THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606300228
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 111 lines
It's dusk on the first day of June, and Mark Garcea and Page Johnson could pass for extras from ``Night of the Living Dead.''
It has been a nightmarish 24 hours.
The monotony of a 7 1/2-hour journey from Norfolk to Gulfport, Miss., is broken only once - when their rental car, driven by Johnson, is pulled over at 1:30 a.m. by a Mississippi state trooper.
The officer approaches the car with hand on holstered gun and a scowl on his face. Turns out he is looking for a stolen rental car, but not the one driven by Johnson.
Garcea awakens to see the trooper shining a flashlight in his eyes.
``What happened, Page?'' he says, laughing, after the trooper has left. ``Did someone finally recognize you from `America's Most Wanted'?''
The needling continues until they arrive at the posh Grand Casino on the Gulf of Mexico at 2:30 a.m.
After just a few hours' sleep, the Hampton Roads Admirals' new owners endure their first day of ECHL meetings, eight hours' worth. Afterward, exhausted, they sit listlessly in their hotel room, lamenting that their work is not done.
``I could go to sleep right here,'' Garcea says, slumped in an uncomfortable hotel chair. Nonetheless, fortified with beer in hand, minutes later they enter a reception in the Grand Casino's ballroom. The crowd includes 19 ECHL owners and dozens of coaches, general managers and ECHL officials.
Most of the ECHL regulars respectfully ask Garcea and Johnson about their soccer team, the Hampton Roads Mariners, but the two have questions of their own:
Would you mind telling me about your lease?
What do you think of John Brophy?
Are teams violating the salary cap as fragrantly as we hear they are?
How about your radio contract?
What kind of promotions work best for you?
Know of any good general managers looking for work?
What kind of advertising works for you?
After 90 minutes, the owners are gone save Garcea and Johnson, who are left standing with ECHL president and CEO Rick Adams.
``They're smart,'' Adams says later. ``They're doing what good businessmen do when they move into a new field. They're asking questions and listening instead of telling people how they think it should be done.''
Garcea and Johnson are up at 8 the next morning for a working breakfast. Items such as a contract with the new players' union and whether to retain the overtime shootout are on the agenda.
Both pore over mounds of briefing books provided by the league. It has been just 22 hours since Blake Cullen, the Admirals' owner for seven years, introduced them to other league owners as his successors. Hockey experts they're not.
``I have no idea how to vote on this,'' Garcea says in reference to a proposed rules change.
Nonetheless, they hustle upstairs and endure another long day of meetings. Everywhere they go during the day, they hear the same questions.
Are you going to keep the white-haired guy as coach?
And are you going to do what it takes to make Amy Dyches happy?
Head coach John Brophy is the white-haired guy; Dyches is the promotions director. ``Guess we'd better call them,'' Johnson says. Garcea talks to them both by telephone before the end of the trip and assures them he wants them to stay.
It isn't until midnight that Garcea and Johnson make their way to the casino portion of the resort, which is Gulfport's biggest asset. The beach is located on the Gulf, but nobody is seen swimming during this three-day trip. Gulfport is so close to the mouth of the Mississippi River that, as one local put it, ``Everything flushed down toilets from Minnesota to New Orleans winds up on our beach.''
Yet visitors flock to Gulfport and nearby Biloxi to a half-dozen floating resorts, which can be pushed into a nearby bay if a hurricane threatens.
As Garcea and Johnson pass through the lobby en route to the casino, Garcea sees a boat, one the casino will give away to a lucky winner.
He climbs in, pokes his head under the dashboard and pronounces: ``It's ours. We did the electronics for this boat. Smart people. They bought the best.''
``We'' is M&G Electronics, his Virginia Beach firm.
Johnson bypasses the one-armed bandits and fades away to a lounge where he finds, of all things, a band from Norfolk, Gentlemen and Their Lady, singing a medley of oldies. Garcea heads for the blackjack tables, which he works even harder than he worked the ECHL owners.
``Hit me, give me an ace. C'mon, give me an ace,'' he says over and over to the dealer, who smiles in return.
``I generally don't like to gamble,'' Garcea says. ``I can think of better things to do with my money than throw it away.''
But at 2:30 a.m., Garcea is still at the tables, a few hundred dollars ahead, and shows no sign of tiring.
Johnson has gone to his room, called his wife and retired.
Thirty-one hours later, it's stifling in Gulfport, with heat and humidity both in the 90s. But it's hotter still in Room 1602 of the Grand Casino.
Garcea, phone in hand, scowls as he talks to an employee at the home office in Virginia Beach. Garcea is livid. A customer has not received promised parts from M&G. It takes him an hour to correct the problem.
``I thought he might break the TV,'' says Johnson with a laugh, recalling Garcea's outburst. ``I can't wait to see that man with John Brophy. That's going to be quite a show.''
The laughter is short-lived, for they are 30 minutes behind schedule. They pile into a rental car and head for the New Orleans airport. After a painfully slow check-in, Garcea and Johnson sprint for the gate and arrive at 12:01 p.m. for a noon flight.
``Sorry, the plane is all locked up and about to depart,'' says the gate attendant.
But Garcea won't be denied: ``Go knock on the door. See if they'll let us on.''
Shaking his head, the attendant shuffles down the gangway and knocks on the windshield of the plane. The door opens, and Garcea gets what he wants.
``Traveling with Mark is like this all the time,'' Johnson says. ``He's late everywhere.
``But somehow, he always finds a way to get us where we're going.'' by CNB