ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 1, 1996 TAG: 9601020111
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK AND RANDY KING STAFF WRITERS
Among the most stunned in the Texas football contingent about the defensive back impostor who disappeared the day before the Sugar Bowl is the man who recruited the player.
Former Virginia Tech assistant coach Steve Bernstein was Ron McKelvey's position coach. He also recruited the player from Pierce Junior College in Los Angeles. Bernstein is a California native.
The man known as the 23-year-old McKelvey was ruled ineligible for Sunday's Sugar Bowl after a Salinas, Calif., newspaper reported he really was 30-year-old Ron Weaver.
Texas officials investigated the report, and have turned their findings over to the FBI. McKelvey/Weaver left his team hotel room Saturday.
``I didn't know,'' Bernstein said. ``Ron was a nice person, a friendly type, kind of quiet. I'm as stunned as anyone. He was just a nice kid, or man, or whatever, in our program.''
The Salinas newspaper report said McKelvey/Weaver had duped his coach for two years at Pierce before signing with the Longhorns. It was reported that the man supposedly has been collecting information for a book on scandals in college football.
Asked if McKelvey ever was seen with a tape recorder or whether he had been taking notes in team situations that seemed unusual, Bernstein said he ``hadn't seen anything like that. Nothing.''
McKelvey was Texas' backup left cornerback. In the Sugar Bowl, Bernstein flopped redshirt freshman Tony Holmes between the two corners as the No.1 backup.
DEALING: Tech athletic director Dave Braine said Sunday that he and Frank Beamer will continue to talk about sweetening the coach's contract when the Hokies return to campus after the Sugar Bowl.
Braine and Beamer already have begun negotiations. Beamer begins the second year of a five-year contract today, a deal in which his annual total package is in the $300,000 range. His base salary goes up 5 percent to $148,517 today.
MORRISON SHOWS: Tech sophomore linebacker Tony Morrison, one of two players suspended by Beamer for the game, was in the Louisiana Superdome seats Sunday night.
Morrison's family had purchased three ticket packages for the game before he was suspended by Beamer after his Dec.9 arrest by Blacksburg police for petty larceny, destruction of public property and public intoxication at a Blacksburg nightspot.
Morrison visited with teammates at the Tech hotel Saturday.
Morrison went to the game with his mother and older brother. Morrison's father, Jim, who gave up his ticket so the linebacker could attend the game, said Saturday from the family's Virginia home that his son is ``obviously dejected about this.''
``He's been real silent about it,'' Jim Morrison said. ``We've been trying to stay away from conversation of bowls in any way.''
Jim said Beamer told him he would welcome Tony's return to the team in January.
``I'm hoping he'll be back in the program,'' Beamer said.
TOUGHNESS: Neither of the Sugar Bowl opponents played an imposing schedule, according to the final NCAA strength of schedule rankings.
Among 105 Division I-A teams (three of the 108 don't play the ranking required nine I-A foes), Virginia Tech's schedule ranked only 87th. The Longhorns' schedule was 59th.
Tech's opponents, not counting decisions against the Hokies, were 47-60 (.439). Texas' foes were 58-60-1 (.492). Notre Dame played the nation's toughest schedule, followed by Illinois, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Vanderbilt, Indiana, Washington, Purdue, Houston and Northwestern.
Tech's state foe, Virginia, finished 16th on the schedule poll (62-44-1,
Florida and Nebraska, the teams that meet for the national championship in Tuesday's Fiesta Bowl, were 24th and 30th, respectively.
SWEET STUFF: The arrival of the Bowl Alliance has nearly doubled the Sugar Bowl payday for its teams. The per-team check to Texas and Tech for Sunday's game was $8.33 million.
The minimum guaranteed payout in the Sugar Bowl's contract with the alliance is $7.825 million. Last year's Sugar Bowl had owned the record, when Florida and Florida State each received $4.45 million.
That's a long way from the first Sugar Bowl on Jan.1, 1935, when host Tulane defeated Temple before a crowd of 22,026. Each school was paid $27,800.
Tickets that day were $3.50 and $1.50. The price of Tech-Texas tickets Sunday night ranged from $50 to a Sugar Bowl-record $100.
CHANGING HEADLINES: In its early Sunday edition, which hit the streets on Saturday afternoon, the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a Page 1 headline that read: ``Texans vs. Turkeys.''
Somebody in Tech's estimated contingent of 25,000 in town must have vehemently objected to being called a turkey.
In the paper's final Sunday edition, the headline was changed to ``Texans vs. Gobblers''
AMAZING: The Sugar Bowl's new sponsor, Nokia, is based in Helsinki, Finland. Best known as a cellular phone manufacturer with commercials featuring a juggler, Nokia has a three-year sponsorship contract with a three-year option.
Company and bowl officials refused to reveal the cost of the sponsorship. Whatever it is, Nokia can afford it. The company's worldwide sales in 1994 totaled $6.36 billion.
OLD MVP: Todd Blackledge, analyst for the ABC telecast of the Sugar Bowl, has fond memories of the game. The former Penn State quarterback won the Miller-Digby Award as the bowl's ``most outstanding player,'' leading the Nittany Lions to the 1982 national championship over Georgia, 27-23.
SUGAR BITES: If you came to New Orleans without a game ticket, there was no problem come Sunday night. Hundreds of scalpers outside the Superdome an hour before kickoff were hawking tickets, apparently to little avail. One man was so tired of trying to move his tickets that he was offering to sell two for the price of one. Tech and Texas officials were both questioning the bowl's holding of game tickets when both schools could have sold many more to their fans. Each school sold all of the 17,400 tickets each was allotted in a four-day period. ... Obviously, a lot of late money in Las Vegas was plopped down on Texas. At kickoff, the Vegas books had moved the Longhorns up to a 3-point favorite. When the opening line was posted on Dec.5, Tech was listed a 1-point favorite. ... The game was officiated by a crew from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff Virginia Tech's Bryan Still attempts toby CNBsnag a pass in front of Texas' Bryan Westbrook during Sunday's
Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.