ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 21, 1996 TAG: 9612230032
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
The bowl season got off to a discordant start Thursday when representatives from Orange Bowl opponents Nebraska and Virginia Tech clashed at a saloon here.
They should have seen it coming.
As any tailor will tell you, Hokie burgundy and Cornhusker red will never go together.
Even so, those were the dominant fashion colors as alumni of the two huge land grant institutions came in from the cold to meet and mingle at the Top of the Stairs, a popular student hangout in this Southern college town.
If Thursday's events are going to be any indication of what we can expect when the hazardous Hokies and the hammering 'Huskers meet Dec. 31 in Miami, Fla., then it isn't going to be much of a football game.
Those people were so nice to each other.
Members of the New River Valley chapter of the Tech Alumni Association and Southwest Virginians for Nebraska drank, they noshed, they flirted, they posed for snapshots together. It was as harmonious a holiday gathering as anybody would hope to attend.
The only venom was aimed at an alumnus of neither school.
Tech man Mike Ballweg, an associate athletic director at the University of Rhode Island, was in town for Thursday's Hokie-Husker happy hour. As gregarious and jolly a party guest as can be found in any social register, Ballweg had an immediate change of countenance when informed that somebody from the University of Virginia had crashed the exclusive party that afternoon.
Ballweg suddenly looked like a man who had just been informed that a deceased rodent had been lifted dripping from the pot of soup from which he had recently been served.
"UVa? What's the matter, you couldn't get into Tech?''
The balding Ballweg (Class of 1975), clearly as fierce a Tech partisan as can be found, was going through a loyalty crisis. Although he was a Tech graduate, he was born into a Husker household.
``I always root for Nebraska,'' Ballweg said. ``Until two weeks ago, I never though it would be a problem.''
Now he has his father, John, to deal with. The elder Ballweg, (Nebraska, '67) is the vice president of the Southwest Virginia organization, a club that encompasses a territory extending from Staunton to Bristol. John Ballweg, a sociology professor at Tech, enjoys rooting for those Huskers, as long as he can do it in front of a television or in a warm weather locale such as Miami.
``I've been here ever since I graduated from college in 1967,'' he said. ``Soon as I could get out, I left. Too darned cold.''
He wasn't the only one with tortured loyalties. So, too, did the Nebraska club's president, Bill Keeney (Nebraska, '58), who is retired from Hoechst-Celanese in Narrows. Now that he has more time on his hands, Keeney is recruiting new club members.
``We have 145 families in our area who have Nebraska ties,'' he said. ``Our group has 40 members. We'd love to have some more.''
The Nebraska group meets regularly at Champs bar in Blacksburg to watch televised Nebraska games and socialize.
``We'll meet at somebody's house for the Orange Bowl,'' said Allen Bures (Nebraska '61), a business professor at Radford University. ``It could get kind of sticky at Champs with all the Tech fans.''
One of the reasons that these particular Nebraska and Tech people were able to meet in peace and harmony was because a truce of sorts had been called to formalize a wager.
``We're putting up 20 pounds of turkey, they're putting up 20 pounds of Omaha steaks,'' said Terry Swecker (Tech, '80), president of the local alumni chapter and a professor at Tech's veterinary school. ``John Ballweg called two weeks ago and suggested the bet. I told him that sounded like a real deal to me.''
One of the Nebraska folks wasn't so sure.
``I hope it isn't some scraggly turkey,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: RAY COX/Staff. Terry Swecker (left), president of Newby CNBRiver Valley chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, shakes
hands to seal a bet with Bill Keeney, president of Southwestern
Virginians for Nebraska. color.