SPORTS FOLDEROL

  Believe it or not … Richmond (city of) remains the runaway leader in attendance for the NCAA Division I men’s soccer final four … yet hasn’t held the event since 1999. It’s true. Starting in 1995, five of the top six crowds for the College Cup turned  out at City Stadium … including a SRO of 21,319 for the ‘95  semifinals, second only to 22,512 that witnessed the 1980 final at  54,692-seat Busch Memorial Stadium, then home of the MLB St.  Louis Cardinals and NFL Cardinals. In all, Richmond still has eight of the top 12 crowds … including  an average of 20,651 for the top five. So, tell us, why did the NCAA leave the Capital City, never to return  again? Well, for one thing the governing body decided … if little old  Richmond, Va., could attract crowds of 20,000-plus, bigger venues  could do much, much better. Wrong! The event went from here to Charlotte, N.C., and the home of the NFL  Carolina Panthers, where 73,250 seats were left mos...

  So the University of Richmond finally caught on … that the CAA has  become only a reasonable facsimile of what it was … and no longer is  viable for SpiderNation. What  Chuck Boone ,  Tom   Yeager  et al  created 44 years ago with UR a charter member has become a hodge- podge of schools that, for the most part, generate zero interest here. We’ve got to believe UR knew what the conference originally called  ECAC South then Colonial (now Coastal) had become after Yeager  retired as its first commissioner and watched successor  Joe D’Antonio   open the CAA’ s  borders to anyone  and everyone.  Come one, come all.  You might have thought he was being paid by the school the way  growth got out of hand. Of course, all college athletics, especially at the top, have changed …  not for the better, we should add. Maybe Richmond will wise up some  more and recognize what Boone, then UR athletic directo...