by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Atlantic Coast Conference baseball tournament is expected to draw thousands of out-of-towners to the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville this week but local alumni are also buzzing about the event and making plans for three straight getaway days downtown.
Games will start as early as 10 a.m. and run all day today through Thursday. The early start times were a challenge for some alumni who couldn’t pull themselves away from work but most have found a way to balance work and play.
For instance, Akerman Senterfitt attorney Jay Brown, president of the local North Carolina State alumni club, will pack shorts and a Wolfpack ballcap into his briefcase for a 9 a.m. hearing. N.C. State plays Miami an hour later.
“It’s a change of clothes and straight to the game,” said Brown.
Brown already knows his way around downtown; his firm’s office is on Laura Street. But the tournament is proving to be a drawing card across the bridges for alumni who live and work elsewhere.
Courtney Jessup, Brown’s co-president for the N.C. State group, said she hopes the Wolfpack will hold on long enough to let her make a trip downtown. Her job in sales and estimates for Duval Asphalt won’t allow her to make the Wednesday game. But she hopes the team advances to the weekend games so she can get a look at the Wolfpack and downtown’s ballpark.
Jessup asked area alumni to contact her at [email protected] for information about pre-game festivities. She said the group’s meetings usually draw about 50 people and expects about that number to attend the games.
The biggest drawing cards are expected to be in-state teams Florida State and Miami, No. 1 seed Georgia Tech and perennial power Clemson. The Florida State and Miami clubs ordered their tickets in blocks of hundreds, and Clemson fans have built a reputation among the alumni groups as maybe the best travellers in the league.
Clemson Club president Shannon Smith scheduled the club’s quarterly meeting to coincide with tournament time. She’s expecting about a larger-than-usual turnout of about 100 to come to the 6 p.m. meeting at the Amsterdam Sky Cafe across from the Baseball Grounds. Most of that crowd will attend the 8 p.m. play-in game, featuring winners from the Virginia Tech/Maryland and Wake Forest/Duke games, she said.
Smith expects most of the local boosters to buy tickets for second-seeded Clemson’s games and expects a large out-of-town contingent as well. She doesn’t think the tournament’s move to Jacksonville from Salem, Va., to hurt the team’s out-of-town attendance.
“We’re probably used to the tournament being a little closer to South Carolina but Clemson is a huge baseball school with a very large following,” said Smith. “We’ve been in the Gator Bowl quite a few times so the fans definitely know their way around Jacksonville.”
Smith is also acting as a team hostess and gave welcome baskets to the players and the coaches, which include tips on where to eat and drink. Smith said she recommended her favorite Southbank restaurants — Clemson is staying at the Hilton — as well as the Twisted Martini bar at the Landing.
In addition to fans, each team is bringing about a hundred-person contingent of team administrators and families. Most of the out-of-towners are staying in downtown hotels, according to the alumni representatives.