ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 30, 1996 TAG: 9612300115
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
MIAMI
THERE ARE MORE THAN 450 former Hokies living along Florida's sunny southern shores, and this year, they got organized.
In Miami, the beaches are sunny year-round and the nightclubs are grooving from dusk till dawn.
The starstruck can sneak peaks at Madonna, Whitney Houston and other glitterati who make their homes on secluded islands off the South Beach shore.
The gourmands can indulge themselves with authentic cuisine from Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Nicaragua or Brazil.
Until this year, though, there was one thing South Florida lacked: a Virginia Tech alumni group.
It's not that there are no Hokies living here. In fact, there are more than 450 scattered throughout the area. But Roger Lebida had met only a few of them when he got a call this summer from fellow alumnus Steven Kornfeld.
Kornfeld had just moved to Miami and was feeling lonely.
"In a big city like this, it's kind of hard to make friends," Lebida said.
So, Kornfeld got a list from Virginia Tech of all alumni in South Florida. He called about a third of them and asked for help organizing an alumni chapter.
Members of the new group knew at their first meeting that Tech would be in Miami to play the Hurricanes this season. They had no idea the Hokies would be back for the Orange Bowl.
It's a bittersweet accomplishment for some local alums who had already made plans to be away for the holidays.
"A few people won't be able to go and it's right in their own back yard," Lebida said. "It's killing them."
Lebida said it helps to have a winning football team when you're trying to get a new alumni chapter started, particularly when there hasn't been a group in South Florida for at least 10 years.
He was promoted from vice president to president recently when Kornfeld moved to Atlanta. Although he would have liked for the Orange Bowl to benefit his alumni group financially, that won't happen. The group raised $1,000 for scholarships during the Hurricanes game earlier this year, but Orange Bowl officials prohibit all but a select group of licensed organizations from selling any mementos for their event.
Undaunted, Lebida arrived at the Fontainebleau Hilton in Miami Beach Sunday afternoon to hand out free Hokie buttons, stickers and plastic footballs. It helped to have a genuine South Floridian available to answer questions, but Lebida said it's hard to give advice and directions when he lives an hour away.
Compared to last year's Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl is a logistical nightmare. Fans in town for the game are spread out in hotels all the way from Fort Lauderdale to Miami. The game will be held in the Pro Player Bowl, located between the two cities.
Many Orange Bowl tourists are sticking close to their hotels. That's not hard to do. The Fontainebleau, for example, has seven restaurants, five bars and a mall in its cavernous basement. There's also a half-acre swimming pool with a waterfall spewing off a man-made rock formation as a live Caribbean band pings out "Red, Red Wine" on a set of steel drums. The pool is crowded with children clutching inflatable alligators while the beach itself, just a short walk away, is almost empty except for a few sea gulls.
Those who do desert the pool can stroll for more than a mile down Collins Avenue, the main drag in Miami Beach, without losing sight of the hotel. It's hard to miss the Fontainebleau, which has a painting on its side of two women in Roman garb with urns on their heads. They stand 17 stories high and serve as a landmark amid the faded pastel collage of 1930s-era art deco buildings.
Lebida advised visiting Hokies to be careful about wandering off.
"It's a much bigger city than Blacksburg, and you have to have a big-city mentality," he said.
After all, he added, it's not necessary to go too far to check out Miami's main attraction: the sun.
"Enjoy the sun, get to the beach, play some golf or whatever you want to do out in the sun because when you get back to Virginia, it's probably going to be snowing and 20 degrees even though it's nice there now, " he said.
* * *
Darlene Langley of Palm Beach County craned her neck to get a look at the maroon-clad parade-goers crowding into the stands below her Saturday night.
"I'm a Gator mom, so I hope you beat 'em," she shouted down to the Virginia Tech fans arriving for the Orange Bowl Parade.
Langley is probably not the only South Florida resident rooting for Tech in this year's Orange Bowl. Her son is a graduate of the University of Florida, and last year's loss to Nebraska in the Gator Bowl still stings.
Ricky Wade of Miami said he is cheering for Tech simply because he's bored with Nebraska, which has played in the Orange Bowl five of the past six years.
"Nebraska is normally big in the Orange Bowl every year so we'd like to see Nebraska lose," he said.
Evan Contarakes, a Miami resident originally from Pennsylvania, was even more emphatic about his choice.
"I hope Virginia Tech kills Nebraska," he yelled over the blare of a passing high school marching band, "because I go through Virginia more than I go through Nebraska."
That may be as good a reason as any for most Miamians, who don't have a home team to support.
Jose Gonzalez, a Florida State Trooper wearing a brown uniform with patches shaped like oranges on the shoulders, looked confused when asked about Tuesday's game.
"It's between who and who?" he asked during a break from his crowd-control duties at the parade.
After thinking a moment, he said, "Nebraska's got my vote." He admitted he didn't know enough about Virginia Tech to vote for them.
Back in the stands, Langley said most South Floridians have no idea who's playing in the Orange Bowl this year.
"The native people probably are more interested in the parade," she said.
* * *
Many Virginia Tech supporters were almost too tired from their flights Saturday to drag themselves to the Orange Bowl Parade.
Those who went were treated to an exotic mix of music and dance celebrating the many cultures that influence modern Miami. There were flamenco dancers, Irish jigsters, and Caribbean women who held their skirts over their heads as they shimmied around, revealing green, yellow and orange pantaloons.
Which dance turned out to be the crowd favorite? The Hokey Pokey, of course.
Virginia Tech's Marching Virginians band members pranced around to their signature pep rally song right there in the middle of downtown Miami's Biscayne Boulevard.
Hokie fans in the stands jumped up to join in. Most other parade-watchers couldn't keep up with the footwork involved but they smiled and clapped along anyway.
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Roger Lebida, president of the Southby CNBFlorida Alumni Association, poses near the Fontainebleau Hilton
Resort & Towers where he is volunteering time to help with the bowl.
color.