THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511230621
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: THE CAROLINAS LENGTH: Long : 305 lines
You pass by towns that call to mind some vague country lyric about a drifter searching for the love he lost or Ol' Blue, the best huntin' dog he ever taught to fetch. Maybe both.
In North Carolina, you start in Charlotte, Cornelius or Gastonia, Hickory or Greensboro, then find I-85 South, past Thomasville and Mooresville and Mount Holly. Then you hit South Carolina and Gaffney and Cowpens, Lyman and Greer, Easley and, at long last, tiny Clemson.
The road most traveled this NFL season transports fans of the expansion Carolina Panthers to their team's home games. It's 143 miles from Charlotte to Clemson University's Memorial Stadium and takes anywhere from 2 1/2 hours to a month of Sundays - depending on the traffic. THE TRIP
The first game the Panthers played at Clemson, a 7:30 night exhibition against Denver, there was road construction on I-85. Fans, unaware of the impending delays, left at an hour they figured would get them to the stadium in plenty of time to see the teams warm up. They saw warmups, alright - for the second half. At one point, it took 80 minutes for fans to navigate the 10 miles between I-85 and Memorial Stadium.
Bus drivers for both teams were given a secret route that would ensure them a quick, efficient exit from the area. The lead driver of the Broncos' buses reviewed his instructions and concluded he knew a shortcut. That was about midnight. At 2:30 a.m., the story goes, he and the Broncos were still stuck in the middle of the postgame logjam. Thousands of fans didn't arrive back in Charlotte until 4 a.m. Sunday.
Things have improved dramatically since, in part because more and more Panther fans leave home early and leave the driving to someone else.
Broach Sports Tour, the Panthers' ``official motor coach,'' sends an average of 40 buses, each carrying 45 passengers, to Clemson each game. Buses - beg your pardon, ``Carolina Caravans'' - leave nine North Carolina locations between 6:30 and 8 a.m., and depart Clemson 30 minutes after the game. Following last week's game against Arizona, Broach buses left Clemson at 4:30 p.m. and pulled into Charlotte's swanky Southpark Mall at 7:30 sharp.
There are at least two other competing companies, mom and pop-types, that shoot another 30 buses up and down I-85.
If you have a game ticket, you can go roundtrip on Broach for $39. If you need a ticket, the trip costs $74. For the deluxe shebang - roundtrip ride, ticket and pregame buffet - bring $91.
Or, you can round things off at an even C-note by riding the Panther Prowler. That's Amtrak's contribution to congestion control, capacity 400. Game ticket, food and drink are extra.
``We know we're asking an awful lot from people,'' says Mark Richardson, son of owner Jerry Richardson and the team's director of business operations. ``We're playing 21 road games this season. To see the support we've gotten, given all we've asked, we're very encouraged.
``When we made our pledge to the NFL, we told them people would travel an hour and a half to two hours to see a game. We're seeing that, and more, this year. It's reinforced our feelings about Carolina and pro football.'' THE FANS
For years, the Carolinas was Redskins territory. Even now, the Redskins most often occupy the TV time the Panthers would get if their home games were sold out.
Some people say there remains an enclave of Redskins fans in Charlotte, a hearty band that just can't come to grips with this new invader. If so, they're doing a good job of hiding.
More likely, they've become like Roland Markham. He spent much of his life in the Washington area; in fact, he attended the first game the Redskins played in Washington after moving from Boston. That was 1937.
When he boarded the bus Sunday, he was wearing a Panthers sweatshirt and Panthers cap. No trace of burgundy and gold on this Carolina season-ticket holder.
``It's pretty tough,'' Markham said, referring to his gradually dissolving interest in the Redskins. ``Once a Redskins fan, always a Redskins fan. There's something about `Hail to the Redskins' that makes me want to stand and, I don't know, salute.
``But this is a whole new life and a whole new experience. I'm an adult now; I was a kid then. To me, there's something exciting about a whole new team, a whole new stadium and a whole new city.''
Charlotte. The city. Ask someone why they decided to attend Panthers games this season and often as not the reply will be that it has something to do with Charlotte.
``Charlotte is a tight city; you have to live here to understand,'' Markham said. ``There's nothing like the spirit that exists here anywhere in D.C., Maryland or Virginia. It's a community with a lot of pride. Just go to any neighborhood.''
Denise Trauth feels it, too. She and husband John Huffman moved to the area 2 1/2 years ago so she could become dean of the UNC-Charlotte graduate school. He's a professor of Communication Law at UNCC. She grew up in Cincinnati; he was raised in Iowa. Their last stop before Charlotte was Toledo, where John was a Lions fan.
``In Charlotte, there's a real sense of ownership,'' Trauth said. ``People want Charlotte to be a great place. You move here and you become infected by the enthusiasm.''
Lord knows, Trauth and Huffman have plenty of that. When rain came down in buckets during Carolina's second home exhibition game, Aug. 26 against the New York Giants, husband and wife briefly debated what to do, stay or leave. It wasn't much of a decision.
``At halftime, we went to a concession stand, bought two pairs of $26 Panthers shorts - you know, the baggy kind the kids wear - and changed into them after the game so we'd have something dry to wear in the bus on the ride back,'' Trauth said. ``And then we sat right back down in our seats and watched the second half.''
Greensboro is only a 90-mile saunter from Charlotte up uncluttered I-85. Why not just head north and pull into a sports bar, watch the Blue, Silver and Black for the price of a beer and a burger, and be back home in time for ``60 Minutes''?
``It's like giving birth,'' said Huffman. ``I wanted to be there right from the very beginning, not pick it up when it was a year old.''
Huffman and Trauth already have purchased two club-level seats for next year. First, they had to buy a Permanent Seat License - a fee charged fans for the right to purchase season tickets, sort of like paying a restaurant for the right to make a reservation to buy dinner there. Their cost: $5,400 - $2,700 per seat. They used profits from the sale of their home in Ohio to cover the cost.
``He's in his 50s, I'm close to 50,'' explains Trauth. ``We've never lived in a city with a real NFL team. This is a chance to do something we've never been able to do before.
``If this was the permanent situation, playing here, it would be very hard to do. But it's not. It's the first, and only, season this will have to be done. And, while it sounds like a lot, the night we won that first home game, it was a terrific, wonderful feeling. Was it worth it? Absolutely.''
They're talking between bites of a pregame buffet of tacos and other Mexican delights. Not far away, a few steps from their bus and a few more from Gate 1 at Memorial Stadium, Kenny Mays is lighting the grill he stored in the belly of the bus. Friend Randy Cook pops the top on a can of Old Style beer; Cook brought back several cases from a business trip to Wisconsin.
It's the third Panthers home game they've attended, two by bus, one by car. Burgers and beer have been on the menu each time.
They're no strangers to pro football. Each year, they'd make a trip four hours away to Atlanta. But neither ever claimed to be a Falcons fan. It was just football.
``Actually, I've been a Steelers fan for 25 years,'' says Mays, 34, a salesman. ``A friend gave me some Steelers memorabilia right before they started their Super Bowl years. They've been my team ever since.
``But I'm a Panthers fan first and foremost now. I grew up here and I've waited my whole life for an NFL team. I wasn't going to wait until next year to go to the games.''
They, too, already have bought PSLs for next season. Cook, who owns a ceramic tile installation business, paid $5,400 for two. Mays spent $2,400 for his pair.
``I went to Lambeau Field recently, to the Packers Hall of Fame,'' Cook says, ``and I heard there that there are 19,000 people on the waiting list for Packers season tickets. I think that's going to happen here one day.
``Besides, no one's twisting anyone's arm to buy. Every time here has been a fun outing, even the time we drove and had to leave in the fourth quarter to beat the traffic and get home at a decent hour.'' THE ORGANIZATION
Jerry Richardson wanted the Panthers to play their first season in South Carolina for a host of reasons. He is a native of the state and still makes his home in Spartanburg. And he wanted to build as large a fan base as he could in South Carolina before moving the team north where fan interest was strong.
His first choice was Columbia and the University of South Carolina, 75 miles from Charlotte. But athletic director Mike McGee balked at the idea. Enter Clemson.
The national media has cuffed around the Panthers some because the team's average home attendance of 52,363 is far below Clemson's capacity of 76,000. And because the Richardsons let anyone within earshot know two years ago that they had little doubt every Panthers game would be sold out and new attendance records set from Day 1. And because there hasn't been even one sellout this inaugural season, and no realistic prospects for one despite a stunningly competitive 5-6 record that includes a victory at Super Bowl champion San Francisco. Not even the return match against the 49ers on Dec. 10.
Yet, there are extenuating circumstances beyond the sheer inconvenience of otherwise right-minded people having to devote 14-hour days in order to someday say they knew the Panthers way back when.
The lack of ticket sales has caused Panthers home games to be blacked out in Columbia and Spartanburg, S.C., and Asheville and, of course, Charlotte. But they aren't blacked out in Winston-Salem, Greensboro or Raleigh - three of the state's largest population centers and a region everyone predicts will be among the strongest bases of fan support when the team moves into its new stadium in Charlotte next season.
Second, the Panthers are still selling PSLs for season tickets to their new stadium. The goal was to sell 60,000 PSLs. There are about 7,000 remaining, priced at $2,700 and $3,000 per seat. The expensive PSLs and the cheap PSLs are long gone.
``The most frustrating thing to me isn't all the travel, or the inconvenience of not having traditional home games,'' Panthers director of communications Charlie Dayton said. ``It's the fact that there's this perception we're struggling down here, or that the NFL isn't doing well in the Carolinas.
``I think it's amazing that we get 50,000 or 55,000 fans to devote their entire day to us, to drive six hours, to withstand the traffic jams, while at the same time we're asking them to buy PSLs for our new stadium. I have a hard time seeing that as anything but a positive.''
Adds coach Dom Capers: ``I've been asked so many times if I'm disappointed in the crowd support. I'm anything but that. We're playing 2 1/2 hours away from our home and we're getting 55,000 people. I can't believe the support we've had.''
Interest is there. During the Carolina-San Francisco game on Nov. 5, the Panthers bought an ad that ran across the bottom of the television screen while the game was in progress. The better the Panthers played in what ultimately was a 13-7 victory, the more PSLs were sold, 650 in all. THE PLAYERS
Only once before has a pro football team had so far to travel to claim its homefield advantage. In 1985, the Stars of the United States Football League practiced in Philadelphia, called themselves ``Baltimore,'' but played home games at the University of Maryland in College Park, about three hours south.
Ironically, Capers and Panthers equipment manager Jackie Miles worked for the Stars that season. Much of what they do now is drawn from that experience. Movies, for example. When the Stars motored from Philly to College Park the day before home games, each bus offered a different flick. Each of the Panthers' three buses offers a different movie, selected by the players, for the journey from team headquarters at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, S.C.
There is no morality code for what's shown, Capers said, because there's been no need for one. Everything's pretty tame.
``Cool Hand Luke, The Longest Yard - they go back and get some old ones out of the archives,'' Capers said, bemused.
Capers also had the experience of busing from Pittsburgh, where he spent three seasons as defensive coordinator, to Cleveland for the Turnpike Series with the Browns. He adjusted the team's schedule.
Most teams spend the night before home games at a local hotel, then meet their families Sunday morning and drive separately to the stadium. An hour after the game, most are on their way back to the house.
Not the Panthers.
On Saturdays before home games, the players aren't due in until noon. After three hours of meetings, they board three buses, arrive at a hotel in Clemson at around 5:30, then eat dinner as a team at 6. After the game, they re-board their buses for the three-hour journey back to Winthrop. Players either sleep or watch another video. Capers uses the time and a miniature VCR he can hold on his lap to begin breaking down film of the game.
``I don't know if this has had much to do with it, but I like the chemistry of our football team,'' Capers said. ``I think we have a fairly close football team for the short time we've been together. THE GEAR
Equipment manager Miles and assistant Don Toner are pretty tight, too. Miles ruefully jokes that he spends more time with Toner than with his wife and three children.
``We did a lot of moving around that year in the USFL,'' he said. ``I was 23 then. I didn't mind. This is about wearing me out.''
With good reason. The schedule is the definition of back-breaking.
Monday and Tuesday: Laundry and unpacking from the previous week's game.
Wednesday: Laundry from that day's first practice of the week.
Thursday and Friday: Begin repacking for Sunday's game.
During Friday's practice, Miles puts out travel bags for each player and coach, along with a memo instructing the players on what to pack. After practice, players pack their helmets, shoes and pads, after which Miles and Toner do laundry from Friday's practice and check each bag to make sure players have followed their instructions.
By 8 a.m. Saturday, a truck driver and a couple of assistants arrive at Winthrop to load up the trunks. Equipment. Uniforms. Cold-weather gear. Rain gear. Towels. Soft drinks. Toiletries. Medical supplies. Film equipment. Even a coffee-maker Miles is obligated by league rules to provide the opponent.
In all, about five tons is loaded into the truck.
Later that day, Miles meets the truck at Memorial Stadium. He tapes the names and jersey numbers on lockers, then helps unpack the travel bags, pads, helmets and uniforms. The added work of playing every home game on the road piles countless hours onto his week.
``I think you have to face the fact that we can't wait until we get back to Charlotte (next season),'' Miles says. ``Yet, nobody seems to mind this. It's definitely something that's given these guys a nice, common bond. I haven't seen anyone on this team complain about being put out. It seems they're out to defy the odds. THE NEW STADIUM
It sits on 33 acres of prime real estate in uptown Charlotte, visible from I-277, with 37,000 parking spaces, 4,572 hotel rooms and 52 restaurants within easy walking distance.
Carolinas Stadium.
Every feature is extraordinary. The seats are nearly two inches wider than those in any other stadium. There is one concession stand for every 176 seats, nearly twice the usual number. There's one toilet for every 80 men and one for every 70 women projected to enter the stadium.
A West Coast sculptor has been commissioned to create six marble panthers. In pairs, they will guard the three entrances to Charlotte's monument to its once-unthinkable coronation as a major-league city.
The $180 million project is a landmark of the new American downtown, where stadiums and coliseums graze beside bank towers and high-rise hotels, and sports serve as a major motivation for people to spend a few hours away from the sterility of suburbia.
Next season, there's a good chance Panthers fans will nestle into every one of the 13-story stadium's 72,302 seats.
``Denise and I were talking on the way down about how great it'll be next year,'' John Huffman said. ``We'll get up late, read the paper, have brunch, drive down to the stadium. We'll get there an hour or so before the game, be home an hour or so after it's over. It'll be wonderful.''
In some ways, it already is. ILLUSTRATION: CHARLOTTE OBSERVER COLOR PHOTOS
If you think fans are excited now, just wait until they move into
72,302-seat Carolinas Stadium next season. For one thing, it's 2 1/2
hours closer than where the team now plays.
CHARLOTTE OBSERVE PHOTOS
Charlotte's $180 million stadium complex is a landmark of the new
American downtown, where stadiums and coliseums graze beside bank
towers and high-rise hotels.
The Carolinas agree with Sam Mills, center. At age 36, the
linebacker is having his best season ever.
Map
by CNB