DATE: Friday, September 12, 1997            TAG: 9709120821

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   54 lines

NSU LANDS '98 JUNIOR OLYMPICS REGIONAL OTHER MAJOR MEETS MAY BE HEADED TO PRICE STADIUM.

City officials promised Thursday to bring bigger and better events to Norfolk State's Dick Price Stadium, even as they announced that it will host the 1998 USA Track and Field Southeastern Regional Junior Olympic Championships.

``This is a very special venue,'' Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim said of Price Stadium, which opened last month. ``Norfolk State showed great vision in constructing the facility. Our job now is to promote it as hard as we can. We're going to bring wonderful events to this campus.''

One of those events likely will be a Grand Prix track meet, NSU track coach Steve Riddick said. Grand Prix meets generally attract some of the world's best track and field athletes, large crowds and much media attention.

``Dr. LeRoy Walker, president of the United State Olympic Committee, visited our campus and toured the stadium,'' said Riddick, a former Olympian. ``He said Hampton Roads can get Grand Prix events with this facility.''

Riddick and NSU athletic director Dick Price, for whom the stadium is named, said the university will also bid for the Pan-African Games, which match the top track and field athletes from Africa against those from the United States.

``Between a Grand Prix event, the Pan-African Games, the Norfolk State Relays and the Junior Olympics, we can have a very full schedule,'' Riddick said.

City officials said the Junior Olympics, to be held July 8-12, will be the largest track meet ever held in Virginia, with 3,000 competitors between ages 8 and 18 and 7,000 additional out-of-town visitors. The top three finishers in each event advance to the national meet in Seattle.

USA Track and Field officials said Norfolk would not have been considered as a host city without Price Stadium. The $15 million, 28,886-seat stadium has computerized timers, an eight-lane polyurethane track, and facilities that allow all field events to be held within the stadium.

``That makes it a unique facility,'' Riddick said. ``In most stadiums, you have to go outside the stadium for many field events.''

Al Collins, director of USA Track and Field's Southeastern Region, said Price Stadium ``is a state-of-the art facility. It's the best facility in the state right now. I'm sure the athletes are going to be very impressed and Steve Riddick is going to get some recruits after they've seen the facility.''

The meet is but one in a series of high-profile athletic events Norfolk officials have attracted recently. The 1998 McDonald's All-American high school basketball game, all Group AAA state high school championships for the next two years, the Virginia Is For Lovers Cup hydroplane races and an NBA exhibition game were announced previously.

Fraim said officials hope to announce soon that the city will host even more events.

``We've bid on a number of events we're still in the running for that are even larger'' than the McDonald's game, he said.

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