Jag Voice
Well-Known Member
http://www.theadvocate.com/stories/080402/sou_4magic001.shtml
Magic missing in Birmingham
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The locals here call this stretch of land, creased by valleys that descend to serpentine rivers and defined by low mountain ranges that offer beautiful panoramas, the Magic City. And, indeed, Birmingham has a magical feel as a renaissance town, a shining example of the New South, wiping the residue of its ages-old steel industry away to embrace medical and telecommunications industries and foster a spirit of new growth.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference, however, has found little of the magic since moving here from New Orleans in 1999.
In Birmingham's Saturday newspaper, the conference's football media day on Friday ranked only a one-paragraph brief on Page 2. On one Friday night television news segment, they offered one panorama shot, made a brief statement and moved on.
Of course, those media outlets have their own philosophies, deadlines and newsholes (industry talk for the pages in the section of the paper; in Birmingham's case, Saturday's edition went a little more than five-and-a-quarter pages, with comics on Page 7). Fine. But the lack of local media attention illustrates how little the SWAC has captured Birmingham's attention.
Even in the home for its conference offices and its marquee event, a football championship game played at a site which proclaims the city as the "Football Capital of the South." Even with two conference schools located in the state, both of whom played in the title game the last two seasons. Even with the Birmingham Heritage Festival going on downtown these days.
So should the SWAC move its newly remodeled conference offices, located across the street from the Civil Rights Park, which is equal parts sobering, moving, educational and beautiful?
At the moment, the conference can't. The SWAC doesn't have leadership at the top. That's not a jab. That's a fact. The conference is searching for its new Merlin, or, to be more contemporary, its Harry Potter, some wizard who can coax all that untapped magic out of the collective hat that is the 10-team conference.
The conference came here under the direction of then-Commissioner Rudy Washington. But the visionary behind both the move and the three-year old SWAC Championship Game has since been let go in a messy divorce rife with rumors and a lawsuit (with Washington failing in his suit against the conference for wrongful termination). More than a year has passed since Washington was forced out, and the conference has yet to find a replacement, blowing through a deadline to have a new leader in place earlier this summer (though the search for a replacement is reportedly down to a final few candidates.)
The SWAC already has blown the opportunity of having a new commissioner in place to shake hands with a sizable contingent of newshounds at the football media day. Instead, Friday's back-room scuttlebutt focused on rumors of who was in the lead for the post -- the million-dollar question as some put it.
But assuming the new guy gets in the fold and assuming the SWAC house gets in order, should the conference move?
First off, Birmingham is still a great venue, still a fine city. Legion Field has its charms. The city's leadership seems genuinely interested in the welfare of the conference and its football game. Plus, like with having the home in New Orleans, Birmingham allows the conference home to be kept in a neutral city. And giving a location just three years, going on four, is no way to grow an event, which has had solid, if unspectacular, attendance even without attendance kingpin Southern in the title game since 1999.
However, real or imagined, there's a perception that in Birmingham, far away from most conference schools, Rudy's regime floated unchecked, away from scrutiny either by conference schools or by the media. Plus, having the title game at a central location could help attendance. Fans of Texas Southern and Prairie View, two schools already at the lower ebb of conference football attendance (save for when they play each other or when Southern's in town), would have to travel a dozen hours or more on the interstate system to get to Birmingham. Had the conference grown into Atlanta (Morris Brown) or Nashville or Tallahassee, Fla., the home office would be in the right spot, but now it's off to the east.
So, assuming you tie the conference office with the title game, what would be a central location? Well, if those PV or TSU fans were to make the drive, they likely would travel through SWAC cities Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss., along the way. And considering there are only three media outlets which cover the SWAC regularly -- this newspaper, Jackson Clarion-Ledger and the Huntsville (Ala.) Times -- Baton Rouge and Jackson continue to emerge as the top choices in terms of location and attention.
Then again, fans would be suspicious of having the conference office in either place, worried that Southern and Jackson State, already two of the most successful programs in the conference, would get a further competitive edge from conference rulings. What's more, who'd want to play the Jaguars in their A.W. Mumford Stadium or the Tigers in their Memorial Stadium for the SWAC crown?
Of large, neutral stadiums in the middle of SWAC country, Independence Stadium in Shreveport, where the conference has held its spring championships the last two seasons, and the Superdome, where the conference resided for years, could be other options. But both fail one or both of the critical elements of being central or garnering the necessary attention. The Superdome is also expensive -- way too expensive of a gamble if weak-drawing teams make the game -- and already a failed experiment as a conference office.
The decision to stay or go is ultimately up to the conference's council of presidents, who are smarting from the Washington fiasco but also likely more vigilant to safeguard against a repeat. One of those safeguards could be to move, but that choice, or just contemplating that choice, could lead to more headaches for a conference which has had to swallow its share of aspirin lately.
With the options of moving out all holding major negatives and with Birmingham still holding some positives, go ahead and dig in. The Birmingham formula may work best for what ails the SWAC: a steel backbone and a dash of magic. Now, to get the right wizard ...
Magic missing in Birmingham
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The locals here call this stretch of land, creased by valleys that descend to serpentine rivers and defined by low mountain ranges that offer beautiful panoramas, the Magic City. And, indeed, Birmingham has a magical feel as a renaissance town, a shining example of the New South, wiping the residue of its ages-old steel industry away to embrace medical and telecommunications industries and foster a spirit of new growth.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference, however, has found little of the magic since moving here from New Orleans in 1999.
In Birmingham's Saturday newspaper, the conference's football media day on Friday ranked only a one-paragraph brief on Page 2. On one Friday night television news segment, they offered one panorama shot, made a brief statement and moved on.
Of course, those media outlets have their own philosophies, deadlines and newsholes (industry talk for the pages in the section of the paper; in Birmingham's case, Saturday's edition went a little more than five-and-a-quarter pages, with comics on Page 7). Fine. But the lack of local media attention illustrates how little the SWAC has captured Birmingham's attention.
Even in the home for its conference offices and its marquee event, a football championship game played at a site which proclaims the city as the "Football Capital of the South." Even with two conference schools located in the state, both of whom played in the title game the last two seasons. Even with the Birmingham Heritage Festival going on downtown these days.
So should the SWAC move its newly remodeled conference offices, located across the street from the Civil Rights Park, which is equal parts sobering, moving, educational and beautiful?
At the moment, the conference can't. The SWAC doesn't have leadership at the top. That's not a jab. That's a fact. The conference is searching for its new Merlin, or, to be more contemporary, its Harry Potter, some wizard who can coax all that untapped magic out of the collective hat that is the 10-team conference.
The conference came here under the direction of then-Commissioner Rudy Washington. But the visionary behind both the move and the three-year old SWAC Championship Game has since been let go in a messy divorce rife with rumors and a lawsuit (with Washington failing in his suit against the conference for wrongful termination). More than a year has passed since Washington was forced out, and the conference has yet to find a replacement, blowing through a deadline to have a new leader in place earlier this summer (though the search for a replacement is reportedly down to a final few candidates.)
The SWAC already has blown the opportunity of having a new commissioner in place to shake hands with a sizable contingent of newshounds at the football media day. Instead, Friday's back-room scuttlebutt focused on rumors of who was in the lead for the post -- the million-dollar question as some put it.
But assuming the new guy gets in the fold and assuming the SWAC house gets in order, should the conference move?
First off, Birmingham is still a great venue, still a fine city. Legion Field has its charms. The city's leadership seems genuinely interested in the welfare of the conference and its football game. Plus, like with having the home in New Orleans, Birmingham allows the conference home to be kept in a neutral city. And giving a location just three years, going on four, is no way to grow an event, which has had solid, if unspectacular, attendance even without attendance kingpin Southern in the title game since 1999.
However, real or imagined, there's a perception that in Birmingham, far away from most conference schools, Rudy's regime floated unchecked, away from scrutiny either by conference schools or by the media. Plus, having the title game at a central location could help attendance. Fans of Texas Southern and Prairie View, two schools already at the lower ebb of conference football attendance (save for when they play each other or when Southern's in town), would have to travel a dozen hours or more on the interstate system to get to Birmingham. Had the conference grown into Atlanta (Morris Brown) or Nashville or Tallahassee, Fla., the home office would be in the right spot, but now it's off to the east.
So, assuming you tie the conference office with the title game, what would be a central location? Well, if those PV or TSU fans were to make the drive, they likely would travel through SWAC cities Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss., along the way. And considering there are only three media outlets which cover the SWAC regularly -- this newspaper, Jackson Clarion-Ledger and the Huntsville (Ala.) Times -- Baton Rouge and Jackson continue to emerge as the top choices in terms of location and attention.
Then again, fans would be suspicious of having the conference office in either place, worried that Southern and Jackson State, already two of the most successful programs in the conference, would get a further competitive edge from conference rulings. What's more, who'd want to play the Jaguars in their A.W. Mumford Stadium or the Tigers in their Memorial Stadium for the SWAC crown?
Of large, neutral stadiums in the middle of SWAC country, Independence Stadium in Shreveport, where the conference has held its spring championships the last two seasons, and the Superdome, where the conference resided for years, could be other options. But both fail one or both of the critical elements of being central or garnering the necessary attention. The Superdome is also expensive -- way too expensive of a gamble if weak-drawing teams make the game -- and already a failed experiment as a conference office.
The decision to stay or go is ultimately up to the conference's council of presidents, who are smarting from the Washington fiasco but also likely more vigilant to safeguard against a repeat. One of those safeguards could be to move, but that choice, or just contemplating that choice, could lead to more headaches for a conference which has had to swallow its share of aspirin lately.
With the options of moving out all holding major negatives and with Birmingham still holding some positives, go ahead and dig in. The Birmingham formula may work best for what ails the SWAC: a steel backbone and a dash of magic. Now, to get the right wizard ...
