Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 9, 1990 TAG: 9006180178
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For the last year, Fonder has repeated the same spiel hundreds of times, about the biggest sporting event in Virginia history and the impact it will have on the Roanoke Valley.
Apparently, people are listening. How else could Virginia Amateur Sports, of which Fonder is president and executive director, have raised more than $700,000 in contributions for the start-up of the Virginia CorEast State Games.
In 26 days, the 29-sport festival will begin at venues that stretch from the Roanoke Valley to Smith Mountain Lake to the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington. Fonder is expecting about 5,000 athletes to compete in the games, which primarily run July 5-8.
It has taken a massive selling job of an event which has become a summertime staple in most other states.
Once Fonder created the Roanoke-based Virginia Amateur Sports and made clear its intention to bring the State Games concept to the Commonwealth, a rival - Sports Virginia Inc., of Richmond - quickly staged what it called State Games in 1989.
The Richmond organization will hold another Virginia State Games one week before the Roanoke Valley games, a situation that has created confusion for Fonder and his aides. Not only has VAS had to sell and prepare to stage its State Games, it has had to introduce them, too.
Roanoke will host the Metro Conference men's basketball tournament in March. The organizers of that event, rooted in a 15-year-old NCAA Division I league with a school of regional interest in Virginia Tech, has had longer to prepare than the State Games, which is starting from a concept foreign in these parts.
It also seems, to some, that the VAS State Games are being held in what might as well be a foreign country.
"A lot of the people coming here don't know anything about Roanoke," Fonder said. "Ninety percent of our competing athletes have never been in Roanoke, and they're all from Virginia."
Bob Hartman, the Games director, said, "I've had more than a few people ask me how long it takes to get to Roanoke by car."
Fonder said the biggest surprise of the Roanoke State Games will be the number and quality of the facilities the athletes will find in the valley. "Honest to God, some of these people think they're coming to a farm town," Fonder said. "It's almost like they wonder, `Does this place have flush toilets?' "
Building a concept
Fonder went to Richmond on Tuesday for a meeting of the Governor's Commission on Sports and Fitness. As one of the 19 members on the board, Fonder was hoping the VAS State Games would receive an endorsement and be recognized as the official games of the commonwealth. But because Gov. Doug Wilder has appointed 2 1 GAMES Games eight new members to the commission - and this was their first meeting - the matter was tabled until late summer.
Commission members will attend the State Games in the Roanoke Valley. What Fonder hopes they will see is competition and camaraderie among athletes in an event manned by more than 1,200 volunteers. It will be time for the games to start selling themselves.
Fonder, 42, a Wisconsin native, came to Roanoke as a swimming coach. He left the Roanoke Valley Gators in April to devote full time to VAS, which in based in the Shenandoah Building in downtown Roanoke. His background as a sports consultant and his connections with amateur sports officials, plus the push of his vibrant personality, have launched the State Games concept locally.
Still, he figures the majority of the folks in the valley, not to mention the region and the state, aren't quite sure about what the games are and what they will entail.
But one of Fonder's first steps in building the games was his best. At the LancerLot workout facilities, he found an ally with state-wide recognition in Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton. Cranwell pushed a $175,000 state grant for the inaugural games through the 1989 General Assembly.
Starting with the state appropriation, Fonder and the VAS board and staff have raised more than $560,000 in cash contributions for the Games, and another $150,000 in in-kind contributions, such as advertising time and space from Roanoke-region media outlets. CorEast Savings Bank, the major corporate sponsor, made a three-year, $450,000 cash commitment.
"We're not like the Children's Miracle Network," said Fonder, discussing VAS' fund-raising efforts. "We don't have what you might call a `health' cause to benefit. But this is amateur sports, an apple pie and America situation. We have something for everybody. If you're not interested in supporting one sport, maybe you're into another.
"The other thing we've tried to sell people on is how good this will be for the Roanoke Valley. The state will be coming to Roanoke. The cities and county, the banks, the businesses have been super to us.
"Now, we're in a position where we have to be very careful. We have something here they already have in 47 other states, so it's not like we've rebirthed the baby. But we have done what no one else has for Virginia, and organizationally, we might have tried to do it too well. That's not bad. But some of these new people on the governor's commission want to know, `Why is that in Roanoke? How did Roanoke get this?'
"If we're not careful and don't protect our turf, someone from some other part of the state will swoop it away in a heartbeat."
Getting the word out
Fonder said the establishment of another State Games in Virginia has been the only negative for Virginia Amateur Sports. "Then, too, maybe because of them, we've done a better job, maybe we've worked harder," he said.
VAS has signed a contract with Capitol Broadcasting to deliver promotional advertisements about the Games to 77 radio stations around the state. During the event, Capitol staffers will produce vignettes on the athletes and the Games for future use.
"We want to get the word out, statewide, just what we have here," Fonder said.
In the original 18-month budget Fonder created when VAS started as a non-profit corporation, he figured revenues of $470,000 from fund-raising. His expectations for ticket sales are very conservative, based on the lack of identity for the event. When he adds up the figures, he's planning on a $60,000 profit to use a starting point for the '91 Games.
The '90 General Assembly, making major budget cuts, committed only $56,200 to the next State Games. But Fonder said with Cranwell's support, that figure could be revised upward. Fonder knows the organization and performance at the first State Games will be a factor in moving ahead with his plans to expand the event to include regional qualifying for many of the sports.
"I'm not going to judge whether we're a success on how many spectators we draw," Fonder said. "Our first job was to educate sponsors, or prospective sponsors. Then we had to educate the local media, and then build an identification with the national governing bodies of the sports.
"Getting a coordinator for every sport, with connections statewide, to give us an access route to the athletes was so important. Now, at the State Games, we'll be educating the general public. It's pretty difficult to do that when they haven't seen what we're about."
What the public will see is badminton at Bast Center, cycling on the Blue Ridge Parkway, gymnastics at Cave Spring High, handball at the YMCA, soccer at River's Edge, table tennis at North Cross and water skiing at Smith Mountain Lake, among other sports.
The first event, equestrian competition, will be held a weekend earlier than the rest of the sports - June 30 and July 1 at the Virginia Horse Center in Rockbridge County.
"We're creating, from scratch, a big event," Fonder said. "But people will know about what it is and who we are after we've gone through it. We have a logo that will identify the games that will end up being printed on over 600,000 items."
The opening ceremonies will be held Friday night, July 6, at Victory Stadium. The State Games Oldsmobile Torch Run starts June 25 on the State Capitol steps and travels from Richmond through Norfolk, Fredericksburg, Winchester, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Lynchburg, Danville, Martinsville, Radford, Christiansburg, and Salem, finishing in Roanoke at the stadium.
With 3 1/2 weeks to go, the first Virginia CorEast State Games is finalizing names and numbers of participating athletes.
"What I'm doing now is sending a daily fax to God," Fonder said. "I'm asking for no rain those days. I think that's the only thing that can stop us now."
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on June 15, 1990
Because of a graphic artist's error, much of the map showing locations for Virginia CorEast State Games, which appeared in Saturday Extra, was incorrect. A corrected version appears on Page 10 in today's Extra section.
Memo: CORRECTION