Virginia Tech breaks royalties record
Competitive marketing strategy and the football program's national prominence have driven up sales of Hokie merchandise.
By MEGAN EDWARDS
THE ROANOKE TIMES
The rise in popularity of Virginia Tech athletics has meant soaring sales for merchandise bearing the school's logos.
Hokie-inspired paraphernalia returned an unprecedented $833,902 in royalties from an estimated $20 million in retail sales, said Locke White, director of licensing at Virginia Tech.
The school receives an 8 percent royalty for any item sold with a Tech logo on it. The royalties received this year show an increase of more than 200 percent in five years, up from $251,178 in fiscal year 1997-98.
Tech's competitive marketing strategy and the football program's national prominence have driven sales up over the years, White said.
"We like to keep the Virginia Tech brand out front, so if people are walking around Wal-Mart, and they have a choice of other colleges, they'll pick out Virginia Tech," White said.
In athletics, as in life, perception is everything.
If a player appears overweight, seems to be loafing, can’t muster the strength
and quickness to finish a play or acts standoffish, inferences will be made:
He’s lazy, he doesn’t care or he’s a problem.
At one time or another during his two seasons at Virginia, forward Elton Brown
has been given such labels or perhaps earned them.
Brown has acknowledged the criticism and even apologized to a breakfast
gathering of UVa boosters last season about such perceptions. Yet, as this
summer began Brown made a commitment to change himself both physically and
mentally. And it was an internal spark, not external criticism, that provided
the motivation.
“I want to work hard and succeed and have basketball in my future,” said the
6-foot-9 Brown, who is down to approximately 257 pounds after maxing out at
close to 280 during his UVa career. “Now, things are right there for me and I
see that door and I want to open it. I see an opportunity and I want to take
advantage of it.”
Brown is now in the midst of the most rigorous training program of his career.
With the assistance of Virginia strength and conditioning coach Lorenzo
Rivers, Brown is participating in a two-hour, four-day-a-week regimen that
includes running on both stairs and treadmills and even with the occasional
parachute to increase fitness, strength and stamina. Then comes a
weight-training program in which Brown is currently benching 315 pounds while
squatting close to 450.
It’s all quite new to Brown who never had anything resembling a training
program while at Warwick High School in Newport News.
“I’ve never had this kind of workout before. Never. I’ve really never done
this before. I know people are doubting me. I know they’re saying, ‘Sure
Elton, we’ll see’ but I want people to forget about me. I want them to be like
‘Who’s Elton?’” said Brown, who has also increased his vertical to 31.5
inches, according to Rivers.
His summer program also includes something more foreign to Brown than running
and weights: A diet.
Brown professes to be eating only salads mixed with the occasional chicken and
turkey. That’s it and thus some traditional favorites have been shelved.
“I haven’t had a hamburger, cheeseburger or pizza in so long that I don’t even
know what they would taste like anymore,” Brown said.
While Brown doesn’t dwell or even attempt to bring attention to his new
attitude and look, the change is not lost on Rivers, who has spent much of the
past two years pushing and cajoling Brown to reach such a point.
“It seems like he’s had a 180-degree change. His attitude has changed and his
body has changed tremendously as well. We’ve talked during this that good
enough is neither. Enough is just getting by and good is short of best. He’s
taken that road,” Rivers said.
Added junior guard Todd Billet: “Elton is realizing what he has to do to
become a better basketball player. That will help the team out. He’s done a
great job. He put it on his shoulders. He realized what he had to do and went
out and did it.”
Brown now hopes that road will lead him to increased production on the court.
As a sophomore, Brown started 17 games and finished the year with modest
averages of 9.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 18.7 minutes. Certainly, poor
conditioning had a direct correlation to those numbers not being higher and
his slow manner often led to his arsenal of post moves being rejected by
quicker and more athletic opponents.
“If a big man can have a quick first step, that’s everything. That will be a
weapon for me. If I can get inside consistently, no one can stop me. Now, I
can turn and rise to shoot over people or when I take it to the basket, I just
turn and dunk it and not just lay it up. It’s up to me now,” Brown said.
If there’s one external motivation for Brown, it has been the graduation of
power forward Travis Watson. Watson’s departure leaves an obvious void on the
inside for the Cavaliers and Brown has an idea of who should be filling it.
“Every team needs a leader and I’m very vocal and I can do that. … Maybe I
relied a little too much on Travis. Now, I’m the guy and people are looking to
me,” Brown said. “I love Travis to death but I’m glad he’s gone now. I want
people to see what Elton can do. No one has seen my game and no one has really
seen me play the way I can yet.”
Of course, Brown quickly added that his goals are not limited to individual
ones.
“We want an ACC championship next year. We want 20-plus wins. We don’t want
anymore of this 16-16 stuff,” Brown said.
ACC preseason affair should be livelier than usual
E-mail Tony Barnhart
The ACC's Preseason Football Kickoff is normally a pretty laid-back affair. Each
summer media from around the conference gather at a nice resort and talk with
the coaches and players about the upcoming season.
All the coaches are optimistic. All the players are convinced their team can win
the national championship. It's a good excuse to get in a few extra rounds of
golf before everyone has to go back to work.
But the 2003 event, which begins today at Reynolds Plantation on Lake Oconee,
will be anything but normal. That's because it has been an abnormal offseason
for the conference that just turned 50 years old.
Since May 13, when the nine ACC presidents voted to expand the conference, there
has been an endless stream of headlines about the process.
The ACC intended to invite Miami, Boston College and Syracuse to form a 12-team
conference. But after more twists and turns than a Tom Clancy novel, Miami and
Virginia Tech were the only teams invited. When the smoke cleared, the ACC was
suddenly an 11-team conference while Boston College and Syracuse were, in
essence, told to go back to the Big East. There was plenty of embarrassment to
go around.
"It was not a perfectly smooth process, no doubt about it," said Dr. Wayne
Clough, Georgia Tech's president. "There simply was no easy way to do it."
But some in the media didn't portray the process as just awkward, or difficult,
or even clumsy. To them, what the ACC was doing was evil.
The dark side
The ACC hierarchy, specifically the nine ACC presidents and commissioner John
Swofford, were raked over the coals as representing all that is wrong with
college athletics. A conference that had always considered itself a cut above
the money-grubbing, "win-at-all-costs" attitude that is so pervasive in college
athletics had, according to the critics, gone over to the dark side.
And the heat wasn't just coming from the outside. Internally there were voices
of dissent coming out of Durham and Chapel Hill. The faculties at Duke and North
Carolina didn't like the expansion idea at all. And then the league's most
high-profile basketball coach lectured the expansion advocates as though they
were children misbehaving at recess.
"We've obviously gone into another person's yard with our. . . John Deere and
knocked down a few trees," said Duke's Mike Krzyzewski. "We need to mend some
fences."
Translation: "This is still a basketball conference, and you football rednecks
need to remember that."
Needless to say, that little ditty is still reverberating around parts of the
conference where officials already believe too much power is concentrated at
Duke and North Carolina.
Lots of questions
Krzyzewski is right about one thing. The ACC does have some fences to mend,
internally and externally.
And the ACC players and coaches will arrive at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge today
with, it seems, a lot more unanswered questions than in previous years.
Questions such as:
What's going on with the search for a 12th team? No formal queries have been
made but some presidents, like Florida State's T.K. Wetherell, think the ACC
should get on a plane to South Bend, Ind., and find out what it would take to
get Notre Dame. If that fails, then the ACC might get into a tug of war with the
Big East over Louisville.
If the ACC can't add a 12th team quickly, will it have a conference championship
game in 2004 with only 11 teams? We'll know next April; the NCAA is considering
legislation to change the minimum number of teams required from 12 to 10.
After two bad years (8-4 and 9-5) by its standards, can Florida State get back
into the national championship picture? It's been 21 years since Bobby Bowden
coached a team that lost five games. And given the off-field problems of a year
ago, specifically the gambling and theft charges against quarterback Adrian
McPherson, some in the media are circling over Bowden's program. At 73, Bowden
would love to put his Seminoles back into college football's elite this season.
He'll need some luck -- and consistent play at quarterback.
Can Duke finally win an ACC game? The Blue Devils were 0-8 in the ACC for the
third consecutive year in 2002, but came close a few times. Duke lost four ACC
games by five points or fewer. With 11 starters back on offense and nine on
defense, Duke has a chance to break through in 2003.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley assured fans that the Gators have no plans to become the Atlantic Coast Conference's 12th team.
"All I know is that from the University of Florida's perspective, we're proud to be a member of the Southeastern Conference," Foley said. "I see us being in the conference for many, many years."
After the ACC added Miami and Virginia Tech to expand to 11 teams, Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles suggested there could be more moves in the making. He said SEC schools South Carolina, Kentucky and Florida could be possible targets.
On Tuesday, though, the ACC filed papers with the NCAA, asking for a change in the bylaw that states a conference must have 12 teams to hold a championship game. If the NCAA changes the rule, the need to add another team would be diminished.
Speaking to a booster club in Jacksonville on Thursday night, Foley said Florida wouldn't consider a move either way.
The Gators are charter members of the SEC, joining when the conference was formed in 1933.
For ACC, work just starting
By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer
In one respect, John Swofford, insists, some fans got the wrong idea about
expansion.
The ACC commissioner says the recent addition of Miami and Virginia Tech was
never intended to better position the conference for an eventual college
football playoff system -- in part because a playoff may not come as soon as
some people would like to believe.
"I realize that a lot of fans did draw a link between expansion and speculation
about playoffs, but that just wasn't why expansion happened," says Swofford, who
returned to his Greensboro office this week after a 10-day break. "It was about
making the league stronger in the future, but it wasn't about playoffs."
When the current Bowl Championship Series agreement ends with the Rose Bowl
after the 2005 regular season, Swofford says, the postseason landscape won't
change much. Swofford, a past BCS chairman, is a member of the NCAA football
oversight committee .
"I can be as wrong as the next person, but I just don't see a playoff system
becoming a reality that fast," he says. "I'm not saying it won't happen
eventually, but I think the next phase will be modifications of the BCS we have
now."
The BCS, about to begin its sixth year, is the product of an agreement among the
ABC television network, the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific 10 and
Southeastern conferences and independent Notre Dame to fill the spots in the
Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar bowls. The ABC payoff totals about $112 million
each season.
But with Miami and Virginia Tech leaving the Big East, the BCS equation could
change dramatically unless the Big East quickly bulks up its football roster.
The league could lose its automatic BCS berth as early as next year -- a
decision likely to be made by ABC.
Whether the Big East is in or out , the ACC has substantially increased its
chances of landing two BCS berths . The ACC has never placed more than one team
in the four elite bowls. A second BCS spot would be worth at least $4.5 million
to the conference.
Before the BCS situation is sorted out, Swofford and the ACC have more pressing
television business. The league's football contracts with ABC, ESPN and
Jefferson-Pilot, collectively worth $22 million to $24 million a season, are set
through the 2005 regular season. But Swofford anticipates those deals will be
renegotiated upward.
"That's something we'll start dealing with soon, probably within the next couple
of months," Swofford says. "We've got a stronger lineup to offer now, and we
think our TV partners will be willing to consider making changes."
A lot depends on whether the ACC gets the expected NCAA approval to stage a
league title game with fewer than 12 teams, which also would bring more TV
revenue. In that case, the Fox network could enter the picture.
Swofford wouldn't put a figure on how much more the ACC expects to make from the
football deals. Before expansion was a done deal, however, ACC officials were
hoping for an additional $10 million to $12 million a year.
The agreements for 2004 and '05 could be restructured or new long-term deals
reached .
"Originally," Swofford says, "almost all of the football contracts with all
conferences and networks were scheduled to end at the same time -- when this
four-year BCS phase ends. But now our situation will change earlier than that. I
certainly don't think we would rule out looking long-term if that is something
everyone wants to explore."
The ACC's basketball contract with Raycom/Jefferson-Pilot, negotiated by
Swofford in the spring of 2000, runs through the 2010-11 season and pays the
league about $28 million a year.
Regardless of what changes occur , the football deals will have to made quickly.
The 2004 schedules must be set and basic TV games approved by Dec. 15.
"The next few months are going to be busy ," Swofford says.
He also says he is confident the ACC's anti- and pro-expansion factions will
unite quickly and fully. Duke and North Carolina voted against expanding to 11
members, but leaders at both schools have expressed a willingness to move
forward now that the issue has been settled.
"The family atmosphere that's been there all along won't change in the ACC,"
Swofford says. "There have been differences of opinions before, but it didn't
stop cooperation. This won't, either."
In the nearly three weeks since the ACC added Miami and Virginia Tech, nearly everyone has weighed in on the subject. Tuesday was Bobby Bowden's turn as he offered his first comments on expansion since it became official June30.
There were no surprises from the Florida State coach, who stated before the process he was in favor of expansion.
"I was glad," Bowden said. "I thought Miami was the key. The big thing about Miami is we have to play them whether they are in there or not, so I'd just as soon have them with me. They definitely strengthen the football of our conference. The credibility has grown a lot football-wise with that."
Miami and Virginia Tech are expected to participate in league play beginning in 2004. Miami played for the national championship last season and Virginia Tech faced FSU for the national title after the 1999 season. The expansion brings the league to 11 teams with the possibility of adding a 12th team.
While FSU president T.K. Wetherell would like to add Notre Dame, Bowden isn't
making any guesses.
"I don't know what will happen there," Bowden said.
Returning from a vacation last week, Bowden has been mostly out of the public eye this summer. While his coaches are finishing the final session of summer camp, Bowden is putting together his plans for next week's hideaway. Preseason practice begins Aug.5.
Offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden isn't planning to unveil major changes on offense during the hideaway - the coaches' annual preseason planning sessions - but he has spent much of his summer studying film.
"Right now I'm looking at a tape of all of our pass plays from last year where we didn't get the ball off," he said. "I'm trying to determine why. When you call a pass play you expect the ball to be thrown. Sometimes (Chris Rix) just didn't have a place to go with the ball. But Chris needs to know he has to get rid of the ball."
Both Bowdens should be encouraged by what has taken place on the practice fields and training room this summer. With the exception of walk-on defensive lineman Brian Ross, who broke his leg in the spring, all players who underwent surgery or suffered injury in the off-season are expected to be medically cleared for preseason practice. That group includes rover Claudius Osei (Achilles), defensive lineman Jeff Womble (Achilles), offensive lineman Ray Willis (shoulder) and linebackers Kendyll Pope (shoulder) and Peter Boulware (shoulder).
Strength coach Jon Jost has been pleased with the attendance, and effort, of his players during volunteer workouts.
"Last year we worked hard but we didn't always have good attendance, and we really didn't have a good attitude," Jost said. "The atmosphere to me has caused the most excitement. We've worked hard, but there are guys out here having fun and laughing. I think that's made the big difference."