Charleston Dailey Mail

WVU, James Madison finalize deal for FedEx Field game

MCT REGIONAL NEWS

By Mike Casazza

Charleston Daily Mail, W.Va.

(MCT)

July 21--MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia and James Madison University announced Wednesday the long-suspected agreement to play a football game next year at FedEx Field, home of the NFL's Washington Redskins.

The deal, which the Charleston Daily Mail first reported June 27, was finalized this week after WVU officials sent the signed contract to organizers last week. WVU and the Dukes, a Football Championship Subdivision program located in Harrisonburg, Va., will play Sept. 15, 2012.

WVU, which is preparing for a future in which the Big East will expand to include Texas Christian University and won't be able to guarantee seven home games for each team every season, counts the JMU game as a home game and will only play six games at Mountaineer Field in 2012. The athletic department trumpeted the financial benefit associated with not paying an opponent to visit and not being responsible for expenses involved with operating a stadium or selling tickets.

"If we could do this and make an extra $100,000 or $200,000, we wouldn't play a game somewhere else," Athletic Director Oliver Luck said. "Collectively, our athletic department sat around and decided to do this because we can make $500,000 more with the possibility of earning more from a couple of bonuses.

"A half a million dollars is a lot of money and we have no ticket risk. It's not like a bowl game where we're in the business of selling tickets. A half a million dollars is a lot of money."

The Mountaineers are guaranteed $2.3 million for the FedEx date and also not responsible for compensating JMU, a major difference from a traditional home game, especially now with guarantee fees skyrocketing.

"The key number for me is not really a gross number. It's the net number," Luck said. "The net number here, we'll make a minimum of $500,000 from this game more than we would for playing host to a typical I-AA game."

The Mountaineers make around $2 million for a home game. That's for a larger or capacity crowd and the sum tends to be lower for less significant opponents, like James Madison, though WVU did draw 56,609 for a 2004 game against the Dukes. Mountaineer Field seats 60,000 and saw 57,862 for FCS Coastal Carolina's visit last season, 57,950 for Liberty in 2009 and 60,566 for Villanova in 2008.

All three were season-openers. The JMU game is WVU's third of the 2012 season. In addition to receiving more than a normal home date might provide, Luck said the expenses would be minimized, as well.

Forum teaches communities to help deal with addiction - News - The ...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Workers can't pass drug tests. Kids mimic parents who are doing drugs. Families struggle to find help for addicted loved ones.

Those were some of the issues discussed Wednesday at a forum on prescription drug abuse at the University of Charleston. Ministers, teachers, community leaders and others gathered to talk about the problem.

The West Virginia Center for Civic Life was training them to host community forums throughout the state. 

Participants in the center's Civic Life Institute learn to moderate talks by asking probing questions while staying neutral on the issues. The center trains them on how to gather information from the sessions, and turn it into community action.

The discussion on prescription drug abuse started with examples from people's own lives.

Connie Lupardus of the Central Appalachia Empowerment Zone in Clay said many residents can't pass drug tests.

"We are losing our work force," she said. "We are losing a generation of workers."

A woman who works at a psychiatric hospital said substance abuse is the main problem she sees.

"Finding treatment, it's hard," she said. "And a lot of our children do have to go out of state" to find it.

Many participants placed the blame on doctors. A woman said some physicians give prescriptions meant for terminally ill patients for "minor aches and pains."

"It's ridiculous," she said.

Another said she told her dentist she didn't want a prescription for narcotic painkillers after a procedure, but he wrote her one anyway.

Some said it's a larger cultural problem, pointing to the countless TV commercials that promise to fix people's problems with pills.  

One participant, Barbour County Schools Superintendent Joe Super, said community forums should reach out to the medical community to get their perspectives, too. It's also important to stay up to speed on what state lawmakers are doing, he said.

"There are great positions out there from some of our legislators on these issues," he said.

The group of about 50 people also shared ideas for specific things their community could support to make a dent in West Virginia's prescription drug abuse problem.

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