ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 29, 1995 TAG: 9512290067
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
Virginia Tech hopes to propel its image in football and more with its Sugar Bowl berth.
The Hokies are looking for respect and exposure, but they certainly aren't helping themselves as much as they could. Consider the team's official Sugar Bowl media session on Thursday.
Tech's defense was featured. Co-coordinators Bud Foster and Rod Sharpless spoke, as did linebacker George DelRicco, defensive linemen J.C. Price and Hank Coleman, and secondary veterans William Yarborough and Torrian Gray.
Yes, there's a notable absence there. Where was Tech's only All-America choice, star junior defensive end Cornell Brown?
Brown, who sat out a short period of Thursday's workout after slightly pulling a hamstring, never was scheduled for the session. He also didn't appear for requested interviews Wednesday with newspaper reporters from Norfolk and Newport News.
``How can you have a defensive press conference and not bring your best player?'' wondered one Texas newspaper reporter.
It's a good question, and one Tech officials continuously blow off. Two Texas writers were hoping to write Brown pieces. When he wasn't available, they wrote about the Longhorns instead.
Brown's absence was particularly noticeable after Texas offensive players and coordinator Gene Dahlquist spent the Longhorns' media session Thursday morning commenting on Brown, a consensus All-America pick and winner of the Dudley Award as Virginia's best college football player.
OH, BABY: John Ballein is Virginia Tech's answer man again at the Hokies' third straight bowl trip. As head coach Frank Beamer's administrative assistant, he coordinates all scheduling aspects of Tech's postseason plans.
In addition to toting around bus and curfew schedules this week in New Orleans, his bowl folder includes something more precious. That would be the color photos of his newborn daughter, Jordan Gray Ballein.
Jordan arrived eight days ago, the first child for Ballein and his wife, Stephanie, a former Tech basketball player.
``The best Christmas present ever,'' proud dad Ballein said, displaying the photos he carries around constantly. ``You'll notice in the pictures that's she's wearing a Hokie hat, too.''
WHO'S WHO: There are Tech and Texas pennants hanging all over the walls of the Hyatt hotel, adjacent to the Superdome, and the official Sugar Bowl headquarters. However, the Sugar Bowl History and Media Guide says different teams are playing the 62nd game.
On page 11 of the guide, in a story about the Bowl Alliance, the five conference champions and at-large participant Notre Dame are listed.
The story says Nebraska won the Big Eight, Florida won the Southeastern and Florida State won the ACC. It also says the Big East champion is Syracuse and the Southwest champion is Texas A&M.
NEW AGE: One person who realizes how times have changed in Tech's program since the Big East started playing football is former Hokies assistant coach Steve Bernstein, who left Tech in 1985 and is in his fourth season as the Longhorns' secondary coach.
``I remember working in Blacksburg when we went 9-2 and couldn't get a bowl bid,'' Bernstein said of the 1983 Tech team that finished the season with five straight wins.
``One other year [1981], we were 7-4, but we lost a [Hall of Fame Bowl] bid when we had to beat VMI and we couldn't. Now, they're 9-2 and in the Sugar Bowl. That's great for them. No way we could have dreamed that back then.''
COATED: Most of more than 20,000 Tech fans are expected to arrive in the Big Easy today, and here's some advice for them:
Bring a coat.
Yes, the Sugar Bowl is played indoors at the Louisiana Superdome. However, the French Quarter is outdoors, and temperatures through New Year's Day are expected to range from a low in the mid-30s to highs in the mid-50s.
Those temperatures are about 10 degrees below normal in New Orleans for the last week of December. The number of stocking caps and lined windbreakers has increased at Tech's practice each day since their Tuesday arrival.
HOKIE AGGIES: Texas' hometown newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, told its readers on Tuesday about the school that produced the Longhorns' opponent for the Sugar Bowl.
In a Page 1 story, reporter Bob Dart wrote that ``except for their bowl-bound football teams, Virginia Tech bears little similarity to the University of Texas. There is a resemblance to another Texas institution of higher learning.
``Basically, the Hokies are the Aggies of Virginia.'' Tech's general counsel and a Texas grad, Jerry Cain, told Dart that the similarity between Tech and Texas A&M are ``uncanny.''
Both have corps of cadets, golf courses on campus and bitter rivalries with cross-state schools that tend to look down on them, Cain told his alma mater's local paper.
'HORNING IN: Texas was 4-1-1 when Virginia visited Austin for an October game. The Longhorns beat the then-No.14 Cavaliers 17-16 on Phil Dawson's 50-yard field goal as time expired.
That started the 'Horns on a six-game winning streak they'll carrying into the Sugar Bowl, and UT coach John Mackovic calls the triumph over UVa ``a milestone victory.''
``I believe we'll all look back at the field goal in the Virginia game as a magic moment for this program and this team,'' Mackovic said. ``I think that just said to every one of our players that we could do this.''
SWEET SIGN: I-35 runs next to Memorial Stadium on the Texas campus, and on that highway, you can see the upper deck seats. In celebration of the Sugar Bowl bid, UT students went into the stadium and folded seats up or down with a message that could be seen from the road.
The seats said, ``1 LUMP OR 2.''
ROOFING: The Hokies will be trying to become the first Tech football team to win 10 games in a season - the 1986 club was 10-1-1 thanks to a Temple forfeit - while extending their winning streak to that same number.
There's another streak they'd prefer to stop, however. In Beamer's nine years as head coach at his alma mater, Tech is 0-4 indoors, losing in the Superdome to Tulane in 1987, Beamer's first Tech coaching season, and three times at Syracuse's Carrier Dome.
The Hokies' last indoor win was at Syracuse, by the 1986 club that won the Peach Bowl in coach Bill Dooley's swan song.
LENGTH: Long : 115 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. Tech quarterbacks (from left) Jimby CNBDruckenmiller, Cody Whipple and Al Clark participate in workouts on
Thursday at Tulane University.