Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9406200025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Assistant ticket manager Sandy Smith said as of Thursday, Tech had sold 9,901 season tickets (not counting complimentary or corporate tickets), which he said is "ahead of schedule."
Tech had 10,759 season-ticket holders last year. The most Tech has sold: 12,061 season passes for the 1992 season.
"We anticipate breaking that record this year," Smith said.
Most of the current sales, Smith said, have been to Hokie Club contributors and renewing season-ticket holders. As the season gets closer and Tech advertises more, general public sales are expected to increase, Smith said.
Tech has a bunch of returnees, including Independence Bowl most valuable players Maurice DeShazo and Antonio Banks, who will try to improve on the Hokies' 9-3 1993 season.
\ BOWLS AND THINGS: Tech athletic director Dave Braine and coach Frank Beamer welcomed the demise of the push for a college football playoff in the near future, although Braine noted talk remains that a playoff could grow out of the bowl system.
"Some people would be in favor of that," Braine said. "I would have to wait and see. My own feeling is, when you go past the first week of January, it's too long a season. [The players] are still here to get an education first. [And] once a playoff starts, a bowl game isn't fun anymore."
Beamer agrees, saying he would favor a playoff "only if there were 32 teams, and then it would take five weeks to play."
\ ETC: Tech associate athletic director Danny Monk made the final eight but not the final four in Oklahoma State's search for an athletic director. Monk received Braine's recommendation for the vacant Maryland athletic director's job, but Monk hasn't decided whether to formally apply for the position . . . Tech basketball forward Shawn Smith always has been friendly with calories, but Smith's latest attempt to slim down may be his most successful. At season's end, Smith, who stands 6 feet 6, weighed 279 pounds. He's down to 249 on his way to 245, a goal set for him by Tech coach Bill Foster. Assistant coach Chris Ferguson said: "Bill told him, `If you don't get down to 245, you're going to face some consequences. I don't know what they are, but you're going to face 'em.' " . . . McNeese State head basketball coach Ron Everhart, a Tech graduate, has granted permission for Hokies' recruit Myron Guillory to use McNeese State's gym and weight room for summer workouts with Cowboys' players. McNeese State is located in Guillory's hometown of Lake Charles, La.
\ ON THE DIAMOND: Tech's baseball team, coming off its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 17 years, has signed two high school players - right-handed pitcher Jon Hand of Hylton High School in Woodbridge and shortstop Gerald Parr of Grimsley High School in Greensboro, N.C. Hand went 12-1 for Hylton, including victories that eliminated two Timesland teams from the Northwest Region tournament: 6-2 over Cave Spring and 7-1 over Franklin County in the championship game. Tech coach Chuck Hartman said Hand's control and breaking ball could put him in next year's starting rotation. Hartman said Parr, a switch-hitter, "can play on either side of the bag, and he gives us a speed element we wanted."
by CNB