THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 10, 1995 TAG: 9510100376
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Took a call the other day from some chucklehead who wanted to blister the department for listing the San Francisco 49ers third among three teams tied for the NFL's West Division lead.
Gave me a subtle snipe about our defense of ``Southern pride'' because Atlanta was placed over San Francisco, though he failed to explain how St. Louis fit into that heinous conspiracy. (Note to all chuckleheads: It's done alphabetically.)
I cite this, with a heavy sigh, as another brushstroke in the depressing portrait of this area as a sports market of any sophistication. Why anybody feels a need to gripe about minutiae like this escapes me.
Also, I mention it reluctantly. I'll be offering comment regularly now, for the most part on local issues, events and people, and don't want to begin on a discordant note.
And really, I won't. Because that 49ers yahoo got me thinking about our little, maligned market. About what's actually good about sports around here, what's not, and how to bridge that gap.
Everybody who cares knows Hampton Roads is the country's largest market without major league sports, with little hope for imminent change. But is this necessarily bad?
It takes getting used to if you spent your youth looking at your city's name in major league standings. But when you come to grips with that, you can see, for one example, that the Triple-A Tides and Harbor Park offer a great spectating option that more than 1.5 million ticket buyers have accepted since 1993.
The mascot is lame and the carnival atmosphere jabs purists, but Triple-A ball as we know it has huge value. The magic moments I'll never forget, of walking into a big league ballpark with my father, my vision bursting with resplendent greens and browns of grass and dirt, of shimmering lights and larger-than-life men in white uniforms, can all be had here.
The birth of sports passion doesn't know from minor or major league. And here we get baseball players before they turn irreparably surly, as most inevitably do, when opportunities for autographs and interaction are ample.
We're graced with great high school basketball talent and a pair of charismatic coaches in Old Dominion's Jeff Capel and Norfolk State's Mike Bernard, whose crowd-pleasing teams sometimes make national noise. For what those programs are, they approach their full potential on the court.
Yeah, the Admirals play low-level hockey, and nobody quite knows when blustery John Brophy is going to blow for good. But their niche is solid, and deserved.
Too many niches, though, is our albatross. The fractured loyalties and sophistication drain created by a transient population will only be cured by a big league franchise and, to quote my man Imus, that's not happening. Aside from calls to the paper from cranks who miss their hometowns, that divisiveness has been known to push an apathetic haze over local enterprises.
So local fans are left to mirror today's business climate and try to milk more value from limited resources. Which brings up Scope. The place is outdated and fairly obsolete, unable to lure national events, but it has its moments.
The joint turns absolutely electric during a Friday night Admirals game or the rare ODU sellout. (Positively stuporous for ODU-American, but that's another story.)
And until a miracle of regionalism - insert snorts of laughter here - unfolds and a real arena goes up, it's all we've got.
So is it too much to ask to get Scope a bath or something? If all of Norfolk's money's going to bail out Nauticus, geez, stick somebody on scaffolds and hose down that cruddy exterior. Plant more greenery. Drape some of Brophy's bolo ties over the doors.
Maybe that's dressing up a sow. But it's our sow. by CNB