
DATE: Thursday, October 9, 1997             TAG: 9710090452

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY GUY FRIDDELL, STAFF WRITER

                                            LENGTH:  141 lines

WILLIAM B. SPONG JR. - 1920-1997 EX-SENATOR DEVOTED MOST OF LIFE TO SERVING CITY, STATE AND NATION

Former U.S. Sen. William B. Spong Jr., whose almost entire adult life was spent serving his city, state and nation, died of a ruptured aneurism Wednesday morning in Portsmouth's Maryview Hospital. He was 77.

Spong's drive to improve Virginia's education from kindergarten through college stemmed from his mother's crusade for schools. Emily Spong served 23 years on Portsmouth's School Board, the last 13 as chairwoman. One of the schools was named for her in 1957.

In the Virginia Senate, Spong headed a two-year study of Virginia's public school system that guided legislative efforts to upgrade the schools during the 1950s and 1960s.

After one six-year term in the U.S. Senate, he brought his influence to bear on behalf of Virginia's colleges and universities through membership on the State Council of Higher Education. The agency reviews budget requests of universities.

Gordon K. Davies, former executive director of that state council and current professor at Virginia Wesleyan College, once observed that Spong displayed ``a curious combination of being laid-back and being passionate about a subject.''

Spong saved the Marshal-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary. The law school had been on the brink of losing its certification when he took the helm in 1976. Within eight years he brought the school to national prominence.

The National Bar Association had warned that the law school's certification depended on whether a new law building was completed. In his first year as dean, Spong led efforts that resulted in a $5 million building and library.

Under his aegis until 1985, the law school's enrollment and faculty grew and the library increased from 85,000 to 190,000 volumes.

A publication that profiles the nation's law schools reported in Spong's final year as dean that the school had been ``propelled from mediocrity to prestige.''

The Institute of the Bill of Rights Law, focusing on a study of the Constitution, was established at the law school in 1982.

When Old Dominion University was undergoing a period of instability, marked by a deteriorating relations with the Virginia General Assembly, Spong was recruited in January 1989 to serve as ODU's interim president. He calmed and strengthened the troubled school.

``He did a superb job at a pivotal point in its history,'' former Rector Richard F. Barry II said Wednesday. ``He was the perfect leader for the university in a time of transition. The ODU community will always remember his tenure with gratitude and fondness.''

Two-thirds of the legislators knew Spong as a friend. And the newcomers had heard of him. In a time of fiscal restraint in Richmond, Spong used his gentle but persistent way to win substantial state funding for ODU.

House Speaker Thomas Moss of Norfolk observed Wednesday: ``Bill Spong was in absolute fact a gentleman and a scholar. He was also a statesman in every sense of the word. He was really one of the most intellectual leaders this state has produced.''

Under Spong's suasion, the General Assembly approved nine new faculty positions for ODU and $846,000 to fund a physical oceanography center, the first to start of three ``Commonwealth Centers of Excellence.''

The Assembly also allotted $1.1 million for equipment for a new Fine Arts Center and $125,000 to expand the the Virginia Beach Graduate Center, and it placed an $11.8 million library addition on a list of projects to be subsidized by Virginia Lottery proceeds.

In his self-deprecating way, Spong made it seem easy.

``What I've tried to do was to make these people here feel better about themselves,'' he said. ``Two things were apparent to me when I got here: This was a better institution than people here thought it was. Secondly, the self-esteem wasn't all that it could be and should be.''

As to what he had liked least, Spong observed that the job required too many meetings where one had to eat. ``Presidents,'' he said, ``should have a designated eater in the interest of their own well-being and alertness.''

ODU President James Koch recalled Wednesday that Spong ``was extremely helpful in a very critical time. He stabilized the university and provided strong leadership.

Virginia Sen. Stanley Waker of Norfolk noted that Spong was a man that he and many other persons wanted to emulate.

``He always managed somehow to put politics aside and go about the business of resolving a problem or need,'' Walker said. ``Sometimes he suffered politically, but that didn't seem to deter him in seeking a solution.''

Walker coordinated Spong's campaign in 1966 when he won by 611 votes the seat in the U.S. Senate held by A. Willis Robertson, father of televangelist Pat Robertson.

In a mass rally in downtown Norfolk, it seemed that everybody in the city was waiting in one of two giant arcades except Bill Spong, for whom the crowd had gathered.

Setting out to look for the candidate, Walker found him in the other arcade contemplating a painting in an an art shop. ``Billy!'' Walker exclaimed, ``everybody's waiting on you. Come on!''

Spong nodded agreeably and, after pointing out the painting's fine points, he strolled to meet the throng - ``but at his own pace,'' Walker noted.

Midway through Spong's term in the U.S. Senate, Democratic Majority Leader Mike Mansfield characterized him as ``the best freshman member'' he had ever seen.

Spong was building a national reputation as a senator who made a careful study of a major issue and voted for it on its merits regardless of political consequences.

Spong's interests showed a renaissance breadth, ranging from environmental matters such as preservation of Alaskan wolves to studying the powers under which a president might declare war.

He also looked after Virginia's welfare, including securing for Hampton Roads its share of federal impact funds for education in localities with large military installations whose populations were exempt from some local tax rolls.

A second term would have placed him among the Senate leaders, but several factors conjoined to bring about Spong's upset defeat in a race in 1972 with Rep. William Scott, a dogged Republican candidate.

Spong and other young Democrats were caught in a riptide in the presidential candidacy of George McGovern, widely despised in the South, as a liberal who sympathized with the foe in the Vietnam War.

Spong further crippled his chances by thoughtful votes on two of President Richard Nixon's nominees from the South for the U.S. Supreme Court. After agonizing study, Spong voted to confirm Judge Clement Haynesworth of South Carolina. That irked Virginia liberals. Then he opposed Judge Harrold Carswell of Florida - which enraged conservatives.

Spong's Southern colleagues urged him to vote for the two, neither of whom was confirmed, but Spong's adherence to pursuit of merit cost him dearly in his own race.

In the last two weeks of the campaign, an idealogue in Georgia dumped $250,000 in advertising criticizing Spong's record on school busing and gun control.

Then, Spong's unswerving dedication to his bills making their way through Congress delayed him in starting his campaign.

``I was so concerned with protecting endangered species,'' he said after the defeat in his wry, dry way, ``that I became an endangered species.''

To those anxious about his future, Spong said, ``Something will come along.''

And something did, in abundance. ILLUSTRATION: Photos

William B. Spong Jr. said: ``In retrospect, I wasn't a very good

politician.''

BILL ABOURJILIE/File/The Virginian-Pilot

William B. Spong Jr. is surrounded by supporters in this photo taken

in November 1972. Spong won the general election easily over

Republican James P. Ould Jr. in 1966 but was defeated when he sought

re-election to the Senate in 1972 by Republican Bill Scott. Scott

died in February.