Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 28, 1995 TAG: 9511280083
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
It could be, but it isn't, however. It's played in November. When Washington and Lee and VMI step onto the court tonight at Cameron Hall, it will be a historical meeting, their first basketball date in more than 54 years.
There is something more contemporary to mark just how special this game is, however.
The tip-off time has been changed for television.
W&L-VMI would be one of those rivalries where you could throw out the record book - except there is none. Their common hoops history is one box score, from a first-round game in the 1941 Southern Conference Tournament at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, N.C.
It can't be a resumption of the series, because there is no series - although there could be. It can't be a cross-town rivalry, either, because they don't even have to cross a street to get onto each other's campus.
Love thy neighbor? Not really. That '41 game, won by VMI 39-32, was the first between the next-door neighbors following a baseball brawl in 1904. A Richmond newspaper account of the only W&L-VMI basketball game refers to the schools as ``former enemies.''
With tonight's 7:30 tipoff, however, the schools will be competing this season in all of the sports they have in common except football.
Two things are certain in the first regular-season meeting between W&L (0-5) and VMI (0-1). One of the men's college basketball teams in town will have a victory. The real winner will be the Rockbridge Area Recreation Organization, for which the game really could be a Cameron haul.
RARO, which itself has sold more than 800 tickets for the game, gets a percentage of the proceeds, likely a check in the $5,000 range. Roanoke's WDBJ, which is televising the game live, will donate a minimum of $500 to the youth recreation club in lieu of paying a rights fee.
W&L isn't taking a guarantee as the road team. VMI usually pays a visiting Division III team about $1,200. That will help RARO, too.
The game also could attract a record attendance in Cameron Hall's 14-year history. Almost 4,000 seats were gone by Monday afternoon.
The biggest crowd was the first. Although Ralph Sampson was injured, 4,460 appeared to watch Virginia beat the Keydets in the building's opener on Dec.5, 1981. The 5,000-seat arena never has been filled.
Even without a decent walk-up crowd - and one is expected - tonight's game would be at least the second largest to see a game at Cameron. Then, this date is the biggest hoops happening in this historic town since the arena replaced ``The Pit.''
Now, there's a location that rekindles thoughts of the kind of atmosphere expected for tonight's game. It will be disappointing if the crowd isn't raucous.
It will be more than disappointing if emotions somehow overflow the stretched boundaries of genteel Southern tradition that line the sidewalks here.
Yes, there will be more security than usual at VMI games. That's because there will be a much larger crowd than usual. Make no mistake, however, President Clinton won't be sending troops to Lexington to keep the peace.
VMI has arranged for additional parking and additional concessions and souvenir stands. People in the Main Street shops were talking hoops Monday. Even before tipoff, the game has generated interest in two programs in need of a good bounce.
Although the Generals are off to their worst start since the 1964-65 season began 0-13, the neighborly game should provide a kick-start for the program of new coach Kevin Moore.
``We have no apprehensions about playing [a Division I team],'' Moore said. ``We hope to make it an annual thing.''
Moore and VMI coach Bart Bellairs already have penciled in a Dec.2 date for next year's meeting.
It does seem like the neighborly thing to do.
by CNB