Final Four and the Division III baseball World Series.
The recommendation by NCAA committees in those two sports will be announced this morning at a Salem Civic Center news conference. Two sources with ties to Division III athletics confirmed Tuesday that the city will announce the two new championships. The basketball and baseball committee decisions must be approved by the NCAA Executive Council at its Aug.8-9 meeting.
The executive committee usually accepts the sports committee's recommendation. Salem also is waiting to be recommended as the site for the Division II softball tournament for 1995 and a return by the Division III softball championships in '96.
The Salem-based Old Dominion Athletic Conference is the city's NCAA-member co-sponsor for men's basketball and baseball, as the ODAC was for the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl and Division III softball in the 1993-94 school year.
Salem hosted the Stagg Bowl last December before a near-sellout crowd. The Stagg Bowl contract runs for two more seasons. The city staged its first Division III women's softball championships at the Moyer Sports Complex in May, and that committee promised it would recommend Salem as a return site after the event is played at Storm Lake, Iowa, next spring.
Salem's proposed new baseball park, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in a non-binding referendum Tuesday, is scheduled as the Division III World Series site next spring, beginning a three-year run. If the ballpark is not built or completed by May, Municipal Field could become the site, although one source said it's possible Salem's host role might then be postponed.
Salem's bid was a $6,500 annual guarantee to host the eight-team Series, which is played over a six-day period starting the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. The 1995 dates are May 25-30, so the double-elimination national tournament would begin only four days after Division II softball finishes a four-day visit to the Moyer Complex.
The baseball championships will be moving from Battle Creek, Mich., the site for the past five years. Salem's bid package was chosen over those from Battle Creek, Trenton, N.J., and Marietta, Ohio, which wanted the Series back after hosting it for the event's first 12 years (1976-87).
Salem has been recommended by the Division III men's basketball committee for a two-year contract for the 1996 and '97 Final Fours at the 5,800-seat Salem Civic Center, plus a one-year option. The mid-March, two-day weekend event finishes a three-year stay in Buffalo this coming winter.
A source said Salem's primary competition for the Final Four came from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., where the championships were played from 1982-88. New York University also made a formal bid. Two other sites, Washington University in St. Louis and Otterbein, Ohio, considered bid packages but did not make formal proposals.
Salem's financial package for the Final Four presentation was very similar to the bid that won the Stagg Bowl rights. Salem guaranteed the NCAA $20,000 annually. The city would retain the next $8,000 to pay expenses. Any remaining gross revenue would be split 60-40, with the NCAA taking the larger portion.
The Stagg package is a $25,000 guarantee with a $10,000 Salem retainer and 60-40 split. One of the largest crowds in the 21-year history of the NCAA championship, 7,304, attended in freezing temperatures and a wind-chill factor near zero, and the NCAA took home a Stagg record $35,711. The second Stagg Bowl at Salem Stadium is scheduled Dec.10.
Salem, with four Division III title events, now has one-sixth of the championships in the NCAA's non-scholarship division. There are 13 men's championships and 11 for women.
by CNB