Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 7, 1995                   TAG: 9506070044
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

HOW MANY FANS SHOULD NORTHSIDE'S NEW GYM SEAT?

High school basketball is a passion for many parents and other North Roanoke County residents.

Northside High School's high-powered basketball team has enjoyed much success in recent years under Coach Bill Pope.

Twice, the team has reached the title game of the state AA tournament. Hundreds of fans have traveled to Charlottesville and Lynchburg to see the Vikings play in state contests.

Northside has regularly won district and regional championships. Several stars have gone on to become college players.

Northside fans have had only one complaint about the basketball program:

The school's gymnasium is so small that fans often are turned away for big games. It seats only 900 people, making it one of the smallest in the region.

Some Northside games, which have been played at Salem High School or Roanoke College, have attracted more than 2,000 spectators.

Now, Northside is getting a new gymnasium.

The county School Board has agreed to provide $3.3 million for a new gym for the high school and Northside Middle School, in addition to an auditorium and four classrooms for the middle school. The facilities will be in the same building, which is expected to be linked to the middle school.

The middle school will use the gym during the day, then the high school team will use it for practice and will play its games there.

Not unexpectedly, the size of the gymnasium has become an issue in North Roanoke County.

How large should it be? 2,000 seats? 3,000? 4,000?

There are some strong opinions.

Charles Briscoe, a Northside booster and father of a former basketball star at the school, believes the gym should seat at least 3,000 and preferably 4,000.

"We need another 2,000-seat gym like we need a hole in the head," Briscoe said.

"I hope we would not consider anything less than 3,000,'' he said at a meeting this week of school administrators, booster club members, community leaders and architects.

Donna Henderson, Northside's principal, said one of the school's games attracted about 2,300 to the Roanoke College gym. Spectators were turned away because no more could be squeezed in, she said.

Franklin County High School has the largest school gymnasium in the region, with a capacity of 3,000, but it can accommodate crowds of 3,500 or more.

Pulaski County High's gym seats 2,200, but it, too, can accommodate more spectators.

Franklin County and Pulaski County are AAA schools; Northside is AA.

Salem High School's gymnasium seats 2,000, by far the largest at a Roanoke Valley high school.

Cave Spring's gym can seat 1,250; William Byrd's, 1,200; Glenvar's, 1,200; William Fleming's, 1,000; and Patrick Henry's, 900.

If Northside built a 4,000-seat gymnasium, Briscoe said, it could accommodate the graduation ceremonies for all Roanoke County high schools, so they no longer would have to use the civic centers.

But Superintendent Deanna Gordon said she doubts that students from the other high schools would want to come to Northside for their graduations.

Pope, the coach who has guided Northside to its basketball success in recent years, said he's not convinced that the school needs a 4,000-seat gymnasium.

Pope said he would prefer to see part of the money spent on needed facilities - including equipment, training and storage space, and team rooms - rather than just on seats.

Although the Northside gymnasium is small, he said, the players like the atmosphere created by the fans' being close to the floor. If the new gym is too large, he said, that feeling of intimacy could be lost.

Craig Sharp, project manager for the gym and other facilities, said the budget might determine the gymnasium's size.

The school system might not be able to afford a 3,000- or 4,000-seat gym now, Sharp said, but the facility could be could designed so more seats could be added later. Sharp works for Motley & Associates of Roanoke, architects for the project.

He said it will take a much larger building to provide seats for 4,000 spectators than for 2,000 or 3,000. "If we are going to have 4,000 seats, it will be a different facility," he said.

The maximum capacity for pullout bleachers is 3,200 seats.

Sharp said the architects want to keep the seats as close to the basketball court as possible to help maintain an environment similar to that in the current gymnasium.

Homer Duff, director of facilities and operations for county schools, has asked Pope and others to give the architects ideas on what they would like to see in the new gymnasium. School officials and Northside boosters will meet again before a decision is made on the gym's size.

School administrators hope to seek bids by late summer or early fall on the gym and other facilities. They want construction to begin this fall and be complete by August 1996.

The School Board has decided to proceed with the gymnasium without waiting any longer for an agreement with private investors on an ice rink as part of the project. Gordon said the door has not been closed on a rink, but school officials and the investors have not reached a consensus.