ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512290111
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN AND JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITERS
Although the 23rd Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl was far from a close shave on the field, the same couldn't be said of some of the action in the stands.
With about six minutes to play and Wisconsin-La Crosse comfortably ahead of Rowan 36-7, Joe Cooke decided it was high time to take a load off - of his face.
Cooke, a retiree from La Crosse who has been following the Eagles religiously for 20 years, stopped shaving Nov. 17, the night before the Division III football playoffs began. He was intent on growing a beard. It was his own little way of supporting his team.
``I said I wasn't going to shave it off until we won,'' he said from his seat at Salem Stadium.
Thanks to the Wisconsin-La Crosse football team - and to the relief of his wife, Pat - the time to trim came Saturday afternoon. So there he was in the grandstand, dragging a dry Bic through his gray whiskers.
``She said the mustache had to go first,'' Cooke said with an eye on his wife of 47 years.
The Cookes followed the Eagles throughout the playoffs, and had not been home since last week's game with Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio. They left there and drove to Richmond to visit their daughter during the days before the game.
``It's something to do,'' said Cooke, who grew up on the Eastern Shore and went to high school in Front Royal.
Cooke was cooperative with his wife's wish that he axe the mustache, but they don't always agree when it comes to football. Pat was alarmed when the Eagles hit a Rowan player out of bounds. Joe cheered.
``You've got to kick them when they're down,'' he said. ``We're not here to pass out roses.''
How about razors?
NO TALKS: The Stagg Bowl is scheduled to end the Division III football season for two more years at Salem Stadium. Whether the game will remain in the Roanoke Valley past 1997 is still to be determined.
Carey Harveycutter, Salem's director of civic facilities and the Stagg Bowl director, said the city hasn't asked for another extension. Salem had two years tacked onto the original contract last year.
``We haven't discussed it,'' said Plymouth State athletic director Steve Bamford, chairman of the four-man NCAA Division III Football Committee. ``We will probably talk about it here next year.''
Bamford said the committee will evaluate Saturday's third Stagg Bowl in Salem at a February meeting in Naples, Fla., but it's no secret the committee and NCAA officials like Salem's hospitality and game operations.
``What the committee usually does after extending a contract is to wait two more years, then re-evaluate where we are,'' said Bamford.
LEFT BEHIND: When the Rowan team left the Salem Civic Center after the Stagg Bowl loss, the Profs' traveling party was one player lighter.
Starting left tackle John Knoff was inadvertently left behind while he was in the NCAA drug-testing station. The NCAA tests 12 players from each team at football championship events.
Rowan athletic director Joy Reighn returned to the civic center about 7 p.m. to pick up Knoff, after a call to the team's hotel headquarters was made.
STAGG STUFF: The blowout victory by La Crosse was typical of this year's playoffs. The average scoreboard difference in this year's 15 playoff games was 22.7 points ...
The Eagles' victory brought their NCAA playoff record to 11-3 over five years. That .786 percentage is the Division III high. Rowan is 8-4 over four years ...
La Crosse, with championships in 1992 and '95, is the only West Region school to win the Stagg Bowl since St.John's (Minn.) in 1977 ... UW-L is the sixth Division III school with more than one title. Fourteen schools share the 23 national championships in Division III football ...
Rowan's defense has allowed seven touchdown passes in two Salem Stagg Bowl appearances. La Crosse QB Craig Kusick threw for four Saturday. Mount Union's Jim Ballard had three in the '93 title game.
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. MIKE HEFFNER/Staff Wisconsin-La Crosse quarterbackby CNBCraig Kusick walks off the field with the Division III national
championship trophy in hand.
2. ROGER HART/Staff Wisconsin-La Crosse running back John Barrett
(23) runs behind the blocking of teammate Jason Tarkowski (44) on
Saturday in Salem.