THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408250707
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
Jerry Noell was a few days shy of 13 when he sold his first Coke and bag of peanuts for the old Norfolk Neptunes football team.
``A bunch of us kids used to go to their games and just hang around,'' Noell said. ``One day I was asked (by a vendor) if I'd like to sell things for them.''
It was a dream come true for a youngster who, in the days before cable TV, would sit for hours with his transistor radio listening to distant professional teams.
Noell worked both end zones at Foreman Field for the Neps, selling 12-ounce drinks from a tray.
``People would use them as chasers,'' Noell said. ``It's not like it is today. Everyone in the end zones had a bottle. The place would be littered with Jim Beam and Southern Comfort bottles when the crowd left.
``And the stands were packed. I loved the atmosphere. I loved working the crowd.''
Loved it so much he never quit.
Noell is a rarity in Hampton Roads - a full-time professional vendor at arenas and stadiums.
It's a second job for most, a means of scoring some extra cash.
For Noell, a 38-year-old self-professed sports fanatic, it's a career, and a slice of heaven on earth.
He works William and Mary and Norfolk State football, the Norfolk Tides, the Hampton Roads Admirals, NASCAR races in Richmond, the Tidewater Sharks, the Hampton Roads Hurricanes, Old Dominion basketball and Langley Raceway. On rare occasions the Washington Redskins or Baltimore Orioles will ask him to work a game or two. He also does circuses, concerts and parades.
When he's not working a game, he's almost always watching one. When he's not vending, he channel-surfs among ESPN, HTS and the baseball superstations. Often he hops into a car with his best friend, Stan Vasko, a part-time vendor, to head out of town to take in a game.
``Jerry is everywhere,'' said WTAR sports director Jack Ankerson, who as general manager of the Virginia Squires of the old ABA hired Noell to keep statistics. ``When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.
``He and Stan will go on a whim to D.C. to a Redskins game, a Bullets game. The guys find a way into an arena somehow. They turn up at the strangest places. I was doing an Old Dominion game in Charlotte and turned around and there were Jerry and Stan.
``Jerry's made a career out of sports. That's his entire life. He couldn't play it. He's not in the broadcasting or print end of it. So he asked himself, `How do I get involved?' and found a way to do it.''
Vending has given Noell, a Granby High grad who didn't play organized sports, the chance to strike up casual friendships with sports personalities. Dave Johnson, whom he met when Johnson managed the Tides, and former ODU star Dave Twardzik, player-personnel director for the Charlotte Hornets, are both friends.
``Davey Johnson is a great guy,'' Noell said. ``We went to Pittsburgh to see the Mets play the Pirates just before he was fired (by the Mets). We talked with him in the parking lot after the game. We knew days before it hit the newspapers that he was gone. He had brought his golf clubs along for the trip.''
Monday, after working Norfolk-Richmond games at Harbor Park two nights in a row, Noell hopped into a car with friends to watch the Tides play in Richmond. Earlier this summer he ventured to Binghamton, N.Y., to watch the Mets' Double-A affiliate. Last season he visited Atlanta, New York and South Bend, Ind.
``I just love sports, I love being there to see the games and talking to fans and players,'' he says. ``It's my passion.
``A lot of people tell me that I've wasted my life, and maybe they're right. But I've had a helluva time. A lot of people would be envious of the things we've done.
``I've had a ball.''
VENDING IS ONE of the purest forms of capitalism in sports - the more you sell, the more you make. That means Noell must hustle. He practically jogs when he's circulating the stands at Harbor Park. He rarely sees the game's big plays because his face is directed toward the fans, not the field.
By the second inning of the Tides' game Saturday, in which a record crowd of 13,069 crammed into the stadium, he had worked up a drenching sweat (he'll lose 5 pounds on a hot day). As the Tides were in the death throes of a 7-2 defeat, Noell stopped selling and worked the crowd. He walked over to dozens of regular customers to say hello and shake hands.
Some Harbor Park regulars watch other vendors walk by, then buy from Noell.
``You build up a relationship with customers in this business just as you do in any other,'' he said. ``You treat them right, you're friendly and you get to know them. When I work an Old Dominion game, if there are 2,000 people there, I know 85 percent of them.''
Noell clears between $4 and $5.50 per tray of drinks, depending on where he works. On a good night, he'll sell 10 or 15 trays.
If that sounds like a lot of money, consider that it provides him with a modest income of less than $10,000 per year.
``You can make a living at vending,'' he said. ``But you have to be in a major league market. You can't really make a decent living in a minor league market like Hampton Roads. There just aren't enough opportunities.''
His lifestyle is Spartan. He lives at home with his father and doesn't have a car. He depends on friends, mostly Vasko, to get him around town.
NOELL'S FAVORITE PLACE to work is Harbor Park. The fans there tip better than most, and they're friendlier, he says.
His least favorite? Richmond, where he often worked at The Diamond for the Braves in the mid-1980s. One evening in 1986 a fan slugged him from behind. He apparently thought Noell had made an amorous comment to his companion. Noell's head hit the cement, and he briefly blacked out. He then got up and continued selling, unaware he had been knocked out.
Noell says he hasn't had any such problems in Hampton Roads, though he's found Admirals fans to be caustic.
``They are the greatest fans in the world when the Admirals are ahead,'' he said. ``You can't find better fans. But when we're behind, they are the most obnoxious fans in the country. Not just the area, the country.''
Noell said he never planned to make vending a career.
``It kind of just happened,'' he said. ``The first thing I would tell someone who wants to get into this is to tell them not to get into this.
``I didn't go to college and I wish I had. That was a mistake.
``But I've enjoyed what I've done. I've enjoyed the fans so much. There are so many good people I know through vending.''
And many who know him. ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photo by PAUL AIKEN
Jerry Noell makes a sale at Harbor Park. Noell said he didn't plan
to make vending a career: ``It just kind of happened.''
by CNB