Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 27, 1993 TAG: 9303010191
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
CASSELL GOES COMATOSE
THE HOKIES have taken the crowd out of the game so much that Virginia Tech is on course to set a low for average basketball attendance.\ It used to be a hive of Hokies energy, full of venom for villains.It is now comatose Cassell.
There hasn't been a sellout at Virginia Tech's 9,971-seat coliseum since Bimbo Coles played his last game there in 1990. The average attendance has dropped for the sixth straight season, to 4,357 this year.
To avoid setting the school record for lowest average home attendance, Tech needs 8,235 people in Cassell when the Hokies play Southern Mississippi at 3 p.m. today in the home finale. It's unlikely.
The testimonials are like flowers dropped at the feet of the dormant concrete shell that houses Tech's torpid basketball team.
The seats, canted steeply, help a crowd intimidate. On one side of the arena, students are courtside. It used to be loud. Used to be frenzied. Used to be . . .
"You'd have to get right up in the team's ear at timeouts to give them instructions," Southern Mississippi coach M.K. Turk said.
Louisville coach Denny Crum said a full Cassell in the early or mid 1980s was among the two loudest arenas in which he's coached. The other: Bradley's old gym, which Crum said was two metal Quonset huts fastened together.
"[Cassell] used to be one of the toughest places in the country to play," Crum said. "Everything is right down on top of you. Even the bad seats are not very far away. The noise level was such that if you couldn't read lips or weren't really close to the person, they couldn't hear a word I said."
Charlie Moir remembers some of that. On Feb. 9, 1977, Memphis State led by 24 with 15:30 left and by 11 with just under two minutes left. Six thousand people saw Tech win, 70-69.
"We had scored 10 straight points, and the students started standing and did not sit down the rest of the game," Moir said. "Memphis State panicked. That definitely won the ballgame. It felt like [there were] 25,000."
From 1981-86, when Tech compiled a 107-53 record, the Hokies were 63-9 at home.
"When you would walk out of that tunnel," said Tulane assistant coach Ron Everhart, a Tech guard during those years, "you always looked up in the far right-hand corner of the arena. If there were people in those seats, it got you fired up [because it was a sellout]. Al Young used to be at the front of the line, and he'd look up and turn around and either shake his head, `No,' or nod, `Yeah.' "
There occasionally are people in those seats - usually kids who feel like being alone. Some crowds this year have been so small one could feel the breeze of circulated air in the 32-year-old building.
Most agree packed houses will return about the same time Tech starts winning again.
Even the students' loyalty has been diluted. Ticket manager Tom McNeer said this was the first season in memory that no Hokies game has drawn more than 3,500 students. Students are allotted at least 5,000 tickets.
The per-game price of season-ticket sales has been $10 since 1988-89, yet sales have fallen every year since then to 1,865 this year. Tech hasn't averaged more than 6,000 at home since 1989-90.
The reasons? Take your pick. Tech is working on its fifth straight losing season. Big draws such as Wayne Robinson, Dale Solomon, Dell Curry and Bimbo Coles are long gone. Metro Conference attraction Memphis State is gone. Tech doesn't play run-and-gun anymore.
Whichever, Tech knows attendance matters. The Hokies were 160-24 at home from 1972-'86 and are 51-25 since.
Prod the beast, however, and it can rumble awake. Tech's second- and third-biggest draws last year were against Tulane (6,044) and UNC Charlotte (6,472). Both were ranked. Both lost; two of Tech's 10 victims. After the Tulane game, Hokies coach Bill Foster said: "How can you get tired listening to that?"
Lately, Tech should be exhausted. Former Hokie Quinton Nottingham played on a 10-18 team in '86-87 and a 19-10 team the next year, and he remembers the difference.
"I'm not sure many of the quote-unquote fans came to see us [in 86-87]," he said. "That's typical of Blacksburg fans. They don't come to see their players, they come to see other teams. The following year, because we were winning, we did have real good crowds."
Nottingham, who lives in Blacksburg and attends many Tech games, said he feels bad for the current Hokies players.
Moir does, too. He remembers a December game against William and Mary that sold out . . . students camping out to pick up tickets . . . Jan. 30, 1978, when 18th-ranked Syracuse succumbed to Tech and 9,400 spectators by 16 points . . . and, of course, Jan. 10, 1983.
Hours before it was to play in Cassell that day, Memphis State learned it was the nation's No. 1-ranked team. A few hours later, it learned a Cassell lesson: 69-56, Tech.
"It was a tough place to play. It's a home crowd advantage," said Moir, who attends some Tech games as a scout. "I hate to see it [now]. It is sad. I don't know how to describe it."
Everhart talks about the ghosts of Cassell. In Charlotte recently, Everhart met with former Hokie Allan Bristow, the NBA Hornets' coach. Bristow's first question: How are the crowds at Cassell?
Everhart said he still gets a "chill" when Tulane plays at Tech. But it's obvious even he senses what's missing.
"That was all they had," he said of the crowd at last year's Tech-Tulane game. "After the crowd got into it, they played on the crowd the rest of the way. It was a lot like the way it used to be."
\ FALLING CASSELL-AVERAGE ATTENDANCE 1982-83 - 6,620
1983-84 - 7,924
1984-85 - 8,218
1985-86 - 8,449
1986-87 - 5,569
1987-88 - 8.768
1988-89 - 7,878
1989-90 - 7,154
1990-91 - 5,889
1991-92 - 4,615
1992-93 - 4.357*
(*with one game left) Source: Virginia Tech media guide
\ SEASON TICKET SALES
1983-84 - 1,750
1984-85 - 1,974
1985-86 - 1,956
1986-87 - 2,551
1987-88 - 1,846
1988-89 - 2,518
1989-90 - 2,459
1990-91 - 2,332
1991-92 - 2,048
1992-93 - 1,865
(Source: Virginia Tech ticket office)
\ VA. TECH'S HOME RECORD
1982-83 - 16-1
1983-84 - 12-3
1984-85 - 12-2
1985-86 - 12-1
1986-87 - 8-4
1987-88 - 13-1
1988-89 - 6-6
1989-90 - 9-5
1990-91 - 7-5
1991-92 - 8-4
1992-93* - 8-6 * - with one game left