THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 11, 1995 TAG: 9511110581
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C01 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
The tents are down. The calliope silent. The Canadian Football League season-ticket circus that threatened to grip us in a bizarre sort of way has been canceled.
It's for the best.
When T.J. Morgan of the Hampton Roads Sharks called off his frantic bid to secure a CFL team for next season, the turf cleared for Lonie Glieberman's Shreveport Pirates to move in.
For the short term at least, Morgan's dream of bringing pro football to Hampton Roads appears dead. At another time, Morgan might have nursed great possibilities.
The Virginia Beach chiropractor has football in his veins, on his brain, in his soul. A former Beach high school star who played at Richmond, Morgan has a passion that cannot be ignored.
Passionate people can do amazing things. And Morgan, despite having no experience in multimillion-dollar sports enterprises, could have been the catalyst to get something done here.
Most people would agree with Morgan, that local ownership with established roots would be preferable to the nomadic Pirates, who are desperate for a place to stem their financial bleeding.
It's just that Morgan's timing was lousy, through no fault of his own. His effort was gearing up slowly, as planned, while Glieberman was bottoming out in Shreveport.
Suddenly, after hearing Hampton Roads touted within the CFL, Glieberman cast his eyes this way and decided he'd found fertile land.
When Glieberman crashed a public seminar on major league sports in Hampton Roads two weeks ago and stole the spotlight from Morgan and the other invited guests, Morgan was all but through.
Which was why the ticket drive he kicked off this week was futile. Morgan has no franchise, Glieberman does. Period. It's the major hurdle Morgan could not remove.
He hoped his trump card involved teaming up with the Baltimore Stallions, the only mild success in the CFL's 2-year-old American experiment. When that merger attempt was foiled, Morgan had no choice but to back out.
There is enough resentment for Glieberman within the Sharks' camp that it wouldn't have been surprising had Morgan carried on in an effort to drive Glieberman away.
Instead, he made the right choice.
So as Morgan mulls what might have been, the attention shifts back to Glieberman, the kid president of his rich father Bernie's team.
The first question you have to ask is why the Gliebermans - or Morgan for that matter - want anything to do with the swooning CFL.
Why they don't cut their losses and bail is curious. They've dropped millions in Ottawa and Shreveport, and they'll likely lose money here, too.
They hold some fuzzy vision of the CFL snagging a lucrative TV contract with CBS, but cooler heads know that's not going to happen.
Still, if the CFL chooses to keep its American teams, there probably will be a Glieberman-owned squad playing at Foreman Field next summer, mainly because the Gliebermans have nowhere else to go.
And while it is proper to be skeptical of Lonie Glieberman because of his spotty business history, there is no evidence that he is evil, scheming or steals lollipops from children. Or that his product is not worthy of support if fans feel so inclined.
Let him take his shot.
Feel bad for Morgan's ruined chances. But know that at least the slate is clean for the area to get an accurate look into its interest in minor league pro football, which the CFL most definitely is. by CNB