Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 28, 1993 TAG: 9310280134
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Then, it was that.
In 1987, just before the NBA decided to put Charlotte into the big leagues, some big-city columnist wrote that the only franchise this boom town could get was one with golden arches in front.
The Hornets have sold out 194 consecutive home games. So, when Jerry Richardson went to the NFL to seek an expansion franchise, he had respect as well as money up front.
After 6 1/2 years of work and $6 million spent just to make its pitch, Charlotte went solo to success among the five NFL hopefuls on Tuesday. And the reaction to the Carolina Panthers in their first 24 hours had more than cash registers purring.
The Charlotte Observer's front-page headline Wednesday, in war type, screamed, TOUCHDOWN! NationsBank was putting that word on 55 local billboards. Radio stations, after their station identification, played a tape of a growling panther.
"There's an item in the news today that the top city in the nation in which to do business is Raleigh-Durham," said WBT Radio talk show host John Hancock. "Yes, but do they have a Carolina Panthers' T-shirt?"
They probably couldn't get them. Retailers couldn't even get T-shirts and sweatshirts tagged and onto racks, much less keep them there.
There were more than a few sales clerks who were feeling two-thirds of the Panthers' colors - black, blue and silver. When the Belk department store at SouthPark Mall opened Wednesday morning, customers crowded in several directions at an aisle crossroads.
"We had hundreds of people here when we opened," said Peter Price, a Roanoke native and Belk assistant store manager. "Literally, we'd put a box of shirts on the floor, and people were reaching in for the shirts before we got them on the racks.
"I wouldn't say there were lines. It was more like a pep rally in the store. We've gone through thousands of shirts, kids and adults. We're working with three vendors, and we get a truck about every hour, and we can't keep them."
While Belk was selling about 2,000 shirts per hour, at Champs Sporting Goods in the same mall, the line was the length of a couple of first-and-10s. A clerk said he'd been told he couldn't talk to the media.
"Besides, I don't have time," he answered. Then, a customer asked about the price on a Panthers' T-shirt.
"I don't know, sir," the clerk said. "I hadn't seen that one until you pulled it out of the box."
The Panthers weren't a day old, and already the fur was flying. It was Christmas shopping a month early. Uptown, downtown, cat lovers were easy to find. In the business district, three blocks from the Richardson Sports office, a man and woman walked together down Trade Street, in their business attire, with their faces painted half-black, half-blue.
On a vacant lot at the southwest edge of uptown - the site where the Panthers' 72,302-seat Carolina Stadium will be built by 1996 - cars were pulled off the road. Their owners were taking photographs of a barren field - except the one guy who was out in the bowled section of the parcel adjacent to I-277, doing a stiff-arming imitation of Jerry Rice running for a touchdown.
He was wearing a white shirt and tie. Welcome to the Euphoria Bowl.
In the Richardson Sports office, which will soon be expanding from its 12 employees, the toughest job belonged to those answering the phone. After six years of "Richardson Sports," now callers were hearing "Carolina Panthers."
"We've been getting calls from all over the country about season tickets," said Richardson staffer Steve Hinshaw. "I took one from Roanoke and a couple from the Martinsville area. Maybe we're hearing from the people now who weren't sure we could pull this off."
However, Charlotte can growl now, as Richardson becomes the only former NFL player who's a principal club owner, the first since Chicago's Papa Bear, George Halas. His group will spend $140 million to join the league, about $60 million in start-up costs and another $160 million to build the stadium.
That's a lot of T-shirts. And at some point before the Sept. 3, 1995 opener, the fans' giddiness needs to be transformed into patience. The last two NFL expansionists, Seattle and Tampa Bay, began 2-12 and 0-14, respectively, in 1976.
On Day One of the Carolina Panthers, however, the thoughts really weren't of an opening game still 22 months away. They were too busy putting their paw prints on the NFL's merchandise sales.
This was the day Charlotte fell in love with a black cat. They prowled around a common attitude: The NFL today; tomorrow, the clerk said they would have in another stock of T-shirts.
Keywords:
FOOTBALL
by CNB