ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 TAG: 9610300024
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The midweek buffet:
What does Virginia Tech need to ensure a bowl trip for the fourth consecutive season? One victory would do it. It could be that easy, because the bottom has fallen out of the Big East Football Conference.
The Hokies (5-1) can reach the required six victories and a winning record against NCAA Division I-A competition with a win at home Saturday over pass-happy Southwestern Louisiana (4-4), which is giving up 33.8 points a game. The Ragin' Cajuns rank 99th among 111 I-A teams in scoring defense, or just one spot ahead of Temple.
The Big East has four assured bowl spots, and likely only four teams to fill those. Boston College (4-4) is the league's only other potential bowl team, but the Eagles would need to win three of their final four games against Pitt, Notre Dame, Temple and Miami. In other words, they need an upset to qualify.
BIGGER EAST: The demise of Temple's woeful football program, or at least a drop to Division I-AA, seems more imminent with each loss. When that happens, the Big East should go after East Carolina, which has joined Conference USA for football starting with the 1997 season but would prefer a Big East berth. It's more likely the Big East would talk to Army and Navy. ECU would make it a much tougher football league.
CUPCAKES: Army's 7-0 start in football isn't as remarkable as it sounds. The Cadets haven't played a team with a winning record. The combined record of their seven foes is 17-36. Next up is Division I-AA Lafayette (3-3), before Army finishes with Air Force, Syracuse and Navy. The Midshipmen (5-1) need one victory to make the Dec.7 Army-Navy game a matchup between teams with winning records for the first time since 1963. It also could be for an Independence Bowl spot.
REAL TIGER: Times change, to be sure, but consider Tiger Woods' arrival on the PGA Tour produced $790,594 in winnings in only 11 tournaments. That's $63,894 more than Sam Snead won in 60 years combined on the PGA and Senior PGA tours. It took Arnold Palmer 12 years on the PGA Tour to win as much as Woods has since Labor Day weekend. This year, only six players had more top-three finishes than Woods, and they all played the entire year.
RINGERS: The fledgling Roanoke City Boxing Association, founded to get youths off some of our troubled street corners, already has one accomplishment to its credit. The RCBA's remodeling job under the stands at one corner of Victory Stadium also has brought some cleanup and creates another use for the 54-year-old facility, which is pretty much a dingy embarrassment.
MORE WINS: It appears the Washington Redskins (7-1) are headed for the NFL playoffs, but this may be one of those seasons when a 9-7 record won't be enough for a wild-card berth. Entering Sunday's games, 12 teams had two or fewer losses, the most heading into Week 9 in the past decade. It may take 10-6 to earn a wild-card spotin a league that appears to have less parity than usual.
A PAIR: The NBA is celebrating its 50th birthday Friday night. Only two franchises remain in the same cities as the original 11 in the Basketball Association of America, the forerunner of the NBA - the New York Knickerbockers and Boston Celtics. (The Warriors left Philadelphia for the West Coast in 1962.)
The Knicks won the first NBA game over the Toronto Huskies, 68-66. Ticket prices that Nov.1, 1946, night at Maple Leaf Gardens ranged from 75 cents to $2.50.
TEXAS-SIZED: A recent Associated Press review of public high schools in Texas showed head football coaches in the top two classifications were paid an average of $54,000 annually, or 75 percent more than the average salary of $31,000 for a teacher who doesn't coach.
The highest-paid coach in the pigskin-crazed Lone Star state is Art Briles of Stephenville, whose salary was $82,658 in 1995. He also has a radio show, ``Coffee With Coach,'' aired weekly from a bank lobby.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB