Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 3, 1992 TAG: 9201030057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED SHAMY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IN SPORTS, WINNING ISN'T EVERYTHING
Frank Beamer has been the head football coach at Virginia Tech for five years. He earns $101,000 per year, though his cumulative record at the helm of the Hoagies is 22 wins, 32 losses and one kiss-your-sister.Those are not the sort of numbers that put your majorettes in the Orange Bowl parade.
Still, Coach Frank enjoys a sterling reputation which earns him serious consideration whenever a football coaching job becomes available - once every 19 seconds somewhere in the United States, according to the latest crime statistics.
Last year, it was Boston College aching for Coach Frank to lead the maroon and gold. This year, it was the San Diego Chargers - the San Diego Chargers! - and, soon, Georgia Tech.
This phenomenon is proof of the obvious: Sports bears no resemblance to real life.
Were sports part of life as we know it, Coach Frank's record would hardly merit praise. Hoagie fans can whine about money, about Brill, about the tough schedule, the gusty wind, the bad bounces and the quarterback's throbbing anterior cruciate ligament. It still leaves 22 wins, 32 losses and a knot.
Nobody cares about my health, shortage of ideas or writer's block when they accurately assess my two-year career at the Roanoke Times & World-News as a wretched failure. My performance is comparable to a 22-triumph, 32-defeat, 1-tie coaching streak.
To date, Washington Post editors have not offered me a job as chief of their Rio de Janeiro bureau, the journalistic equivalent of an offensive coordinator's job with the San Diego Chargers (!).
If life bore any resemblance to sports, Gov. Doug Wilder would actually belong in the presidential race. He's been so flagrantly outmatched by a mere state's problems that he would be deemed ready to tackle the challenges of the country.
It's the Beamer factor. Do a lackluster job so that you can aspire to even greater heights.
The crack management team at the Roanoke Civic Center, the home of shoddy maintenance, scheduling and operations, would be put in charge of Madison Square Garden.
Whitey Taylor, who couldn't dupe consumers into watching auto races at the bathtub-sized Victory Stadium track, would be hand-selected to organize the Indianapolis 500. Indy cars would roar around inside a teacup.
The experts who quickly dismantled the Blue Muse restaurant's bright future on Roanoke's City Market would be dispatched to manage The Library. Or La Maison.
The contractor who erected our 14-story Poff Federal Building with cement and Styrofoam packing chips would be hired to build the Great Wall of China Extension.
The Beamer Factor is an exaggerated Peter Principle: Workers rise to their level of incompetence, and keep rising.
With a record of 22 conquests, 32 setbacks and a stalemate - or its real-life equivalent - we all could soar through the ranks of careers at which we do not excel.
Me? Random House is bugging me to sign a contract. Keep an eye out for my first novel.