ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512110008
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
WHO REALLY WON Saturday's Stagg Bowl in Salem? The groundskeepers, of course.
Eddie Janney pulled the night shift with four guys he didn't even know.
``We just basically watched the sky. Just a typical night,'' he said, shrugging.
Typical? Well, maybe only in Salem.
When Salem rolls out the welcome mat for visitors, it's in the form of an $18,000 tarp that covers the football field.
So what happens when the weather starts to muck around with the city's shot in the national spotlight as host of the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, college football's national championship game for Division III - the schools that don't offer athletic scholarships?
Janney, the Salem Civic Center building superintendent, spent the wee hours of Saturday morning sitting in a maintenance shop beside the city's football field, peering up at the sky.
If there was going to be another fight with Old Man Winter, Janney and a pickup crew of Salem city workers would be the first ones to punch back.
Snow? They had a plan: Let the snowfall accumulate several inches, then start 'dozing it off.
Freezing rain? They had a plan for that, too: They'd start wheeling big trucks, little trucks, even golf carts, over the tarp to bust up the ice.
They wouldn't be alone, though. A small army of Salem employees were on call through the night Friday and Saturday, just in case the worst-case weather forecast of more snow and sleet came true.
Already, upwards of 100 Salem workers had been fussing over the stadium, ever since Thursday's predicted 1-inch dusting turned into 10 inches of snow. Then, firefighters blasted away the snow with fire hoses and city maintenance workers armed with blow-torches melted the ice on the stadium's concrete steps.
Some joked that it took the strength of Sampson for Salem Stadium to dig out from under Thursday's storm so quickly, and they were right.
Carey Harveycutter, who heads Salem's sports complex and doubles as game director for the Stagg Bowl, credits Scott Sampson, the stadium's general superintendent. ``He takes a great deal of pride in what he does. He says `that's my field.' He takes it very personally.''
He's the one who was running around last week, making sure there were industrial-strength blowers rolled underneath the bleachers - their 350,000-Btu blasts warming the concrete from below. And he's the one who fretted through Friday night that, even with the tarp on the field, moisture might ooze underneath and mess up the end zone colors and line markings.
Of course, in Salem, lots of people take the football field - and this game - personally.
After the big snow, even ordinary citizens were calling to offer their help. Harveycutter ran into them everywhere. ``I was at the store [Friday] morning, the Shell Mart or whatever it is over on Melrose, and a customer said, `You're with that Stagg Bowl, aren't you?' He said, `If you need any help getting the snow off that field, let me know. I won't charge you.''' Then he scribbled down his name and number and thrust it in Harveycutter's hand.
Salem - the Roanoke Valley - is just that kind of place. ``If we put out a citizen alert, we'd have 2,000 people here helping us,'' said John Saunders, the complex's No. 2 man.
Instead, Salem lucked out. The snowstorm that was supposed to pummel Salem early Saturday zigged when it was supposed to have zagged, and Salem wound up with just plain ol' rain during the night. Sampson, who tried to catch up on some shut-eye at home while Janney subbed for him at the stadium, had pregame jitters, anyway. ``I was up and down all night, peeping out the window, trying to get a feel for what was going to happen,'' he said.
Janney's crew took no chances. At 2 a.m., the men were out on the field, mopping up the deepest puddles with squeegees.
``The Police Department came by at 2 o'clock and said it was 37 degrees,'' Janney recalled. ``I was real glad to hear that it wasn't freezing.''
By the time Janney wolfed down a bag of cheese popcorn at 5 a.m., the worst was over. And when the ground crew workers gingerly peeled off the tarp about 9 a.m., they found a field so dry that NCAA executives were amazed there'd been any bad weather at all.
``It's absolutely phenomenal what they've done when it looked like there was no hope,'' gushed Wayne Burrows, assistant director of Division III championships, as he inspected the field. ``It's a real tribute to the whole crew, and to the city.''
There was even a trophy in it for what may have been the real winning team at Saturday's game.
``Scott, I've got a gift for you,'' Harveycutter called out to Sampson just before game time, handing him a rectangular box. Inside was one of the Stagg Bowl plaques that's usually handed out just to the presidents and athletic directors from the two participating schools, and other game officials.
It was a fitting trophy: a replica of Salem's football field.
``I was afraid I'd have to paint it white for you,'' Harveycutter joked.
Janney got another type of reward. Once the tarp was up, a cohort came by and asked if he was going home.
``No way,'' Janney said. ``He's not going to send me home. If I go home and sit in that chair, I'll fall asleep. I want to see this game.''
LENGTH: Medium: 96 linesby CNB