Voice of ODU's basketball team tries to plow ahead in snow; misses big win

As Old Dominion's players and coaches were closing in on the school's biggest basketball victory in three years Saturday night, where was Ted Alexander, voice of the Monarchs?

"Schlepping my stuff in 18 inches of snow and slush," he said.

Speaking by phone from the ODU team bus as it made its way down I-95 in bumper-to-bumper traffic Sunday morning, Alexander reported, "We're 28 miles outside D.C., and not moving."

So what else is new?

The morning before, Alexander boarded a train in Newport News for what turned into a 10-1/2 hour ride to Washington's Union Station.

After dealing with the snow-stalled Metro system and navigating several blocks on foot through the city's worst wintry storm in at least a decade, Alexander failed to make it to McDonough Arena on the Georgetown campus until after ODU had stunned the previously undefeated Hoyas 61-57.

"Everybody has a storm story and this is mine," he said, "the unending quest to get to the ball game."

By the time Alexander arrived, members of the team were already on the bus. He returned with them to their hotel, before sharing the lengthy, but happy, ride home.

"This isn't just the average game," he said. "It's a huge win. You just hate to not be a part of it the way you usually are."

As Alexander spoke, the voice of Blaine Taylor could be heard in the background announcing that a tape of the game would soon be showing on the bus' monitors.

"That would be nice," Alexander said, "because I haven't seen it yet. So this is what all the excitement's about."

Nobody can say that Alexander didn't give it the old college try. Though he couldn't be courtside for the play-by-play - ESPN 94.1 FM used the feed from Georgetown announcer Rich Chvotkin - he handled the pre- and postgame shows off-location with his cell phone.

Alexander was still a captive of Amtrak when he went on the air at 6:30 to preview the game and run down statistics. And in what has to be one of the more MacGyverish postgame shows ever conducted, Alexander was walking across the Key Bridge when he and Taylor got together via cell.

Getting Taylor on the air provided Alexander with some warm relief after a long day and night of frigid frustration.

After finishing an on-air shift Friday night at WTKR-TV, he thought he had allowed more than enough time to reach Washington, even considering the weather.

"I left Newport News at 9:25 in the morning thinking it wouldn't be a problem," he said. "It's supposed to be a four-hour ride. But we pulled into Union Station at 7:30."

Was he worried? Anxious? Stressed? Try all of the above.

"You leave with the best intentions and you've left a huge window of time to get there," he said, "and when you realize you're threatening the start of the broadcast, you start to stress out a little. But at the same time, you realize there's not a darn thing you can do."

It helped, he said, that his travails were shared by others on the train. Like the guy who was trying to make a 6 p.m. flight to Vienna, Austria, out of Dulles. It wasn't to be.

Then there was the father who was taking his three sons under 5 all the way to Chicago. Very slowly.

"A lot of people were inconvenienced, but no one got hurt," Alexander said. "Everybody has a story in a storm like this. Mine is chasing a goal and never getting it, but the team got theirs."

A few hours after ODU bagged its first big non-conference victory, everybody on the bus settled back to watch a tape of the game - a replay for all but Alexander.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said. "I know the ending and it's a happy one."

Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com