ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601050018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Commentary
TYPE: COMMENTARY
SOURCE: RAY COX
Happy New Year four days late. Hope you and all your Hokie-loving associates have recovered from that awful case of the alcohol-induced flu you caught down on Bourbon Street.
Some folks we know who visited that latter-day domed House of the Rising Sun (it's been the ruin of many a poor Texan boy) were carried by air back through the fog to Old Virginny with tales of abuse.
Although not strictly a member of the radical animal rights herd, at least half of a Blacksburg married couple had been stampeded into a lather at the treatment of one Bevo, the Texans' long-horned bovine mascot.
Raged she: ``That poor cow. All he did was stand there the whole game.''
He: ``What's your beef? He could be somebody's dinner.''
She: ``But his quality of life has to be hideous.''
Not so for holders of the stock of that billion-dollar company of cellular-phone hawkers who sponsored the Sugar Bowl. Nokia shareholders have done so well that many of them are now able to buy new sunglasses, better to endure the nighttime visual display of midnight sun and northern lights over the company's headquarters in Finland.
Come to think of it, now that those Finns are starting to spend some bucks on this side of the Atlantic, they might be persuaded to sponsor the city to the north of here. For a corporate sponsorship that would reduce tax rates, certainly the good citizens could go for renaming their city Roa-Nokia.
That is for others to ponder, though, because the focus here has always been the sporting life in the New River Valley. Which is just as well, because thanks to those Texas-hammering Hokies, our little corner of paradise is now on the map. If Lee Corso can take note, then so can those fleet-fingered, cell-phone-dialing Finns.
Now that we know the Finns are a financial force, maybe we can attract sponsorship money to some particularly worthy local causes. Several are particularly pressing, as they were last year, and the year before that. To wit:
There's the nettlesome issue of the gym floor at Christiansburg High. It's still slick as Michael Jordan's head. It's still hard as Latin.
They need a new one. Unlike the present one, it should be made of natural materials. Wood will do.
The resulting basketball, volleyball and wrestling palace could be called Nokia Hall.
Blacksburg High's Bill Brown Stadium still needs a press box. Perhaps you disagree, but then you don't know the three victims who were lost without a trace during the hurricane that blew through during the Christiansburg game. One was sucked by a gust of wind out of the flimsy rear window. Another was drowned by the deluge that came through the hole in the roof. Another went blind trying to see the game through the waterfall that cascaded down the leaky plastic glass that forms the front window.
We could call it the Nokia Memorial Literary Center.
The Giles football field needs a periscope on both bench areas of its football field. The crown of the field is so high that from the sidelines, all anybody can see of the game is either the bottom of the players shoes or the tops of their headgear.
They could call the 'scopes the Nokia Football Observatory Stations.
Pulaski County High could use a swimming pool.
The Cougars' swimming team would never have to leave campus to work out and entertain its opponents. It also would give its followers one more reason to puff out their cardinal- and gold-decorated chests in the presence of its more impoverished associates from the rest of the Roanoke Valley District.
They could call it the Nokia Arena of Chlorinated Aquatic Athletics.
Ray Cox, a sportswriter for The Roanoke Times, covers New River Valley high-school sports.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB