Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409160020
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Ray Cox
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They describe a campus whose harmony has been shattered like a Waterford goblet hurled into a stone fireplace.
Details include sorority sisters shrieking at sorority sisters, basketball players dunking on the helpless, and frat boys bullying their non-aligned brethren.
The venom has spilled down the elevator shafts at the high rise dormitory, flowed down Tyler Avenue, and swamped the low-lying areas of the Dedmon Center.
The leaf-shaded greensward of the campus has turned into a battleground the likes of which has not been seen since Stalingrad, Gettysburg, and Woody vs. Mia.
Diatribes have filled the campus chronicle, The Tartan. The tension, you could hack with a broadsword.
The source of these agonized disputes? Animal rights vs. Flaunt that Fur, Babe? Just Say No vs. Burn 'Em if You Got 'Em? I'm Saving It vs. Just Say Yes?
No, friends, we're talking about the storm raised over one Rowdy Red, that aging mop of a Highlander athletic mascot.
Some love him. Others would like to torch him like Mt. Vesuvius.
"He's a laid back, fun guy, just like everybody that [sic] goes here," one cool dude said.
"He makes us look like kids," one matron-to-be said.
"The mascot himself should stay but the name should change to exemplify a more intellectual, positive image of Radford," a scholar pontificated.
Deep thoughts such as these haven't been uttered since Sophocles.
Nor such feverish action since the last Beginning of the World party.
Red, basically, has had a tough life. Sadistic toddlers punched him. Enemy cheerleaders swore at him. Opposing coaches asked law enforcement to have him removed from the premises.
Worst of all, students at Radford whom he purported to represent, dissed him and dissed him bad.
Not even that was the worst of it. A year or so ago, the big boy busted his head plumb wide open, bless his fuzzy-hided little heart.
Yes, sad to say, no surgeon skilled in the arts of ersatz noggin repair could be found. So Big Red had to be put on the disabled, unable to perform list.
One Radford wag said it was a Rowdy Redshirt year.
Basketball coach Ron Bradley would not be amused, and frankly, neither am I.
Certainly, the crimson champion has given cheer to generations of Highlanders at heart.
So if go he must - and as the anguished cries from the front lines of this struggle indicate strongly, this is not a forgone conclusion - he must go a hero.
Our heroes must have monuments. Several modest poposals for the immortalization of our Red:
His lush scarlet fibers could be the lining for winter greatcoats worn by generals in the Russian Army. Red is their color and our product would come cheap. They probably won't even have to hock the samovar to make the purchase.
They share everything over there, right? Are they still Communists? Somebody told me they were our allies now.
Or, we could sell Red's hallowed remains to the royal family in jolly old England. Decorating costs what they are these days, the Queen, the Prince and their progeny could use a price break. The tabloids smell financial blood and the hue and cry is on in the Isles.
The red would go fine with the rest of the decor. You know the Brits with the plaids and all, assertive colors are de rigueur.
Perhaps some samples could be sold to hippies. Can't guarantee the tie-die suitability, what with the inch-thick fur dilemma, but we can assure it'll not fade away.
A short description of Red, in a happier day:
Many of us prefer to think of him as a carmine fellow, upright and regal, his green plaid tam-o'-shanter a jaunty flourish. Others consider him an ungroomed, loutish, dangling-nosed redcoat. The unkempt relative who arrives at the party dressed in a singed sportcoat and on the tail end of double Wild Turkey on the rocks.
To heck with all that. We're looking for the final resting place of a Bona Fide Hero.
And this is what I propose:
Like any citizen who wants to see his tax-paying education dollars maximized on veritable temples of statewide learning, I have always wanted the absolute best for Radford University, chartered as State Normal and Industrial School for White Women.
In that spirit, I have one final proposal.
Radford must have football.
Tap a couple of the vigorous supporters we all know who are out there and start that enterprise up. Nothing grandiose. Division I-AA is fine.
I even have a coach for you. Norman Lineburg. He's local. He can also coach circles around a lot of college geniuses I know.
We'll put the stadium down by the New River. Sure it'll flood. So does Victory Stadium in Roanoke and the Parry McCluer Bowl in Buena Vista.
But we won't have to worry about that. Red is going to be the turf. A little thick for the speed burners from Marshall and Furman, but we'll take a while to catch up, being an infant program and all. And what we'll call, in a resurrection of a grand old brand name, TartanTurf, it'll take one hell of a 100-year flood.
Garish, you say? Red grass not your taste? We're talking marketing. You need to beef up that business curriculum down there where you went to school, dude.
We need a gimmick, here. We need red turf. Looks great on color TV. Outfit the players in snow white with green plaid trim. A fashion rage.
Absolutely.
We need to be noticed. We want to be great.
We will be great.
Streaking across the plains, down by the lazy river. Donations from wealthy alumni are our right. Touchdowns are our destiny.
And it's all because of Red.
Giving of himself for us.
by CNB