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Friday, February 23, 2007

What's the benefit of Miami athletics?

Hokies a better fit than Hurricanes

By Doug Doughty

Doug Doughty

Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.

Find his College Notebook from The Roanoke Times in Thursday's college sports section

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Every now and then, I’ll challenge other reporters to tell me another city that’s more centrally located for ACC coverage than Roanoke.

It wasn’t too long ago that a Roanoke reporter could comfortably cover the ACC by car.

If I’m not mistaken, ex-columnists Bill Brill and Bill Cate would fly into the Greenville-Spartanburg airport and rent a car for the drive to Clemson, but, if you ask me, that’s more trouble than it’s worth.

I’ve gotten to Clemson in less than five hours, almost the same amount of time it would take to get to Virginia Beach.

You could almost make the case that it’s almost as convenient to drive to Georgia Tech, at 6 ½ hours on a good day, than it is to fly.

Of course, this comes from me, a notorious non-flyer. I had avoided airplanes for more than two years before I flew to Miami this week for the Virginia men’s basketball game with Miami.

I came back with one overriding thought: What’s this school doing in the ACC?

Most of the time, I’ve driven to Florida State (10 ½ hours) in recent years and I was surprised to learn this year that I could get to Boston College just as quickly, if I managed to avoid New York and Boston during rush hour.

I even drove to Miami once, for the regular-season finale to the 2005 football season, but there were extenuating circumstances. Our family had spent Thanksgiving in Myrtle Beach, where my older son was playing in a golf tournament.

I can’t say I wish I had driven to Miami this time, but flying was no bargain. To get a decent rate of $178 for a round trip, I had to drive 200 miles to Dulles. Once I got to Miami, it was one expense after another, from exorbitant hotel rates to steep cab fares. The traffic was outrageous.

So, it’s a costly trip for The Roanoke Times, but what does that have to do with Miami being in the ACC?

That brings us to the game, held at the BankUnited Center, a 7,000-seat on-campus arena that opened in 2003. It’s a decent facility, but on Wednesday night, with 19th-ranked Virginia providing the opposition, the Hurricanes drew a crowd listed at 3,707.

I’m here to tell you that there weren’t 2,000 people in the building at game time and a big chunk of that was a group of UVa fans behind one of the baskets.

I can’t imagine what it was like when the Hurricanes had home crowds listed at 2,858 for Boston College and 3,099 for North Carolina State.

You’d have to think that a 68-60 upset of No. 19 Virginia was one of the high points of the Hurricanes’ season but the game story was on the fifth sports page of the Miami Herald, which was loaded with spring-training coverage of the Florida Marlins, another lightly followed team.

You couldn’t even find a score of the 7 p.m. game matching Boston College and host Virginia Tech. No boxscore, story or roundup.

That’s not intended to knock the Miami Herald, although it would have been nice to get a score. Seemingly, nobody cares about University of Miami basketball and you have to wonder about Hurricanes football, too.

A recent ACC Sports Journal piece said that the Orange Bowl has become such a dump that it is no longer a routine stop when prospects come to campus on recruiting trips.

Fans don’t go there either. The announced crowd for the Hurricanes’ final home football game against Boston College was 23,308. In its previous home game, Miami had drawn 41,504 for Virginia Tech – nearly 30,000 fewer fans than had attended the season opener against Florida State at the Orange Bowl.

Obviously, that had something to do with Miami’s 7-6 record and clearly contributed to Larry Coker’s ouster as head coach. But if the Hurricanes are going to draw only when the team is contending for the national championship, then that’s a pretty weak fan base.

University of Virginia fans are thought to be fair-weather, but there was an announced crowd of 56,632 on Oct. 19 to watch Virginia play North Carolina. That was for a Thursday night TV game after the Cavaliers had lost five days earlier at East Carolina to drop to 2-5.

Three years after the most recent wave of ACC expansion, it is clear to me that of the three newest members – Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College – that the Hokies are the best fit, which is what they said all along.

You’ll never get Brill to admit that ACC expansion was a good idea, but even he would have to admit that the setting of a college town like Blacksburg is more in line with the other ACC schools than Boston or Miami.

Conference commissioners would gladly trade TV markets for newspaper coverage, but in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., you’ll usually find Georgia Tech and Maryland on the front page of the sports sections. Even with its pro franchises, many of them lackluster, Atlanta has a heavy college following.

Miami isn’t going to go away, but let’s remember why it was so important to have the Hurricanes in the ACC – to create a 12-team league and set up a football championship game that drew an announced crowd of 62,850. There may have had half that many people in the seats.

Clearly, Miami has some issues to address, issues for which there might not be a solution. As for me, I’ve got to come up with some better travel plans.

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