Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 10, 1991 TAG: 9103100113
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As host city for the Metro Conference basketball tournament, Roanoke was terrific in its first effort at running a major sporting event.
The out-of-town fans seemed surprised, even grateful, at how welcome their money was.
But when it comes time to actually support sports, we failed rather miserably. Again.
The best possible things happened Thursday night. The two main attractions (i.e., those schools with the greatest identity and the most followers) won, as did the home team, Virginia Tech.
Louisville and Memphis State brought sizable contingents, and even more came on Friday.
So why were there only 7,500 people at Friday's semifinal?
Don't hit me with the cost of tickets or a weak economy. If you think that matters to real fans, check NASCAR attendance.
True fans don't ask ticket prices; they just want to know about availability.
By contrast, a Roanoker was handed a free ticket in the Roanoke Civic Center parking lot for Thursday's doubleheader, which featured the Hokies.
Several things were apparent. While there was a lot of conversation about the tournament, there was virtually no legitimate interest.
The Metro had (has?) little appeal in Southwest Virginia. Other than a Virginia-Virginia Tech game, or an effectively promoted high school doubleheader, I'm not certain what will fill the civic center.
If it had been Florida State against Tulane on Saturday night, you might have been able to count the fans yourself.
Is it just Roanoke? Or the Metro? Or Virginia Tech? Or a combination of all three?
One thing the Metro should have learned. Financially, it was a major mistake coming here, despite the noble efforts of Roanoke officials to run a first-class affair.
Louisville, with its worst team in nearly 50 years, still attracts 19,000-plus to Freedom Hall for every game. In this part of the world, we don't understand that kind of support.
The killer - nobody could have anticipated this when the event was awarded to Roanoke - is that the Hokies would give up on their own team.
When Tech sells less than 2,000 tournament books to its own fans, there's a major problem.
So now there will be a different Metro, with four schools leaving and two (for the moment) taking their place.
Cincinnati and South Carolina won't be missed.
The Bearcats have that paranoia I've seen so often in the wanna-bes. They accuse the Cincinnati newspapers of bias toward squeaky-clean Xavier, the local Jesuit institution.
Bob Huggins, the Cincinnati coach, called columnist Paul Dougherty a Communist, all because Dougherty had the audacity to suggest the Bearcats should be smarter than to recruit Wilfred Kirkaldy.
Kirkaldy is the young man who was kicked out of Oak Hill Academy for an alleged sexual assault while on a recruiting trip to Syracuse.
Watching Huggins on the sideline Thursday in his shiny gray suit, I couldn't help but think if you opened his coat, you would find 17 watches pinned inside. Would you buy a used car from this man?
And South Carolina's George Felton, known by his media constituency as "Mr. Excitement," insisted that his team played well in the first half against Florida State.
This is the same Felton who made an identical statement in that atrocity with Virginia Tech a couple of weeks ago.
Florida State's Pat Kennedy then clarified matters by announcing, "We set basketball back 40 years." An honest man, Kennedy, who now will gratefully ply his trade in the ACC.
Memphis State is taking a far larger gamble by departing to the Great Midwest, where, unless it eventually can attract Louisville and/or Notre Dame, the "Great" will be a misnomer.
But with a 20,000-seat building opening next season, the Tigers wanted something more attractive than Metro teams - other than Louisville - coming to town.
Only time will tell if Memphis State, like so many others desperate to strike the mother lode, has made a mistake.
Future Metro tournaments surely will be held exclusively at Louisville, and hang the homecourt advantage. But in the proposed field of six, the Cardinals would be overwhelming favorites almost every year.
Roanoke tried hard, and as far as I can see, did just about everything right. The civic center was spruced up, although the scoreboard is badly outdated and there is need for clocks and auxiliary scoreboards in each end zone for the players.
The problem was the lack of interest in the product. All the hard work couldn't overcome that roadblock to success.
by CNB