Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501230044
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
WROV announced Friday that the Carolina Panthers' games will be aired starting next season on both FM (96.3) and AM (1240). WROV has the only FM signal in Virginia carrying the NFL expansion club's broadcasts.
Jim Carroll, the Roanoke station's sports director and general/regional sales manager, said WROV has signed a three-year contract, with an option, with Capitol Broadcasting, which holds the Panthers' radio rights.
Carolina's game coverage on WROV also includes one-hour pregame and postgame shows. The club's ``Panther Talk'' call-in show on Monday nights will stay on WROV-AM and becomes the Carolina coach's show starting July 3. Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dom Capers is expected to be named the Panthers' first coach early next week.
``There's going to be some smaller-market AM coverage down in Southwest Virginia, but nothing as strong in the heart of our coverage area,'' Carroll said. Charlotte's WBT (1110 AM) is the club's flagship station. WROV's game coverage of the Panthers will begin July 29 when Carolina meets Jacksonville in an expansion battle in the NFL's annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.
Charlie Dayton, the Panthers' director of communications, said the club has attracted ``extensive'' interest from radio stations in Southwest Virginia, an area that has been part of the Redskins' network for decades. Washington will remain on the air in the Roanoke Valley, where WFIR (960 AM) has been the club's affiliate for years.
Dayton said the Panthers and Capitol have not come to a decision on the play-by-play voice and game analyst yet.
``I would expect that to be one of the first orders of business after the Super Bowl,'' he said.
DIG THIS: ESPN college basketball studio analyst and former Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps says he wants to run for president. And he's never even been on C-SPAN.
Phelps, 53, told the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal during a break in the ESPN studio that he is ``angling for 2004. I'm going for it. ... I just want to coach the country.''
Phelps, a registered Democrat, has worked with the inner-city poor since retiring from Notre Dame and was appointed special assistant to the Office of National Drug Policy by President Bush in 1992. He lost his job when the Clinton administration arrived. He said he won't pick a party preference until after the 1996 election.
There was no word on whether Phelps plans to ask Dick Vitale to be his running mate.
PIRATED: Teamline, the national 800-line phone service that broadcasts college games to paying customers, had a familiar voice as the most-heard during football season. It was East Carolina's Jeff Charles, the former Virginia Tech play-by-play voice.
The Pirates ranked first in Teamline calls from September through November, followed by Tennessee, South Carolina, Purdue, West Virginia, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Iowa. Virginia Tech was 10th. Virginia ranked 17th.
MAC ATTACK: NBC and USA Network tennis analyst John McEnroe always has been one of the more passionate players about the Davis Cup, but he says in the February issue of Tennis magazine that the sport has all but killed the international team competition.
``Clearly, nobody cares about the Davis Cup,'' McEnroe tells the magazine. ``I don't have to trash the Davis Cup. It's trashing itself. Does anybody give a rat's [expletive] about it? [Pete] Sampras says he's too busy to play, and I don't understand where that's coming from. How about not playing Palm Springs ...
``The bottom line is the way the tour works, players are required to play these inane tournaments, and it sabotages the Davis Cup. Get with the program. The things that count in tennis are the Grand Slam events, Davis Cup and the Olympics. The less they shine, the more tennis becomes irrelevant to most people.''
ROANOKER TO MRN: The Motor Racing Network has named Roanoke native Mark Williams as production director. Williams, a 1974 graduate of Northside High School, has worked mostly as a television free-lancer in recent years and did his first NASCAR event for TBS three years ago at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Williams will be the producer of all of MRN's live race radio broadcasts in 1995.
AROUND THE DIAL: ABC Sports' Super Bowl XXIX coverage on Jan.29 begins at 4 p.m. with a two-hour pregame show. The kickoff is scheduled for 6:18 p.m. ... ESPN's ``Up Close,'' moves to 6 p.m. starting Monday with its new host, Chris Myers, who is replacing Roy Firestone. The first week of Myers' shows will air from Miami, the Super Bowl site. ... ESPN's NFL draft analyst, Mel Kiper, predicts Carolina will select Miami (Fla.) defensive lineman Warren Sapp with the top pick in the April draft. He figures the Redskins, with the No.4 choice, will select Penn State running back Ki-Jana Carter. ... Bob Costas, rarely seen on NBC Sports recently, returns Sunday as studio host of ``NBA Showtime'' before the network's doubleheader (12:30 p.m., WSLS). ... When Bill Walton moves out of NBC's NBA studio to courtside for the network's Xavier-Notre Dame telecast today (4 p.m., WSLS), it will be the former UCLA All-American's first visit to South Bend, Ind., since the Fighting Irish snapped the Bruins' 88-game winning streak 21 years ago. ... The 11th annual All-Madden Team show, like the NFL analyst for whom the squad is named, moves from CBS to Fox on Sunday (6 p.m., WJPR/WFXR). ... ESPN college football analysts Lee Corso and Mike Gottfried will return to the sideline for Sunday's Hula Bowl telecast as head coaches of the two all-star squads (8 p.m., ESPN).
by CNB