DATE: Thursday, August 28, 1997             TAG: 9708280713

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson

                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

WHY CAN'T U.VA. BRING ITS ROAD SHOE TO NORFOLK?

I feel vaguely hurt. Ignored, with borderline self-esteem issues.

The University of Virginia opts to take its basketball show, such as it is, on the road the next few seasons, moving some home games to Richmond, and we never even get a call asking if we'd like to play host.

Us, the largest metropolitan area in the country without major league sports, disrespected again - by a college, no less, that can't fill its own arena for basketball games.

What was it this time, the way we look? That smell coming out of the Franklin paper plant? That ``study'' about how fat everybody is in Norfolk?

Yeah, I know Richmond is closer to Virginia's campus, and has more blind Virginia loyalty. It offers the University of Richmond's lovely Robins Center, where the Cavaliers will play three games - including one ACC game - in each of the next four seasons.

It put together a nice financial deal called the NationsBank Virginia Challenge, under which Virginia will play Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth and an ACC opponent to be named - Wake Forest is this season's foe - at Robins each year.

So what? All of that could have been done here. Substitute Scope, Old Dominion and Norfolk State - we have NationsBanks out the ying-yang, too - and it's our Challenge.

Instead, Virginia easily turns to its comfy cousin, which it visits so often they ought to keep the ``Welcome, 'hoos'' banner draped over old Jefferson Davis' monument year-round.

Meanwhile, we're Cavalier-less again, which might not be a bad thing this year considering how lousy U.Va. could be. But that's beside the point. It's the principle of the thing. And, in principle, U.Va. apparently wants nothing to do with our humble homeland.

Not so, says Virginia athletic director Terry Holland. He is actually doing fans here a favor, he said, by moving three games an hour closer, while not inconveniencing too horribly the Charlottesville fan base.

``To me, this is a lot more attractive, the chance to see three games on an annual basis, than to have one game a year there and have to go to Charlottesville the rest of the time,'' Holland says. ``I think we're reaching out. But people might have to meet us halfway.''

Still, the fact remains that the Cavaliers have not played a basketball game in Norfolk since ODU beat them at Scope early in the 1993-94 season. Their previous prior visit was the '77-78 season.

In the last 10 years, North Carolina has played here more often, twice. Ditto Virginia Tech, three times, and other schools whose road maps show Interstate 64 actually running into Norfolk instead of dead-ending in Williamsburg. (U.Va. has played at William and Mary Hall four times since 1980.)

In those same 10 years, Wyoming, Missouri, Alabama, Auburn, DePaul, Maryland, Penn State and South Carolina have all visited Scope as often as U.Va. And with the new Richmond arrangement, Holland says the chances of a Norfolk appearance in the near future are slim.

Is it any wonder that - aside from Maury's Cornel Parker, who played there in the early '90s - Virginia routinely wins no basketball recruits from this side of the water? From a population approaching a million people?

Then again, it could be that Norfolk-Virginia Beach antipathy, or ignorance, is a Charlottesville thing.

When I called U.Va. to get alumni figures for different parts of the state, I learned that the Washington-Northern Virginia area boasts 24,708 graduates. Charlottesville is next with approximately 12,000, then Richmond, 8,429, then Southeastern Virginia, 4,117.

Interesting, I told the alumni lady on the phone, that Richmond has twice the alumni as here.

``Well, it's a bigger area, isn't it?'' she said.

Well, no, it isn't.

Repeat after me: We are big enough, we are smart enough and, gosh darn it, people like . . .

Ah, forget it.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu