Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993 TAG: 9305160053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In December, McCadden, a Roanoke City Council member, sounded the alarm that the valley might lose hockey.
He warned the Roanoke Civic Center Commission that Larry Revo, the owner of the Roanoke Valley Rampage, would move his team out of the Vinton LancerLot and likely would leave the valley unless a deal could be worked out for the team to use the civic center.
Revo eventually did leave, taking his team to Huntsville, Ala. But McCadden stayed involved, meeting with Pierre Paiement and John Gagnon at Pierre's restaurant on Williamson Road to discuss their plans for a new East Coast Hockey League team.
Paiement said he called McCadden because he had been in the news about the hockey talks with Revo.
League owners recently granted a new hockey franchise for Roanoke. Gagnon is the primary owner; Paiement the team's general manager.
McCadden, council's liaison to the Civic Center Commission, is modest about his role, but he deserves much of the credit for keeping hockey in the valley, Mayor David Bowers said. "He proved there is life after Vinton," Bowers said.
It's not surprising that McCadden, a former professional baseball player and umpire, was a key player.
Serving on council for less than a year, McCadden quickly has established himself as the city's point man for athletics, trying hard to help change Roanoke's reputation for poor support of professional teams.
McCadden traveled to Hot Springs on Thursday, to Blacksburg on Friday, to watch the Tour DuPont bicycle races. He bemoaned the Roanoke Valley's weak, and ultimately unsuccessful, effort to lure the popular event.
McCadden has become Roanoke's loud sports conscience, voicing opinions on everything sports-related, from the condition of Victory Stadium to Roanoke's reputation as a poor sports town.
McCadden doesn't mind being called the "sports councilman." He's the only council member in the past two decades with a background and experience in sports.
You don't have to go any farther than his car to know that he's a sports junkie. His license plate reads "Ball IV."
He got involved in keeping hockey in the valley because, he said, it is part of a larger issue.
"I wasn't so much concerned that hockey was leaving the valley, but I was concerned about our reputation for not supporting sports, especially professional sports," McCadden said.
Many promoters think of Roanoke of a "no-draw" city for sports because professional teams - and college teams sometimes - attract small crowds, he said.
As a result, Roanoke doesn't get exhibition games by the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, bowling and golf tournaments and other sports events that are held in other similar-size cities.
"I thought it was time for the city to rise up and say, `We want the opportunity to continue with professional sports here,' " he said.
"Now we have a chance to get rid of the tag of being a no-draw city."
Many people in the Roanoke Valley apparently do not see the economic benefit of sports, he said.
"It might not be a white-collar job, but to some people, a job is a job - especially if they are unemployed and not prepared for a white-collar job," McCadden said.
Sports also help improve the quality of life because they provide entertainment and variety in leisure-time activities, he said.
"I don't know what I would do if I lived in a place where I couldn't go and see a baseball game," he said.
McCadden supports the efforts to attract businesses and industries to the valley, but he believes that community and political leaders often overlook the benefits of sports.
It's a community mind-set, he said.
"We're so consumed with how many industries we have, and how big they are, that we sometimes fail to look at some things that will work in real life," McCadden said.
"We might not be able to steer a company from Rochester, N.Y., to Roanoke, but we might be able to keep hockey here."
Professional sports do poorly in Roanoke partly because they are not promoted regionally, he believes.
The Salem Buccaneers baseball team does relatively well, but he believes the team would attract more spectators if it was promoted more strongly on a regional basis.
Roanoke should support the Buccaneers as if they were a city team, he said.
"I'm hoping that the citizens of Salem, Roanoke County, Botetourt County and Montgomery County will support this new hockey franchise as if it were there next door to them," he said.
Besides hockey, McCadden has shone the spotlight on Victory Stadium, proposing that the city either fix up Victory Stadium or tear it down.
"If it's so dilapidated that people don't want to go there, I wonder whether it's worth it to keep it open for William Fleming and Patrick Henry to play football there," he said.
If the stadium is rehabilitated, he believes the city may be able to get James Madison University, Virginia Military Institute, Virginia Union and Virginia State to play some games there.
He would also like to see Ferrum College play Emory and Henry in the stadium.
City officials have estimated that it would cost $750,000 for the first phase of the stadium repairs, though it would cost twice that much to make all of the needed renovations.
McCadden likes a proposal by Vern Danielsen, chairman of the Civic Center Commission, to book rock concerts in the stadium to raise money to help pay for the repairs.
He believes the Alonzo Stagg Bowl, the national football championship for the NCAA's Division III schools that will be played in Salem this year, will be an economic boost for the valley.
Roanoke would do well to take note of what Lynchburg is doing to attract more sports events, McCadden said.
The chamber of commerce there has hired Billy Booker, a well-known basketball referee, to seek sports events. Booker is director of an organization known as "Lynchburg, Sports Capital of Virginia," that is leading the city's efforts.
He said Lynchburg has been successful. This year, it will have an overnight stop on the Tour DuPont bicycle race, a NBA exhibition game and a professional bowling tournament. Lynchburg also is trying to get the Big South Conference college baseball tournament next year.
For more than 10 years, Lynchburg also has had the Virginia Ten-Miler, one of the top road races in the country for men and women.
Many cities are willing to spend millions of dollars for stadiums for minor-league teams, because they know they will get back their investment in concessions and a better quality of life, McCadden said.
Roanoke officials are so concerned about the bottom line financially that they won't take any risks on sports events that could be an economic boost, he said.
He has been encouraged by the plan to organize a sports club in the valley that would bring in well-known sports figures to speak and to sponsor other sports activities.
As a result of his campaign to keep hockey and fix up the stadium, McCadden said he believes city officials are giving more attention to sports.
"In some people's mind, it has become a priority even if it's not the highest priority," he said.
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by CNB