ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608120131
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The Roanoke Rush played the second game of its second National Minor League Football season Saturday night.
It isn't whether they won or lost, although they trounced the Durham Vipers at Victory Stadium. It's simply that they played.
The Rush had a two-hour meeting at Lucy Addison Magnet School on Tuesday night. From behind closed doors, Rush head coach Duke Strager thought he heard his team unraveling.
``I thought we might be finished,'' Strager said.
In the meeting, owner Nick Rush told the players of a new club salary cap.
It basically was tighter than a wide receiver's pants.
The Rush players were promised a per-game salary this season, and for one week they received it. Rush the owner told Rush the team that if he had to keep doing that, there would be no Rush.
Strager, outside the door with his assistant coaches, described the meeting as ``a heated discussion.'' One player, who didn't want to be identified before Saturday's game, said the session ``was much hotter than heated.''
Rush told his team the pay scale would return to what it was last year. Checks would be incentive-based, like $25 for a touchdown, $25 for a sack - a far cry from $125 per game for starters and $100 for reserves.
Strager was shocked at that news. He thought the per-game pay would stay, if on a reduced scale. The coach felt he'd been placed in the middle of a crumbling situation.
When Rush told Strager what he was proposing, the coach had one thought.
``I didn't know what to say, and I was very disappointed,'' he said Saturday night. ``But I couldn't tell the players that, and I couldn't tell Nick that.''
So, Strager didn't. The meeting replaced Tuesday's workout, and Strager wondered how many of his 50 players would be around by Wednesday's practice, much less Saturday's game.
``Crazy things happen,'' Strager said. ``These guys just want to play football. We have 47 of 50 we had, and we have a few more who have called since then.''
The coaches still are being paid, assistants $2,000 for the season, Strager a bit more. If the Rush is to break even, it will have to draw more than the 839 who watched last weekend's season opener or the 1,000 or so who watched Saturday's game at the creaking stadium.
``I told the players we have a budget, like any other business,'' Rush said, ``and we weren't going to meet the budget if we didn't cut back on expenses.
``We cut the only place we could, where the money was at, the players' salaries. I didn't want to do it. I expected some disappointment, but I hoped they'd understand that this is a business.''
Rush isn't exactly a Jack Kent Cooke of the bush leagues. Clad in black T-shirt, cap and bermuda shorts, he was carrying water jugs into the stadium before Saturday's game. He drives a Chevy Blazer.
He and his wife run a dance studio in Christiansburg and he's a Federal Express delivery man. Rush also is a member of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.
Rush also is no different than many of his players, who have a dream. His is to own a pro sports franchise. Theirs is to play at the higher level, and a few of the Rushers could have that opportunity, if they keep playing.
Maybe the Rush doesn't have any butchers, bakers or candlestick makers on its roster, but it does have bankers, construction workers, cooks, teachers and insurance salesmen in uniform.
They play in a 35-team league that stretches from Toronto to Texas, for a franchise that has a $200,000 annual operations budget. The club would have broken even last year if not for first-time expenses, such as equipment and uniforms.
If the players and Rush were in this to get rich, then Victory Stadium wouldn't have turned on the lights for the NMLF last year, much less last week.
Rush said he and the club can do a better job of promoting the product. After he changed the players' pay plan, he lowered adult ticket prices from $8 to $6.
Well, that's one way to entice the populace, which may or may not buy what is - considering the Rush pay plan - sort of pro football.
Another opportunity is to do a better job marketing what's on the field, which includes some familiar names and better than decent talent.
The Rush claimed an average of 3,510 spectators per game last year, which ranked third in the league. If those numbers don't crunch - and this team has a hard enough time keeping statistics - then the only way the Rush will be in the black this season is wearing home uniforms.
There's a saying that you have to spend money to make money. What the undercapitalized franchise needs - and what Rush, the owner, must understand - is more investors than those passing through the Victory Stadium gates.
The Rush isn't going to survive on sparse crowds and promises - and broken ones at that.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 linesby CNB