THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603160518
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
RICHMOND - One more time, Hampton Roads eyes come to somebody else's party.
There is something to see up here if your tastes run toward college basketball. Something to celebrate if you live at this end of Interstate 64.
The crowds. The noise. The charged atmosphere that comes with a big occasion.
``It couldn't be any crazier,'' said Dick Sander, director of athletics at Virginia Commonwealth University, the host school for this NCAA subregional.
Once more, Hampton Roads has managed to avoid all the craziness. This sort of nonsense - cheering crowds, tent parties outside the Richmond Coliseum, crowded hotel lobbies, overbooked restaurants, the crush of media, TV exposure - is not Tidewater's problem.
But isn't the tournament just 90 minutes away by car?
Sure it is. Just as last week's ACC tournament was four hours away in Greensboro.
So close, if you really want to be there. Yet so far. Too far to touch civic pride or swell local coffers.
Big-time or semi-big-time sports are all around Hampton Roads.
A PGA tournament in Williamsburg.
The Colonial Athletic Association basketball tournament in Richmond.
NASCAR in Richmond.
The soccer Final Four in Richmond. The Redskins in D.C.
For a fan who prefers his action live, all roads lead away from Southeastern Virginia.
The NCAA tournament, Sander said Friday, ``creates an image for VCU and for Richmond.''
If you accept this premise, you might suspect that the relentless absence of high-profile sports events also creates an image for an area, even one as populated as Hampton Roads.
Remember, nobody came to Richmond or VCU and offered postseason basketball tournaments. Or soccer Final Fours. Local officials aggressively sought out events like this one, as they did the 1994 women's basketball Final Four.
Richmond has an arena barely big and modern enough to host this sort of event. Its airport is only adequate for the traffic the NCAAs produce. You figure that Richmond and VCU must get by as much on sheer energy and salesmanship as on facilities.
``I think the community responds to it,'' Sander said of the challenge.
VCU was a finalist for a 1999 subregional. The NCAA has encouraged Sander to bid again, and he says he will, hoping to land the tournament in 2000 or 2001.
In the capital city, the sports future is not waiting on some consultant's report.
Speaking of arenas, the Richmond Coliseum is hardly large; Friday's day session attracted a near capacity crowd of just under 12,000. With only 10,200 seats for basketball, Scope disqualifies itself from consideration for NCAA men's tournaments.
A new arena could change that some day, but only if the building of a facility inspires Hampton Roads to get in on the excitement.
Friday, inside a large white tent, a bronze soldier honoring the Richmond Light Infantry stood guarding a TV monitor.
Around the monitor, loud, happy people drank beer and watched the action coming from inside the Coliseum. Several few feet away, a three-piece combo played.
Outside, drivers looked frantically for someplace to park, while men on foot asked passers-by if they had any tickets to sell to the North Carolina game.
Craziness is what it is. Presumably, everything is much calmer in Hampton Roads. Once again. by CNB