ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 26, 1996 TAG: 9610280126
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: ON THE AIR
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Phil Simms won't exactly get teary-eyed when he walks into RFK Stadium on Sunday morning, but it will bring a flood of memories - not to mention a trip to somewhere he's never been before.
Simms made plenty of visits to RFK when the New York Giants and Washington Redskins were rivals at the top of the NFC East. This time, in what is supposed to be RFK's last season of NFL games before Jack Kent Cooke's franchise moves to a new stadium in suburban Maryland, Simms goes to Washington as an NBC Sports analyst.
NBC has its only Redskins' game of the season Sunday (1 p.m., WSLS) when the Indianapolis Colts visit RFK, and Simms will be in the TV booth with fellow first-teamers Dick Enberg and Paul Maguire. Simms has never been in RFK's cramped TV booth, where heating ducts running through the box challenge anyone coming and going who is taller than 4 feet.
``RFK was my favorite place to play,'' said Simms, who spent 15 years with the Giants. ``Nowhere else was even close, not Giants Stadium, nowhere. The town, the great fans, a grass field. I bet if you went around the league, to old [Dallas] Cowboys, I know to old Giants, they'd say RFK was the best. It's sad it's going away.
``The noise, those ugly hog[-snout wearing] fans, the band. It was great. I remember we were in the locker room one time right before a game, and [coach] Bill Parcells came up to me and said, `Simms, when we step out of that dugout, those people are going to be all over us. They hate us so much, I think they like us.' And you know what, I understood what he was saying. The competitiveness of the place is unbelievable.''
Simms said he isn't surprised the Redskins are 6-1, because he knew the commitment of the franchise to success and knew coach Norv Turner's inner fire from his days as the Cowboys' offensive coordinator. Still, he wondered when the Washington turnaround would occur.
``I always thought Norv would win,'' Simms said, ``but there's such a fine line in the NFL, and the last two years he was on the other side of it. They lost all of the close ones. There's a difference this year. Defense is why they're winning. [Defensive tackle] Sean Gilbert has made a huge difference in what that team can do.''
BIG GAME: More than the rankings say that today's Virginia-Florida State football telecast (3:30 p.m., WSET) is a big game. ABC Sports is sending its first team - Keith Jackson, Bob Griese and sideline reporter Lynn Swann - to Tallahassee, a rarity for an ACC game. It's also the largest ABC regional, going to 38.5 percent of the nation's TV homes. Ohio State-Iowa goes to 30.7 percent.
HOKIE HOOPS: Half of Virginia Tech's 16 Atlantic 10 Conference men's basketball games this season will be televised. Dayton's visit to Cassell Coliseum on Feb.1 will be an ESPN date, and Tech has home games with George Washington, Temple and Rhode Island on ESPN2.
The Hokies' visits to Dayton, GW and Massachusetts will be part of the conference package, likely on Home Team Sports. The A-10 network also will finish its regular season with retiring Tech coach Bill Foster's last home game, against Xavier on March 2. The Tech-Virginia game in Richmond on Feb.25 will be part of the ACC schedule produced by Raycom/Jefferson Pilot.
NO HOLLAND: Virginia athletic director Terry Holland is giving up something he really enjoys - doing analysis on a few ESPN college basketball telecasts each season. The UVa AD said he just doesn't have the time to take away from his job in Charlottesville and his role on the NCAA Basketball Committee, of which he's the new chairman.
``I'm going to miss it,'' said Holland, who began working TV during his years as Davidson's athletic director. ``It was good, too, because it maybe allowed me to see teams that could end up on the [NCAA Tournament] bubble, and it would give me a better feel for a decision on that team.''
FINISHING CIGAR: The first two hours of NBC's 13th annual Breeders Cup telecast will be pre-empted locally today for the Pitt-Virginia Tech football game (noon, WSLS). However, the glamorous race, the Classic, won't leave the starting gate at Toronto's Woodbine Racetrack until about two hours after Channel 10 joins the show at 3:30 p.m.
The $4 million Classic field will include the famed Cigar, which is trying to become the first horse to win back-to-back Breeders Cup Classics. It also will be Cigar's last race. The field will include Dare and Go, the only horse to ever beat Cigar, Preakness winner Louis Quatorze and Editor's Note, the Belmont Stakes victor.
NO BULL: When the NBA's 50th season tips off Friday night, the defending champion Chicago Bulls will start another season of telecasts on WGN - but that schedule will be seen only in the Windy City region. The NBA finally got the games blacked out on cable systems around the nation in a decision stemming from a court case several years ago over Turner Broadcasting's ``position'' as the league's ``national cable'' telecaster.
IN THE TRAP: The Golf Channel continues to sprout. The cable network launched in Japan on Oct.1 and now reaches 4.5 million U.S. cable homes. However, it won't be coming to the region's largest cable system anytime soon.
``What we try to determine is whether there's a large enough target audience for a channel [devoted entirely to golf],'' said Bill Sledd, Cox Communications' marketing manager in Roanoke. ``If this were Myrtle Beach, it wouldn't be a question.''
Sledd also hit another tee shot down the middle when he pointed out that The Golf Channel has little attractive inventory and relies on Nike and European tour events to fill air time. ``Until they get the product, is it really The Golf Channel?'' Sledd asked.
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of Simmsby CNB