March Madness has been taken to a new level. Now there are just too many tournaments. Old Dominion should just say “no thanks” to the new CollegeInsider.com tournament. Does this make ODU the best of the rest, of the rest, of the rest?

This is like John Travolta doing Battlefield Earth. Just because they offer it doesn’t mean you have to take it.

Lets face it, if your not good enough for the NCAA or the NIT or even the CBI, than maybe its time to pull the plug on the season. Just think if all goes well, the Monarchs will win a tournament nobody has ever heard of. Or the Monarchs season will officially come to an end after losing to Ocala Cosmotology College. Even Digger Phelps knows the Fighting Flattops are the champions of the Central Florida Vocational Conference.

I guess ODU has Lefty Driesell to thank for this latest honor. Lefty was on the selection committee and put a good word in for the hometown team.

Sure there are some positives about seeing the season continue. The young players get more experience. ODU can write in the program that the team made the post season again and the most important reason of all, we all get to dance one more time to “Ice cream and Cake!”

The big winner in all of the looks like the C-B-I. With teams like St. Johns, Stanford and Nevada, the C-B-I actually looks like a decent tournament.

So while the rest of the nation is gripped with the excitement of the NCAA tournament, ODU will be scaling the mountain top of the C-I-T. Look out Flattops, here come the Monarchs!

Congratulations to the Kings Fork boys and the Princess Anne girls for winning the Virginia State AAA basketball championships.

WAVY-TV was the only station from Hampton Roads in Richmond for the exciting games.  So stay tuned to WAVY.com and our newscasts for the best coverage.

So we have two teams in group AAA trying to win state titles on Friday.  The Princess Anne girls and the boys from King’s Fork.

I just got back from PA.  Talked with Darnell Dozier, their head coach.  He seems to think his team has a pretty good shot (shocker, right).  Their opponent has a good outside game, but PA should be too strong inside.

Haven’t talked with coach Josh Worrell at King’s Fork, but I’d imagine they’re pretty confident as well.  The thing about the Bulldogs is that they have a lot of size.  You hear a lot about JaQuan Parker, their guard, but inside is where they dominate.  That’s what they were able to do against Booker T. Washington in the Eastern Region championship game.

I do not know enough about the teams they are playing to give a prediction that is worth anything.  In fact, most of my predictions are worth nothing anyway.  But, I’m not betting against either team.

Btw, good luck to Syracuse tonight.  They’re going to need it against UCONN.  And it’s back to the dance for the Michigan Wolverines.  Can I hear a WOOT!

Very few people in their lifetime will have as big an impact on a city and university like Dick Price. His passing Monday night left a huge void on the Norfolk State sports scene.

Dick Price made a name for himself as a great coach. But he was much more than a coach. He was a teacher and leader and a role model. The best coach is someone who inspires and takes young athletes to higher levels. The best coach is someone who shows young athletes the secret to success. The best coach is someone who elevates athletes, teams and programs to great heights. Dick Price did all of that.

A child of Norfolk’s Lamberts Point, Dick Price began his coaching career at NSU in 1964 as head track coach and an assistant under former football coach Bill Archie. Price was elevated to head football coach in 1974 and promptly coached the Spartans to 3 straight CIAA Championships between 1974 and 1976. His track teams won two division 2 national championships despite not having a track.

Price retired from coaching in 1983 and remains NSU’S winningest football coach with a career record of 62-41-4. Fifty-three of Price’s former football players entered the ranks of professional football.  Price became the school’s athletics director in 1989, a post he held until 1999. The school’s current football stadium, which opened in 1997, is named in Price’s honor.

Price won numerous awards for his storied career as a coach and administrator. In 1979, he was named the Virginian Pilot’s “Sports Figure of the Decade.” Price is a member of the NSU Athletics Foundation Hall of Fame, The CIAA Hall of Fame, The Hampton Roads African American Sports Hall of fame, and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

1n 2003, Price became the first ever black president of the Norfolk Sports Club.

Current Norfolk State Athletic Director Marty Miller first met Price back in 1964. Miller told me yesterday that there was nothing Price would not do for the University and that he was a true Spartan. A true Spartan that made a huge impact on thousands of lives. Dick Price was priceless for the University and will be greatly missed

Pardon me for another wave of nostalgia; but I find a level of comfort in moments revisited.  How about the pre-ESPN era of television sports that opened every Saturday afternoon?  Jim McKay’s poetic phrases overlapped dramatic music which blared from our 19 inch black and white TV:  

“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport; the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.  The human drama of athletic competition.  This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports!”       

This is how the public north of the Mason/Dixon line learned about something called NASCAR.  Wide World of Sports would film some of the big races and show them on tape delay.  The Daytona 500 was no exception.  So reporter Chris Economaki talked about Buddy Baker,  David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, and of course the King himself.  This one never played Vegas or starred with Ann Margaret, but Richard Petty merely won The Great American Race seven times.  

In those days, even the Daytona 500 was shown on tape delay on the following Saturday afternoon.  But that mattered little to a seven year old boy who sat glued to our little TV watching faint monochromatic images of cars that looked like Dad’s roaring around an asphalt jungle at speeds approaching 200 miles an hour.  I imagined myself behind the wheel of one of those Detroit monsters racing for the checkered flag! 

Something happened in the 1970’s.  The Pittsburgh Pirates, Steelers and Penguins stole my sports soul during adolescence.  But I found NASCAR years later,  like a reunion with a lost love. 

In 1996, I started a job with WESH-TV in Orlando, and less than a month into this career move, I scored press credentials to the Daytona 500.   I was awestruck by the sea of humanity which descended on The World Center of Racing in the wee hours of a chilly Sunday morning.  I wandered aimlessly through the winding roads of the infield-absorbing the frantic activity that assaulted the senses.   Seats in the upper level of the grandstand were laid out in a black and white pattern resmembling a checkered flag contrasted with a cold blue sky illumintaed by the Florida sun.  It was quite a different look from those black and white filmed images beamed through our little RCA nearly 30 years before.

Soon the black and white seats would be filled, and the chaos of cars, silently rolling through the pit area, accented by runs of brightly colored crewman pulling huge fuel cans,  along with various mechanical gadgetry would give way to a serious sense of order.  Forty-three cars lined up on pit road, and shortly after the command to start your engines reverberated through this city of 200,000, the ground shook with a gasoline-infused grumble,  like forty-three tigers looking for their next meal. 

I stood close to the track on the roof of a small pump house outside turn two with a gaggle of magazine and newspaper photographers.  Having the day off, I was free from the contraints of covering this event for the days newscasts.   So I munched on a roast beef sub, as the pace laps brought the simmering noise closer to my perch.

Then, off in the distance, amidst a wave of cheer from the NASCAR faithful, that mechanical rumble exploded full throttle.  The race was on!  The photographers nearby anticipated their moves as the decibel level increased, and brought the cars into full view.  My feet tingled as the roof the old pump house felt like the floor of a West Coast building during an earthquake.  The bright colors adorned with corporate logos stamped with bold numbers flashed before my eyes as my senses struggled to keep pace with the action before me. The cars also brought  full assault on both eardrums.  Animal screams of horsepower pieced my head  as the field shot down the backstretch and away from view.   The silence was fleeting, at best.  For this Doppler effect on steroids repeated in mere seconds.  I was hooked.

It wasn’t long before a flash of fear took over, if only for a few seconds.  John Andretti slammed the backstretch wall out of turn two and careened into the wall right in front the pump house.  It was a startling sight, that brought a hush among our group, but Andretti emerged in one piece with only a few bumps and bruises.  

It came down to a duel between Ford and Chevy, between the great Dale Earnhardt, who at this point never won the Daytona 500, (he finally snapped that streak on his 20th try two years later) and Dale Jarrett who was going for his second 500 win.  Unfortunately, my position restricted my sight of the last lap pass Jarrett made on Earnhardt’s legendary black Mr. Goodwrench machine.  But this experience brought me back to NASCAR.  I’ve been to nine 500’s since, and now enjoy the high definition roar provided by Fox43.  A long drive that began with a spectator’s taste of “the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.”

All the LOIs are signed.  Several Hampton Roads players are headed to colleges across the nation. 

I would call this an average year for Hampton Roads recruits.  And, that’s still very very good.  We had our big recruits like Tajh Boyd going to Clemson.  Three guys going to West Virignia.  Two Oscar Smith players headed to Virginia.  Only 3 local kids are headed to Blacksburg. 

I used to work in Lansing, Michigan.  It’s thought of as a pretty good place for football talent.  But, we never had anything like this when I worked there.  At most we would have 2 kids sign with D-1 schools.

It’s pretty amazing what this area pumps out each year. 

Next year will be just as good.  I have been talking up Oscar Smith quarterback Phillip Sims to anyone who will listen.  This kid is legit.  And, I’m calling it right now.  I think he will be a top 10 national recruit next year.  I think he’ll be the #1 quarterback recruit in the nation and the #1 overall recruit in Virginia.  This kid has the strongest arm I’ve seen from a high school athlete.  He’s not a mobile quarterback, more out of the pro-style mold.  I hear he wants to go to the SEC and play ball there.  He pretty much has his pick of any school in the nation.  He will be the main story next year around this time.

That huge sigh of relief you may have heard or felt today was from dozens of parents, students, teachers and coaches across Hampton Roads following National Signing Day. Imagine having the next 4 or 5 years of your college education payed for free of charge! In these tough economic times, its hard to put a price tag on that.

Football players across the area signed National Letters of Intent today and quickly sent them thru the fax machine to their college choice. It’s a ritual played out each year across the country. It’s the final process of years of hard work on both the field of play, the weight room and in the classroom.

As a highly recruited athlete myself, I remember signing day like it was yesterday. It was one of the biggest days of my young life and the sense of relief was enormous. The long and frustrating recruiting process was finally over and the next chapter of my life was clearly ahead of me. Not only was I proud of my accomplishments, I felt a great sense of pride for being able to help out my parents. Yes I know how these players are feeling today and when I see the smiles on the parents faces, I can recall the joy felt by my mother and father who were at my side the day I signed with Virginia Tech.

National signing day marks both the end and beginning of a long journey. These players have put in countless hours to get to this point in their career. Now with their high school career almost behind them, it’s time to focus on the future and where their next challenge lies. While all of these kids were stars in high school, they will quickly find out that it will be tougher to distinguish themselves at the next level. These players will quickly find out that everybody on the field of play is an All-Something player. And if they thought they got hit in high school, wait until a seasoned college senior gets a running start and welcomes them to the college game!

But that’s a lesson to be learned tomorrow. These college bound student athletes can enjoy what they have earned today and for each player who signed to play college football, enjoy the day and feeling because you earned it.

Let us not forget that the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees will be announced tomorrow afternoon.

One of the finalists is Bruce Smith, who grew up in Norfolk and has lived in Virginia Beach the past 20 years or so.

Bruce of course the all-time sack leader, he went to four Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills before ending his career with the Redskins, and I think Bruce is a shoe in this his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

Anyone else troubled by this trend?  College football coach interviews with an NFL team and then gets fired by the university.  It happened to Boston College’s last coach.  And, this week, it happened at Hampton University to Jerry Holmes.

Holmes told HU that he was going to interview for some NFL jobs at this year’s Senior Bowl.  HU was not cool with it.  When he interviewed anyway, they fired him. 

HU says the timing was the issue.  Other schools were telling recruits not to go to Hampton because their coach may not be around.

Maybe I just don’t get it, but why can’t you tell that same recruit that Holmes is interested in NFL jobs and the NFL is interested in him.  He could go if the job is right.  If it’s not, he will stay and teach these young kids how to one day get to the NFL.  Every college athlete hopes to improve enough to play professionally.  Jerry Holmes knows what it takes to do that.  But Hampton didn’t want him.

I just don’t get it.  You fire Jerry Holmes and promote an assistant.  How is that any different than keeping Holmes?  You have basically the same staff, except now you don’t have a guy who is NFL qualify.

I hope it works out for Hampton.  Their new coach is a Norfolk guy and seems motivated to put the Pirates back in the playoffs.  I just don’t think high aspirations is a fireable offense.

“Hang onto your hats.  Here come the Steelers out of the huddle.  Terry Bradshaw at the controls.  22 seconds remaining; and this crowd is standing.  Bradshaw back and looking again.  Bradshaw runs out of the pocket…looking for somebody to throw to…fires it downfield…and there’s a collision…IT’S CAUGHT OUT OF THE AIR!  THE BALL IS PULLED IN BY FRANCO HARRIS!  HARRIS IS GOING FOR A TOUCHDOWN FOR PITTSBURGH!”   

Jack Fleming,  WTAE Radio December 23rd, 1972

The words crackled through the darkness of my father’s basement.  The old clock radio sitting on Dad’s workbench; our only connection to NFL history in a pre-cable TV world.  In 1972, playoff games were blacked-out in local TV markets.  So long-suffering fans of the Steelers had to reach back to the days when great moments were painted by artists of audio; masters of language, who drew images of competition,  and sent them over the air to big screens that existed only in the mind.  Radio invited the fertile imagination of the dedicated sports fan, and before 1972, there weren’t many as loyal, or more patient, than those who put up with the Steelers.  Nearly every Sunday, they wound up on the short end; a perpetual doormat for other NFL teams–a trend that continued for 40 years. 

But by 1972, the ingredients of greatness came together, like coal, limestone and iron ore mixed in one of Pittsburgh’s blast furnaces; a young coach named Chuck Noll molded a team of heavy metal which terrorized the AFC Central Division with an 11-3 record.  Rookie running back Franco Harris began a decade of dominance behind an offensive line worthy of the city’s blue-collar pride.   That season also saw a brash young quarterback from Louisiana Tech fill the air with pigskin bullets; the final shot hitting an unlikely target and cementing a place in football lore.  Terry Bradshaw was showing mustard seeds of leadership that would blossom into a Hall-of-Famer career in the Steel City.

But on this cloudy Sunday, in my father’s dark  basement.  I stood with Dad as we watched the radio and hung on the play-by-play description of Jack Fleming.  It was the Steelers first post-season appearance since 1947, when the Philadelphia Eagles took them out to the woodshed for an embarassing 21-0 thrashing.   On this cold December afternoon, the Oakland Raiders descended on Three Rivers Stadium.  It was the first of many clashes on green battlefields throughout the decade. 

Dad didn’t care much for NFL football.  He followed the college game.  Notre Dame and Pitt were his two teams.  He worked as a carpenter at the University of Pittsburgh during this time.  In 1972, the Pitt Panthers, like the Steelers,  were on the cusp of greatness.  The legs of Tony Dorsett, another proud warrior from Western Pennsylvania,  would carry the Panthers to the National Championship in 1976.  But two days before Christmas four years earlier, we listened, father and son, to the Steelers.  Dad’s cigarette gave off a faint orange glow in our unfinished basement.  His weathered face listening to Fleming’s electronic description of the action behind a faint blue veil of tobacco smoke.

The Steelers already had the reputation of a bone-crunching defense.   Joe Greene,  Jack Ham, and Mel Blount  were just starting Hall of Fame careers.  Future members of the Hall on offense, Bradshaw and Harris, were quiet on this afternoon.  The first half ended:  Steelers 0 Raiders 0.

Dad didn’t say much.  I was a 10 year old boy with shaggy hair who daydreamed about making the “big play” in all sports.  When I got together with the guys, we would play baseball, wiffle ball, street hockey, basketball, and football.  If we didn’t have enough for a game, imaginations flourished with re-creations of the Baltimore Colts, Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers.   I would announce highlights that came straight out of those iconic slow-motion football ballets that put NFL Films on the map.   But in 1972, we all wanted to be Steelers! 

“Bradshaw back to throw…complete to Ron Shanklin who gets away from two defenders down the sideline TOUCHDOWN…Steelers win the Super Bowl!  (This is followed by all of us mimicking the roaring crowds who shower us with adoration)  

This was “Fantasy Football” to a 10 year old in 1972 Pittsburgh.

But the Raiders were real and giving the Steelers fits.  In the second half, Pittsburgh kicker Roy Gerela managed two short field goals, and the  Steelers looked like they were on their way to their first ever playoff win.  But Oakland, had mounted a last minute touchdown drive and had suddenly gone ahead, 7-6. Ken Stabler, the quarterback who had replaced Daryle Lamonica the start of the final quarter, had run 30 yards down the sideline for the Raider touchdown with only 1 minute 13 seconds left to play. 

Dad looked at me and said, “Well, there’s always the river.” 

I was angry and moaned about going this far only to blow it.  I pouted about how the Steelers were supposed to lose.  

“Pipe down, will yah?”  shhhhh.  “We have another shot at it.  Take it easy.”

Bradshaw started at his own 20, and threw five straight passes.  Then the Steelers found themselves with fourth down on their own 40.  Just 22 seconds left.  That basement was quiet except for the thin AM sound  from that old clock radio.   Bradshaw’s pass ricocheted off Oakland safety Jack Tatum as he collided with Steeler running back Frenchy Fuqa.  Franco Harris just happened to be at the right place at the right time.  He scooped up the ball before it hit the ground and sprinted the down the sideline with what was later dubbed, “The Immaculate Reception.” 

AP Photo

The Steelers had their first ever playoff win, and I ran up the wooden steps from the basement to the kitchen door, and ran outside to meet the rest of the guys!   We re-created what we heard on the radio two days before Christmas in 1972.  Pittsburgh would lose the AFC title game to the fabled Miami Dolphins, who went 17-0 that year.  But that magic moment on a cold Sunday in Pittsburgh triggered a tidal wave of excellence that formed the Steeler Nation!