THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601140291
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: KNOXVILLE, TENN. LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The Denver Broncos would be completely at home at Knoxville's Thompson-Boling Arena, with an interior so orange that you'd halfway expect Linus to be able to find his Great Pumpkin here.
The Lady Vols are at home, too, in this mammoth structure that overlooks the banks of the Tennessee River. Tennessee routinely crushes its opponents, having dropped only five games since the building opened its 132 doors in 1987. One of those losses was a week ago, when Connecticut snapped Tennesse's 69-game home winning streak, the longest active run in Division I.
How do you explain the Lady Vols' 119-5 record in Thompson-Boling? Start with the orange.
Orange, orange everywhere you look. In case you're counting, that's 18,000 orange chairs and 7,000 orange bleacher seats. Orange letters that say Tennessee on the floor. Cheerleaders in orange. Players in orange, right down to their sneakers. Want a soda? How about orange?
So much orange that most teams leave there feeling, well, a little blue.
``We see orange and respond to their tradition,'' said ODU coach Wendy Larry after the Lady Monarchs' 69-47 loss Thursday, their seventh straight inside the building - a streak that includes a neutral-site loss to Florida International in the first round of last year's NCAA Tournament.
Indeed, the Vols are knee-deep in tradition and fan support - they outdrew four SEC men's teams last year by averaging 8,032 per game. In 1987, the Vols broke the world record for single-game attendance at a women's basketball game with 25,563 when they played Texas.
Even on a bad night, such as Thursday when a winter storm dumped several inches of snow on Knoxville, more than 4,000 faithful were cheering on Michelle Marciniak and company as they were introduced in a sea of smoke. Outside the arena, the largest on-campus site in the country, a few folks were keeping warm by scalping the good seats.
``I get fired up on the road,'' said Vols guard Latina Davis. ``But really, there's nothing like coming home.''
It's easy to understand why. The enormity of the building - 448 feet long and 310 feet wide - and the cathedral-like ceiling, tall enough to house a 12-story building, are not what most women's teams are accustomed to. Compared to Thompson-Boling, the ODU field house looks like a high school gym.
``Players have trouble, all that open space,'' said Vols coach Pat Summitt. ``I think it's probably more difficult to go from a small to a large arena than a large to a small one.''
Bigger isn't alway better, though.
``I actually feel more comfortable in a small setting,'' Davis said. ``It kind of reminds me of an AAU basketball setting. I feel myself playing more smoothly in smaller places.''
On both ends of the floor, giant video screens capture all the action, and players, warns Larry, can actually end up staring at themselves. That is if they can find themselves amid all that orange.
``It's a state-of-the-art facility, and there are very few in the country that women play in,'' Larry said. ``They're in a class by themselves in that regard. It's overwhelming if you've never experienced it.'' by CNB