THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 28, 1995 TAG: 9512280075
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Long : 156 lines
Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine just wants to hold the check in his hands for a bit and examine all those numbers to the left of the decimal point.
It's not every day you gaze upon $4 million.
Sunday's Sugar Bowl means many things for the Hokies, who are playing in their first major bowl and, with a win, could crack the top 10 of the final polls for the first time.
At least for one season the Hokies are being mentioned in the same breath as fellow Bowl Alliance participants and traditional powerhouses Nebraska, Florida, Notre Dame, Florida State and Texas - five schools with a combined 133 bowl trips, or almost 27 apiece.
Tech has played in eight.
``We're kind of hanging out with the right people there,'' Hokies coach Frank Beamer said.
You can't put a price on all the benefits for Virginia Tech. But the price tag just for playing in the Superdome against Texas is staggering: $4,037,500.
Four big ones.
``It's by far the biggest financial day Virginia Tech has ever had athletically,'' Braine said. ``It takes our program to a new level.''
The check will be issued by the Big East Conference June 1. The Sugar Bowl pays each participant $8,580,000, but the money goes directly to the conference through an escrow agent.
Based on the league's revenue-sharing formula, the Hokies' take home is less than half the total payout - $3.5 million as the Alliance participant plus $537,500 from conference revenue sharing.
Braine now has an enviable chore: how do you spend $4 million?
He has a lengthy list, all of which will require university approval. Believe it or not, the money won't last long, even though the windfall amounts to 29 percent of the athletic department's annual budget of $14.13 million.
``We've gotten where we are today because we've been frugal and spent money wisely,'' Braine said ``We're going to continue to do that. The last thing we need to do is go out and blow $3 1/2 million.''
The first thing Tech wants to do is build a new multi-purpose athletic building with weightlifting and conditioning facilities, locker room, an auditorium, gymnasium, academic center and improved sports medicine complex. Tech has raised all but $2 million of the $6.7 million needed.
``We earn it and they spend it,'' Beamer said of the Sugar Bowl money. ``I'm sure it will serve a lot of purposes. My main priority is to get this building done.''
Three other priorities for the Sugar Bowl booty, according to Braine: upgrading the baseball stadium facilities, building a new soccer field and outdoor track complex, and replacing the artificial practice turf and indoor track in Rector Field House.
Other projects that Braine says are further down the road: Cassell Coliseum, the basketball team's home, needs to be renovated; a portion of Lane Stadium's seats need to be replaced; and eventually a new visiting team locker room will replace the existing cramped quarters.
``All of it will take time,'' Braine said. ``It won't happen over night. It might take another big bowl game before we get it all done.''
Tech's Sugar Bowl check and others that have already started pouring in provide a good start. Lu Merritt, the Hokies' director of development for intercollegiate athletics, said fundraising has increased sharply since Tech's dramatic Virginia victory and announced Sugar Bowl berth.
It all comes at a good time. The university is in the midst of a six-year campaign through 1998 to raise $250 million, $24 million of which is targeted for athletics.
``I don't think people give a gift based on one victory or one game against Virginia, but you roll all nine of them together and it's a biggie,'' Merritt said. ``The Sugar Bowl has definitely helped.
``Our fundraising is up, and it's probably because of the general upward trend of the basketball and football programs. It would be difficult to go out and ask people to give money for a new building if you're 3-8.''
But when you're 9-2 and nationally ranked - the football team is No. 13, the basketball team is No. 21 - sometimes you don't even have to ask.
Virginia Tech president Paul Torgersen received a letter from an alumnus a couple weeks before Christmas. It contained a $100,000 pledge to go toward undergraduate scholarships.
``He concluded in the last paragraph he felt so good about the university and the football program going to New Orleans that he wanted to support the university,'' Torgersen said.
That, Torgersen said, is a prime example of football's impact on the entire university. A few weeks ago a Tech student received a Rhodes Scholarship, and as rewarding as that is for Tech, it doesn't elicit many $100,000 donations or the national media exposure the football team provides.
Tech will be on television in prime time for three hours New Year's Eve, with no other college bowl games on against it.
``I think we're entitled to a minute plug for the university,'' Torgersen said. ``I was reading in The Wall Street Journal that would cost us, in approximate terms as an advertiser, half a million dollars. That gives us an opportunity to tell the country Virginia Tech does exist and we have very respectable academic programs.''
One of the first areas to be impacted by a successful athletic program is the number of applications for admissions.
``We got a little bit of a surge last year and I asked the admissions department if they had an explanation,'' Torgersen said. ``I think they were at least half serious when they attributed it to the (basketball team's) NIT win.
``There isn't much of a downside to this. It's all a very positive thing.''
There are countless other areas where a Sugar Bowl berth could have an impact: recruiting; trademark and logo revenues; advertising in stadiums and on coaches' shows; marketing possibilities for the athletic department.
Braine said one of the most significant is it could contribute to Tech one day receiving full membership in the Big East conference, rather than being a football-only stepchild.
``But something dramatic is going to have to happen for the next move to occur,'' Braine said. ``It was the basketball schools that thought we didn't have anything to offer to the Big East.
``Now we have something to offer. We have a good program, we're developing a TV market and a reputation. We'll see where that takes us. If we put on a good showing and beat Texas, the rewards could be endless.''
The biggest financial reward Tech's athletic department had previously reaped was $1.5 million for last year's Gator Bowl.
The $3.5 million, the $537,500 conference revenue-sharing payoff and $1,095,000 for the Hokies' three CFA television appearances this season will all be rolled into one check. Tech's revenue from Sugar Bowl tickets will be subtracted from that, so the check the Big East issues the Hokies will total somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million.
``It's obviously huge for us,'' Bourne said.
``I can't wait to see it,'' Braine said. ``I do have a copy of the check the Metro gave us. I think I'll put them both on the wall.'' ILLUSTRATION: How to Spend It
According to athletic director Dave Braine and athletic
department business manager Jeff Bourne, Virginia Tech will spend
most of its $4.04 million Sugar Bowl payout share in the following
areas:
$1,124,140 to cover expenses for the school's Sugar Bowl
traveling party of 648, which includes coaches, staff,
administration, 103 players and 388 band members.
$160,000 in bonuses for coaches and football-related staff.
An undetermined donation to a university department. Last year,
the Tech athletic department gave $100,000 of its Gator Bowl money
and $100,000 from its Metro Conference buyout to endow an associate
professorship in the department of interdisciplinary studies.
An undetermined amount will be applied toward the athletic
department's $2.5 million debt, which has existed since Braine
arrived in 1988.
The remaining items are highest-priority projects and
improvements on facilities that are part of the athletic
department's continuing five-year plan:
New building to house weight-training facilities, locker rooms,
meeting rooms, an academic center and sports medicine complex. Cost:
$6.7 million. Still to be raised: $2 million.
Baseball stadium press box, concession stands and restrooms.
Cost: $513,000. Still to be raised: $140,000.
New soccer field/outdoor track complex. Cost: $1.73 million.
Still to be raised: $890,000.
Replace the artificial turf and indoor track in Rector Field
House. Cost: $850,000; no money raised yet.
by CNB