DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997                TAG: 9703280895

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Bob Molinaro 

                                            LENGTH:   55 lines

ARENA HASN'T LIVED DOWN TRAGIC PAST

Their generation: Best anyone can recall, nothing of athletic significance has ever taken place at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum, home to the women's Final Four. The building is best known by rock 'n' roll historians as the place where 11 people were trampled to death at a 1979 concert by The Who.

Some welcome wagon: Not sure what this says for the media's image in Cincinnati, but at the Coliseum, signs pointing the press to the ``restrooms'' lead outside to a row of portable toilets. I can take a hint.

Graffiti: It's discouraging to walk past the former playground of Cincinnati's Big Red Machine and see the name ``Cinergy Field'' emblazoned on what used to be known as Riverfront Stadium. The corporate logo is literally a sign of the times.

The challenge: Despite their recent struggles, if the Old Dominion women can beat Stanford and Tennessee in the Final Four after knocking them off in the regular season, all questions are answered.

A review: What surprises me most about the women's basketball tournament is how physical the play is. The rough stuff hurts the product.

Whoa there: Asked for her slant on the women's Final Four, Sylvia Crawley, a former North Carolina player now in the pros, tells the Cincinnati Post: ``With women, you can have different mood swings. That's an issue whether people think it is or not. Women are more emotional.'' If a man said that, there would be hell to pay. But the sentiment is no less wide of the mark when issued by a woman.

In passing: An observation from someone watching ODU's Mery Andrade play basketball: ``Is Andrade Portuguese for `floor burn'?''

Track record: In the '90s, the men's Final Four has been played without North Carolina or Duke only once.

Still growing: Cecil Fielder's son, Prince, is 6-feet-1, 200 pounds, plays high school varsity baseball and once hit a pitch into the upper deck in Tiger Stadium. One other thing - he's a seventh-grader.

Reality check: Think times haven't changed? Notre Dame's most successful athletic programs are women's soccer (national runner-up) and women's basketball (a Final Four entry).

Idle thought: No wonder Lou Holtz left Notre Dame. He goes to South Bend to become the next Knute Rockne and finds himself standing in the shadow of a basketball coach by the name of Muffet (McGraw).

Rich getting richer: The girls high school player of the year, the daughter of former NBAer Harvey Catchings, is Tennessee-bound. Another reminder that ODU has trouble getting the best kids, unless they come with a passport.

Money matters: Somebody just figured out that in Tim Duncan's four seasons of college basketball, the All-American generated $4 million in revenue for Wake Forest. Anyway you look at it, that's not a bad return on an investment of a single scholarship.

The right stuff: Nobody's saying he shouldn't stay put, but if North Carolina sophomore forward Antawn Jamison went pro this spring, he'd be no worse than a top-five pick.

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