Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 15, 1995 TAG: 9504170017
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Kernan and his wife, former WSLS news reporter Anita Bevins-Kernan, are moving to Gainesville, Fla., where Bevins-Kernan will begin graduate school at Florida later this year. She is seeking a master's degree in broadcast journalism.
Kernan, 36, has spent 12 years in Roanoke - first as sports director at WDBJ before moving to ESPN, where his schedule includes 58 racing shows this year on that network and ESPN2.
The couple made their decision to move during a December trip to watch Virginia Tech in the Gator Bowl, transplanted from Jacksonville to Florida Field for one year. While in Gainesville, the Kernans toured the Florida campus and journalism school, which is regarded as one of the nation's best.
Kernan said he tried to talk his wife, a Tech grad, into attending his alma mater, Missouri, ``but the winters there aren't what we like,'' he said. There also was the consideration of Kernan's travel to his ESPN assignments, which mostly are on the NASCAR circuit and in the Southeast.
Kernan said ``the airport in Gainesville is smaller than the one in Roanoke, but you can always drive an hour and a half to Jacksonville, as long as the traffic doesn't back up in Waldo [Fla.],'' a situation familiar to most everyone who went to the 1994 Gator Bowl.
Kernan's next ESPN assignment is next weekend at Martinsville Speedway.
RINGSIDE: ESPN's ``Top Rank Boxing'' celebrates its 15th anniversary Friday (8:30 p.m.) with a Las Vegas card highlighted by the NABF light heavyweight championship bout between unbeaten Montell Griffin and Earl Butler. Griffin beat two-time world champ James Toney last time out.
The first Top Rank show aired April 10, 1980, seven months after ESPN signed on, when Frank ``The Animal'' Fletcher decisioned Ben Serrano. Friday's card is the 656th of the series, on which more than 7,000 boxers have appeared.
Mike Tyson's first nationally televised bout was on Top Rank - a June 1985 first-round KO of Rick Spain. Sylvester Stallone used one of ESPN's New Jersey cards to tape part of Rocky V with heavyweight Tommy Morrison.
Al Bernstein has seen just about all of Top Rank after starting as something of an accidental analyst. Tommy Hearns was supposed to be the Top Rank analyst one 1980 night in Chicago, but said he was too nervous to work. So, punch-caller Sam Rosen asked Bernstein to fill in.
``We've been outdoors in a cow pasture [Gardnerville, Nev.], indoors in a rodeo arena [Gilley's in Pasadena, Texas], out in the desert, and literally at sea level on an aircraft carrier off the coast of South Carolina,'' Bernstein said. The only scrubbed card was in 1992 at Biloxi, Miss., ``when just prior to air time strong winds blew down the tent that was to house the fights.''
Bernstein, who has worked with 27 ringside partners, has no trouble naming his top-ranked bouts. First is the 1981 Caveman Lee-John LoCicero fight: ``Great fight, and included the best round [four] ever on the series,'' he said. The 1990 Tyrone Trice-Kevin Pompey fight is second: ``Two warriors combined to throw more than 2,000 punches in 12 rounds.''
GAME CALLED: With the opening of Salem's new ballpark delayed, WDBJ will not televise the Avalanche-Frederick game April 30, as had been tentatively planned.
Channel 7 programming director Mike Bell said the baseball club and station have been considering other potential dates, but the situation doesn't look promising for a telecast this season.
On the radio side, Salem has a three-station network for the first time, adding WNRV (990 AM) and WBNK (100.7 FM) in the New River Valley to Roanoke flagship station WROV (1240 AM) with Mark Neely as the new play-by-play voice Mark Neely's call.
WISE SPENDING: Craig Wright, host of the weekday 9 a.m. talk hour on WFIR (960 AM) is proposing a better way to spend the money listeners might have dropped at major-league baseball games this summer.
Wright is donating $25 to the Cave Spring National Little League's building fund, not only because he says it's a good cause, but as a protest over the major leagues' labor dispute and disregard for the fan.
He chose $25 because that was approximately his spending for a day at old Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, where he went to games for seven seasons before moving to Roanoke.
Wright, also the public address voice of the Avalanche and hockey's Express, said those interested in joining his ``protest'' should call him at the station, 345-1511, or Fred Corbett of the Cave Spring National Little League, 774-9871.
MASTERS HIGH: The two-day average Nielsen ratings for the Masters last weekend on CBS was the highest for a golf tournament since the 1990 Masters. The two-day average was 7.8, produced by a 9.8 for Sunday's final round. That number was up 21 percent from the 1994 Masters Sunday.
AROUND THE DIAL: A reminder: The only live coverage of next Sunday's Hanes 500 at Martinsville Speedway will be via Motor Racing Network radio affiliates. The ESPN telecast of the race will be aired on same-day tape delay at 3 p.m. because of the NFL draft. ... WSLC (610 AM) has added ``Fast Talk,'' a call-in hour on NASCAR topics, to its schedule. The show, with Benny Parsons as host, airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ``NASCAR Live'' with Eli Gold remains on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. ... Raycom's Carquest Bowl is moving dates and TV networks. The game, matching a third pick from the Big East against ACC No.4 or SEC No.5, goes from CBS to cable's TBS and from New Year's Day to Dec.28 or 29 in prime time. ... Former Salem Buccaneers' voice Stu Paul was named the top broadcaster in the Colonial Hockey League this season. Paul worked in Utica, N.Y.
by CNB