Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 21, 1990 TAG: 9006210432
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Hokies' football and basketball season-ticket sales ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, in the eight-team Metro Conference last year. So, Tech and athletic director Dave Braine have gone back to the drawing board to find a way to boost ticket sales, thereby boosting the athletic department's bank account as well as putting more fans in the stands.
Braine said Tech's athletic department soon will have two full-time sales and marketing representatives whose responsibilities will include increasing season-ticket sales and securing corporate sponsorship for Tech sports. The representatives will report to Peggy Morse, Tech's director of sports promotions.
"We're really keying on marketing and promoting," Braine said. "We need to sell more season tickets. This should be the year, with the home [football] schedule we have."
Tech's top two home draws - West Virginia and Virginia - visit Lane Stadium this fall, as do South Carolina and North Carolina State. Tech also has revised its football season-ticket packages, offering two groups of three games each to try to accommodate fans who can't make six trips to Blacksburg.
Morse, who has run Tech's promotions department with no full-time assistants, welcomes the additions.
"It was never actually made clear to me as a priority to get out on the road and sell," said Morse, who directed a public-relations blitz last summer that included goodwill tours of the state designed to recruit new season-ticket holders and bring back old ones.
But, in part because the UVa and West Virginia games were on the road last year, football season-ticket sales dropped from 9,633 in 1988 to 8,885 last year. Still, Morse sees the potential for an increase in sales with the added staff members.
"I'm fairly excited about it just to see what happens," she said. "We're looking for someone who knows the ropes in terms of what [sales] formulas are for how many calls [to make to prospective clients], knows what it's like to be on the road selling. We don't have time to teach someone that."
Morse said the representatives will aggressively pursue advertising and promotional dollars.
"This is all great on paper," she said. "We just have to wait and see what really comes out of it."
Bimbo Coles' agent, Bob Woolf, isn't as excited as his client was about the baseball's California Angels choosing Coles in the draft this month.
Coles has said he would like to try baseball just to see how far he could advance. However, the former Hokies' star said he would wait until after the NBA draft June 27 before deciding whether to sign with the Angels, who chose him in the 53rd round with their final pick.
Woolf said last week he doesn't think much of the idea of Coles playing pro baseball.
"It's flattering to be drafted, but where'd he go, in the 50th round?" Woolf said. "That's not any real leverage or anything. Right now, he's such a great talent in basketball, I would not encourage him on those levels [baseball]. I would recommend that he concentrate on basketball."
Coles is expected to be a first-round pick in the NBA draft.
Radford University assistant basketball coach Jim Casciano is a candidate for the vacancy at Longwood. That job opened when Cal Luther left to coach in Egypt. Oliver Purnell's staff at Radford already is a man down because Tim Franklin resigned, effective July 1, to return to graduate school. . . . Steve Snell, the volunteer assistant at Radford, has been hired as an assistant basketball coach at Wingate (N.C.). A Radford native, Snell is a 1988 graduate of Radford.
Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine said the school will not replace assistant AD Tom Fletcher, who was hired as athletic director at Longwood recently.
Braine said Fletcher's duties will be "absorbed within the structure we already have." Fletcher was the football administrator and also had the job of overseeing track and cross country. He supervised Tech's drug-testing and education program, admissions of athletes and recruiting.
It's likely that recruiting coordinator Sharon McCloskey will handle Fletcher's recruiting chores.
Braine said not replacing Fletcher is a financial decision, aimed at saving money in the athletic department's budget.
Former William and Mary head coach and UVa legend Barry Parkhill (one of five players to have his number retired) has joined the staff at Navy. Parkhill spent the past year as head coach at Division II St. Michael's, which was 9-18.
Virginia's football team is ranked in the top 15 in two preseason magazines. Don Heinrich's College Football ranked the Cavs 11th, and Sport has UVa 15th. Heinrich's publication predicts that UVa will win the ACC championship and listed seven UVa players on the preseason All-ACC team.
Virginia Tech's golf team continued its nationwide recruiting efforts by signing Brent Thaxton of Odessa (Texas) Junior College. He is a native of Edmond, Okla., and joins Rusty Wylie of Knoxville, Tenn., and Scott Rardin of The Woodlands, Texas, as Hokies signees. Thaxton and current Tech player Ross Roberts were teammates at Odessa.
Lou Campanelli has signed a new five-year contract as California's basketball coach. Campanelli has a 90-68 record for his five seasons, reaching 90 victories faster than any coach in Cal's basketball history. Before coming to Cal in 1985, Campanelli spent 13 years as the head coach at James Madison.
by CNB