Soccer Capital : Davidson College Would Like to Become Permanent Final Four Site

The NCAA men’s soccer Final Four has spent years hop-scotching around the country in search of greener grass and futbol- friendly fans, but in Davidson College, the tournament may finally have found the perfect home.

When the NCAA selected Davidson to host the 1992 and ’93 soccer finals, it was looking for a community that, in the words of Marie Tuite, assistant director of NCAA championships, “would embrace it regardless of who was playing.”

Embrace it? Davidson gave it a great big bear hug that left the NCAA practically breathless. The school sold every ticket to the semifinal and championship games months before the 1992 tournament, and set a Final Four total attendance record of 16,300.

The school has since expanded Richardson Field from 8,150 to 10,500 seats, and tickets for this year’s event, which begins today when Cal State Fullerton plays South Carolina and Virginia plays Princeton, were sold out last summer.

Another year, another attendance record.

The NCAA was so impressed, it gave the 1994 championships to Davidson, the smallest Division I co-ed school in the nation, with an enrollment of 1,550.

But Davidson, which plans to add another 2,000 seats to Richardson Field next season, has its sights set beyond 1994. School and community officials would like this tiny Charlotte suburb (population 4,200, including the students) to be to college soccer what Omaha is to college baseball--a permanent site for championship events.

“We want to be to NCAA championships what the Masters is to golf,” said Pat Millen, Davidson’s director of sports marketing. “Small, classy, well-run, exclusive, you can’t get a ticket to it, so you better watch it on T.V.”

But will Davidson become a victim of its own success? You know the NCAA, sell out a championship event, and it wants to move to a bigger venue to increase gate revenue.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with the support the event has received from the college and community--it heightened the championship to a whole new level,” Tuite said. “But the problem we have, is when will the championship outgrow Davidson College?

“It would be a risk to move, but I don’t think anyone would criticize the decision to leave if it’s in the best interest of accommodating more fans who want to see it.”

Virginia Coach Bruce Arena, who has guided the Cavaliers to five Final Four appearances, including last year’s at Davidson, takes a different approach: Why mess with a good thing?

“I cannot possibly think there’s a better site for this tournament,” Arena said. “If we had the Final Four at Virginia it would be just another sporting event. We’ve got ACC football, ACC basketball, concerts on campus. But this is a special event for this community.”

Said Davidson Athletic Director Terry Holland, the former Virginia basketball coach: “Our goal is to make the NCAA make a very difficult choice. We’re prepared to host it in (20,000-seat) Charlotte Memorial Stadium, but if we move to Charlotte, we might take it out of the ‘college soccer’ environment.”

Many ingredients have gone into Davidson’s Final Four success. There are 45,000 youth soccer players within a 50-mile radius, and they were the primary targets of marketing efforts. The region is a hotbed of college soccer--the Carolinas have placed 11 teams in the national top 20 in the last two years.

Davidson has a 10-person staff that works year-round on the Final Four, 30 others who concentrate on it from September until the championship, another 50 who help out in the three weeks leading up to the event, and hundreds of volunteers for this weekend.

Richardson Field has a smooth, natural-grass surface, and the crisp, cool, late autumn weather--temperatures reach the upper 50s during the day--seems perfect for soccer.

But perhaps Davidson’s biggest attraction is its unique environment. The campus is filled with stately brick buildings, most of them accented by grand columns and arches. Bells in an on-campus church steeple chime on the hour. Expansive lawns are covered with dry leaves that crackle under your feet.

The town is filled with Victorian and Tudor-styled homes, and downtown Davidson consists of a one-block strip of quaint gift shops, cafes and other businesses.

The bookstore is next to the bank, which is next to the accountant’s office, which is next to the Village Store, which is next to the Mecklenburg Gazette, and so on. Every business is privately owned and operated--no chain stores or fast-food joints here.

“It’s like small-town America that people don’t think exists anymore,” said Robert Stewart, who runs a Davidson women’s boutique with his wife, Donna. “Coming here is like going back in time.”

And most who come here, come back eventually. Davidson soccer Coach Charlie Slagle kept a computer list of everyone who bought tickets to last year’s Final Four, and 80% are back this year. Last year, the event attracted people from 27 states; this year, fans from 31 states have purchased tickets.

“The big thing is we’re fan-oriented,” Slagle said. “Once we sold out, we weren’t just happy with that. We wanted to provide them with a great experience.”

Some of Davidson’s personal touches: Each shuttle bus, which takes fans from a parking area to the stadium, has a host to answer questions. Players from Slagle’s men’s and women’s team act as ushers. A full food court outside the stadium offers a wide variety of concessions. A Youth Education Through Sports soccer clinic, which has attracted 550 kids, will be held Saturday.

And as an added bonus for visitors, this year’s tournament coincides with Christmas In Davidson, a four-day celebration complete with horse-drawn carriage rides through town, concerts, arts and crafts exhibits and a parade.

“It is the event of the year at Davidson,” Slagle said of the soccer championship. “That’s the difference between this and having it some place like Tampa, where the semifinals were Page 3 news and people had so many other things to do besides watch soccer.”

The NCAA has gone back and forth during the last 20 years, holding the men’s soccer championship at predetermined sites, such as Miami, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale and Seattle, and having one of the participating schools serve as host.

It usually doesn’t draw well in big stadiums--for instance, only 5,986 saw UCLA beat American University, 1-0, in eight overtimes in the 1985 championship game in the Seattle Kingdome. Before coming to Davidson, the Final Four attracted a total of 6,901 fans in 1990 and 6,128 fans in 1991 at the University of South Florida.

Rutgers hosted the Final Four in 1989 and attracted decent crowds--11,725 for both sessions--but Virginia and Santa Clara had to brave sub-zero temperatures in New Jersey for the championship game.

If it isn’t one thing . . .

And now here’s Davidson, which has proved itself a worthy host and has elicited favorable comparisons to the College World Series in Omaha.

The key to success of the College World Series is that it remains a big-time event for players, who get to perform on national television and in front of crowds of 17,000, and a big draw for fans, who love its minor league charm--games are played in Rosenblatt Stadium, triple-A home of the Omaha Royals.

The Davidson experience is a scaled-down version of the College World Series in Omaha--the biggest event of the year for the players in a picturesque setting for the fans.

“It’s an atmosphere of fun, excitement, a small town and college doing something to the best of their ability,” Slagle said.

Perhaps too good?

“I’m obviously very biased, but I think it’s ridiculous to move this for the sake of moving it or into a stadium where they could put another 8,000 fans,” Millen said. “To move to a bigger stadium for more revenue, that’s a pretty shallow reason.”