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NEWS, NOTES &
COMMENTARY
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The
Bradsher Beat
Friday, December 15, 2006
By Bethany Bradsher |
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Bowling by the numbers
©2006 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
In my newspaper days we used to say that we
wanted a bumper sticker that said, ‘Warning: Journalists Doing Math.” I am
so right-brained that I have trouble playing Yahtzee because I can’t add up
the little dots on the dice quickly enough.
Given that disclaimer about my proficiency with
anything numerological, I still can’t resist looking at some of the digits
associated with the Pirates’ upcoming bowl.
Let’s start with a special bowl season story
problem:
If exactly one-third of Legion Field’s 83,091
seats were filled by Pirate backers wearing purple, how many pizzas would
need to be ordered for them from Papajohns.com so that each person could eat
three slices?
Try that one out on your school-age child during
the Christmas break if you wish, but my brain is strained enough that I need
to abandon the equations in favor of, simply, the Papajohn.com Bowl by the
numbers, with a little help from East Carolina assistant athletic director
Lee Workman:
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550.
The average number of tickets that have
been sold each day since the Pirates’ bowl bid was announced on November
28. Workman didn’t know the total number of tickets sold at this point,
but he estimated that at least 6,000 have already been claimed. Pirate
fans have already bought more tickets than they did for any bowl since
the Peach Bowl, Workman said, a trend he attributes to excitement over
the first bowl bid in five years, a Saturday game and the fact that
Birmingham is closer to Greenville than recent bowl sites like Mobile
and Houston.
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160.
The number of rooms that are reserved for
the official ECU athletic group at Birmingham’s Wynfrey Hotel. Those
rooms will house the players, coaches, staff members, cheerleaders, band
members and other officials, but Workman believes that fans have
reserved 100 or so more rooms. Out of 325 guest rooms at the Wynfrey,
only 40 were available this week.
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2.
The number of lucky Army ROTC cadets who
get to make the trip for one special purpose – to shoot the official
Pirate cannon after each touchdown or field goal. The crucial unknown
digit in this equation is the number of times Nathan Rimpf and Adam
Lewis will do their job on Dec. 23, but a busy cannon against South
Florida is undoubtedly at the top of ECU offensive coordinator’s
Christmas wish list.
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18.
The number of meals that Workman and other
staff members must coordinate for the Pirate players, three meals a day
for the seven days between Saturday, Dec. 16 and bowl day, minus the
three special meals that will be provided by bowl organizers. Because
school is officially out of session and the players are only on campus
because of their football obligations, they will either eat at official
team meals or receive per diem money (allowable by the NCAA in such
situations) for each meal during the week. In Birmingham, the players
will be given at least one catered meal a day, Workman said, made with
food portions that are designed to keep 300-pound linemen satisfied.
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25.
The number of extra hours per week that
Workman has worked since before the Pirates’ bowl destination was even
announced. Even when there was a chance that ECU would play in the
Conference USA championship game in Houston, he was making preliminary
plans for that trip. And since the official word came, he has seen very
little daylight as he has camped out in his office nailing down bowl
details large and small. But, even though meals with his family are the
rarest of luxuries right now, Workman is grateful for the added
responsibility. Over the course of his 22 years in the Pirate athletic
department, he has witnessed the spark that a bowl trip gives a football
program. “Its just more momentum for us to create for our athletic
program,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity for us to expand our
operation in a very positive way.”
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02/23/2007 01:13:31 AM |
