Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 18, 1993 TAG: 9312180078
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Maguire, who looks at the game from the skewed perspective of a former linebacker-punter who played in the Southern Conference and the AFL and has survived Sundays with Marv Albert and heart bypass surgery, has five ways to improve the NFL:
5. No zones inside the 20-yard line.
4. Twelve players on offense; 10 on defense.
3. Improve deli platters in the press box.
2. All December games played in Hawaii.
1. Raise the basket to 12 feet.
See, you're enjoying the game more already.
\ CNN KNOWS THE SCORE: Real sports fans can never get enough scores. So, Turner Broadcasting's CNN Headline News has started continuously running partial and final scores from college basketball and the NBA and NHL at night, just as it runs stock-market updates during the day. Most televised and telephone scoreline services run only scores of games involving ranked teams in college basketball. CNN Headline News has more.
\ BOWLED OVER: WSLS (Channel 10) will air a pair of specials devoted to Virginia Tech's Dec. 31 Poulan/Weed Eater Independence Bowl game against Indiana. The half-hour shows will feature Hokies coach Frank Beamer, with WSLS sports director Greg Roberts and Tech's radio play-by-play man, Bill Roth.
The first show is scheduled to air at 11:30 a.m. Dec. 26 and will be primarily a regular-season highlights show. The second show, on game day from Shreveport, La., airs at noon. Kickoff follows at 12:30 p.m. The game telecast will be aired exclusively by cable's ESPN.
Home Team Sports also will carry both shows, with the "Season in Review" shown at noon Dec. 25 and the Shreveport bowl show shown at the same time it airs on WSLS.
\ NETWORK GROWS: Virginia Tech's radio network for the Dec. 31 Independence Bowl broadcast has expanded to include the Armed Forces Radio Network. In the Roanoke Valley, Tech's regular affiliate WSLC (610 AM) will simulcast the game with its more powerful sister station, WSLQ (99.1 FM).
A Tech network broadcast hasn't been aired by Armed Forces Radio since the Hokies' 1973 NIT basketball championship. In addition, the network has added stations in Honolulu; Las Vegas; Charlotte, N.C.; and Baton Rouge, La.
WSLC also will air a two-hour bowl call-in special from Shreveport, La., with Beamer and Roth, at 6 p.m. Dec. 29.
Roth will call Tech's basketball game at Florida Atlantic on Dec. 28, then skip the Dec. 30 game at Florida International to travel to Shreveport for Beamer's talk show and the bowl game. Don Williams, the former South Carolina announcer who is an executive with Tech's radio producer, AmericaNetwork Group, will sub for Roth on the Tech-Florida International game.
\ A REAL KICK: ESPN will televise soccer's final draw for the 1994 World Cup at 3 p.m. Sunday in a 90-minute special with Bob Ley as host. The cable network will televise 41 of the 52 games next summer during the first World Cup played in the United States.
Soccer purists are likely to be offended by this show, in which the 24-team draw will be accompanied by appearances by Rod Stewart, Elton John, Barry Manilow, Vanessa Williams, Jim Belushi, Tom Selleck and the cast of TV's "Melrose Place."
The Cup draw show is being produced by Dick Clark Productions, from Las Vegas. Sounds more like a Don King production.
\ AROUND THE DIAL: Of the major college football bowl games, only the Dec. 29 Freedom Bowl is not scheduled to be shown in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market. Raycom Sports, which owns the telecast rights to the bowl in Anaheim, Calif., still is trying to clear the Southern Cal-Utah game in this region. . . . WSET will air today's Ohio State-North Carolina basketball game from ABC at 1:30 p.m. The game was not included in this newspaper's schedule earlier in the week because Channel 13 failed to list the telecast on the schedule it released before the season. . . . ESPN's announcing team for the Dec. 31 Independence Bowl between Virginia Tech and Indiana isn't from the top of the depth chart. Joel Meyers will call play-by-play, with Rick "Doc" Walker, the former Washington Redskins backup tight end, making his debut as an ESPN analyst.
Verne Lundquist and Dan Fouts will call the Virginia-Boston College telecast for CBS on Jan. 1 at the Carquest Bowl. The Lundquist-Fouts team got the assignment after CBS picked Jim Nantz and Randy Cross as the No. 2 NFL playoff announcing team, behind Pat Summerall and John Madden. . . . CBS airs the NCAA Division I-AA football championship game - Youngstown State at Marshall - from Huntington, W.Va., today (noon, WDBJ). . . . After being blanked in the Skins Game three weeks ago, Arnold Palmer has a chance to win his third consecutive Senior Skins Game on Super Bowl weekend (Jan. 29-30). Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Raymond Floyd will battle for $450,000 in Hawaii on ABC.
by CNB