Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407290018
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In 1990, Virginia Amateur Sports didn't know whether it could pull off an Olympic-style sports festival in the Roanoke Valley. It did. A couple years later, it survived a messy front-office shake-up and a financial crunch to keep the Commonwealth Games of Virginia alive and in town.
VAS' fifth edition of the Games began this weekend and continues Friday, Saturday and July 17. For perhaps the first time in the Roanoke-based group's short history, its focus is beyond simply staging the multisport event each summer.
``You pay your dues,'' said Ken King, the former VAS board chairman. ``We're no longer an infant organization. We're up on our feet and ready to try a few steps.''
A VAS board meeting in June produced tentative goals that include sanctioning selected state, regional and local events; becoming a resource for groups putting on athletic events; and to ``identify, attract and facilitate'' world-class sporting events in the Roanoke Valley, King said. VAS also hasn't abandoned thoughts of a winter sports festival and of summer-games regional tournaments.
Those goals could lead VAS to sponsoring more Olympics-related events (such as the 1990 fund-raiser for which the U.S. women's volleyball team played in Salem). King can see VAS picking a sport (say, racquetball) to support by luring tournaments with high-level competition and improving local facilities enough to draw a world-class event.
Doing all that could help VAS' name recognition, its credibility as a presence in Virginia amateur athletics and its traditionally poor cash flow - especially if it produces more events to sell to corporate sponsors. Of course, VAS' cash-flow problems could prevent the group from even starting that to-do list.
``Right now, we do not have a lot of money to go out and do a lot of extras,'' said Pete Lampman, the VAS president. ``It goes back to the effort and commitment of the staff and the board [to say], `This is what we want to do, and we're going to do it. We may not get there till year four, but what can we do in year one?'''
VAS already has its name as a potential Olympic training site in a booklet sent by the U.S. Olympic Committee to countries participating in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Lampman said sports such as karate and water skiing have expressed interest in tying their state championships to the Commonwealth Games, and he said VAS will build on those relationships.
VAS could sponsor coaching clinics and tournaments, or, King said, it could assist with events such as the well-attended Crestar Festival soccer tournament. VAS already is a co-sponsor of the '94 USSSA Women's World Series and National Class A Softball Tournament in Salem on Labor Day weekend, and it could make (or lose) money, depending on attendance.
Lampman said VAS' branching out could begin with putting on drug-awareness and fitness-education programs, locally and around the state. He added VAS may look into staging collegiate intramural state championships.
It won't be easy, even if there's money to spend.
There's no guarantee local or state sports governing bodies would be receptive to VAS' efforts to become more involved in sanctioning or administering amateur events other than the Commonwealth Games. For example, the Games has little statewide influence with the high-profile sports of soccer (the competition level has decreased in the past few years) and gymnastics, which hasn't been part of the Games since the first edition.
And state games directors in North Carolina and Tennessee each said the lack of money and staff and the nearly year-round task of organizing the event force them to put off non-event endeavors except for fund-raisers.
North Carolina Amateur Sports, based in Durham, became an organizational resource for amateur athletics after the U.S. Olympic Festival was held in the Raleigh-Durham area in 1987. But Barry Pennell, who oversees the 24-sport, 10,000-athlete State Games of North Carolina, said efforts to become the state's facility resource are ``disjointed'' because of other obligations.
Eric Ward oversees Tennessee's 34-sport festival, which this year drew 19,183 athletes to six regional competitions and 10,876 competitors to the finals in Chattanooga. Fund-raising, public relations and marketing use most of the staff's time when it's not working on the Tennessee Sportsfest itself.
That makes it hard, he said, to work on other projects (and potential fund-raisers) such as a ``corporate games'' and a Christmas-holiday youth basketball tournament.
North Carolina's and Tennessee's events, however, are held annually in different cities, adding to the setup time. VAS has its organization in place, giving it more time to branch out.
VAS board member Harry Pincus Jr. of Virginia Beach, who is active with U.S. national senior volleyball teams, said VAS' clout on a statewide level may depend on how diplomatically it reaches out to state governing bodies of sports and whether its efforts reach beyond the Roanoke Valley.
VAS' best bet, Pincus said, may be to try to become the string that ties together local sports organizations on a statewide level, but he concedes provincialism may meet VAS' efforts.
``Find out if there's a cohesive effort [to administer each sport statewide],'' Pincus said. ``Probably, there isn't. How can we best implement what's not there? I don't know [how that effort would be received].
``If it hasn't been tried, it would be worth a try. If the local groups were convinced a total program would be helpful and they could share [the benefits], it could work.''
Pincus cautions that VAS' sights should be set statewide, not just in the Roanoke Valley. Lampman agrees.
``In some circles, we probably are [known statewide],'' he said. ``In other circles, probably we have a long way to go.''
by CNB