There’s a scene Jan Quitzau repeats in his mind over and over again: It’s early April, a picturesque spring day and thousands of face-painted fans funnel toward the site of the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four, waving pennants and hooting and hollering.

It looks so familiar, though. The fans are strolling up Irving Avenue on the Syracuse University Hill toward the Carrier Dome, the centerpiece of the SU campus and the largest domed stadium in the Northeast. And, patron-by-patron, the Dome swallows the crowd and welcomes it to the pageantry of the Final Four, the grandest event in college athletics.

‘The community’s been talking about this from day one when the Dome was built,’ said Quitzau, the executive director of Syracuse Convention and Visitors Bureau. ‘When you have an NCAA championship school and the largest on-campus venue in the United States, you can’t help but say, ‘Geez, we’ll be able to host the Final Four.’ ‘

Not yet.

That’s why Quitzau daydreams this scene. Despite hosting three successful East Regional finals — the round before the Final Four — since 1997, Syracuse is never considered among potential locations for the Final Four because it fails to meet stringent criteria set by the NCAA. The city is woefully short of the 10,000 hotel rooms needed within a 20-mile radius, and the Dome lacks sufficient space to house media and hold press conferences. Only a handful of cities qualify to host the three-day-long bonanza and its built-in $50 million boost to the local economy.

Syracuse, however, does meet most of the requirements to host a women’s Final Four. Quitzau said the university will explore bidding for the 2008 and 2009 championships this summer, and Associate Director of Athletics Michael Veley said, ‘We’d all love to see it happen.’

Efforts within the next 10 years — as well as a successful women’s Final Four, should it happen — could make Syracuse a viable men’s Final Four option around 2011, or even later. However, plenty of “ifs” cloud the prospects. If the 3.2 million-square-foot Destiny USA mall comes to fruition and brings with it 4,000 new hotel rooms. If the university receives state and federal funding for a $7 million addition to accommodate media on the Irving Avenue side of the Dome. If the NCAA actually would hold the Final Four in Syracuse, a mid-size city on which a blanket of snow dropped during the East Regional on March 22.

‘I would never promise anybody that if we got the press space and if we got the hotel rooms up to a qualitative and quantitative level that we’d get a men’s Final Four,’ SU Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw said. ‘I wouldn’t make that promise. But I promise you we won’t get it without it.’

Dozens of conversations about it have taken place, more informal inquiries than anything else. Shaw partook in a couple with former Syracuse Mayor Roy A. Bernardi. SU Director of Athletics Jake Crouthamel had a few with Bill Hancock, director of Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, which selects Final Four sites.

All dialogue concerned the feasibility of Syracuse landing a men’s Final Four, the culmination of the NCAA Tournament that will cost CBS $6 billion to televise until 2014. And all ended rather abruptly.

‘The fact is, at least in the past, Syracuse hasn’t met those two criteria, which are very important,” Hancock said.

Meeting those criteria concerns all involved parties, as most of the specifications hinge on Destiny USA. Ever since the Syracuse Common Council OK’d the Destiny project with a 9-0 vote Jan. 15, speculation has surrounded when construction would start and the size of the addition onto the Carousel Center.

If Destiny’s parent company, the Pyramid Companies, builds the proposed 4,000 hotel rooms, it would add to the 6,300 in Onondaga County and push the area over the 10,000-hotel minimum. Pyramid plans to break ground on the project by June, at the latest, and hopes to have some new stores and hotel rooms open by next year, said Pyramid spokesman Richard Pietrafesa. The entire project should be completed by June 2004.

Problem No. 1 solved.

Then comes the problem of the lack of media and conference space. When Shaw and Bernardi spoke six years ago, they estimated an addition would cost $6 million. Now, Shaw estimates the figure at $7 million and said the money must come from outside sources.

‘The university would not spend $7 million,’ he said. ‘We have too many other priorities. We have academic priorities, and $7 million buys you half of a Newhouse addition.’

Enter the Destiny project. Included in the plans is a $25 million, 50,000-square-foot tourism center, funded by the money the state culls from tax dollars. Out of every dollar, 7 percent is taxed and of that, 4 percent goes to the state. The 4 percent the state receives from Destiny-spent dollars would be funneled back toward tourism through a bill passed by Democratic state Sen. John DeFrancisco.

As Onondaga County’s state representative, DeFrancisco welcomes the idea of a men’s Final Four in Syracuse. And as chairman of the state’s Tourism, Recreation and Sports Development committee, he holds a powerful position in commissioning an annex on the Dome and said it would serve as tax money well-spent.

‘It’s not out of the question,’ DeFrancisco said. ‘If that’s the only piece, the media center, I’m sure the state and federal governments would be willing to provide the money.

‘I would be in support of it, in view of the economic kick it would give to the Central New York community. I would remain positive on it and I would do everything I could to assist.’

Added Dan Gage, the spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jim Walsh, a Republican of Syracuse: ‘Based on the state economy and the state budget issues, the next few years don’t look good. … But it is possible that (Walsh) might be able to get federal funds earmarked.’

The annex, Dome Managing Director Pat Campbell said, would serve as locker-room and storage space when not being used for media activities. In order for it to be built, he said, the university must find other uses for it besides storage and once-in-a-blue-moon press conferences.

Shaw remains skeptical, too.

‘When there were better times, it didn’t happen,’ he said. ‘If you’re the governor and you have to weigh this with stimulating the economy with major research in this area and Albany and Buffalo, it’s an easy choice. One game every eight years or so versus research that can help the economy right now? Easy.’

Still, the state has twice given money to major Dome-related expenditures. It helped fund the $26.85 million building, which opened Sept. 21, 1980, and pitched in to build a new $14 million roof in 1999. So $7 million, DeFrancisco figures, is pennies compared to the benefits a men’s Final Four brings.

And the benefits are plentiful. Quitzau estimates the Syracuse area made $5 million from the East Regional in March. Officials in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, St. Petersburg, Fla., and San Antonio — the past five Final Four sites — estimate their cities made 10 times that.

‘There’s economic impact, but even more important than that are the warm fuzzies that a city receives from hosting an event like that,’ Hancock said. ‘It’s a great source of pride for people in the community. Every year after the Final Four, people in the city look at each other and say, ‘We did it. Hooray for us.’ “

‘Also, there’s no way they can buy the amount of publicity they receive. Starting at practice Oct. 15, the destination next year is going to be New Orleans. That grows when you get to March beyond the college basketball community. It grows to the whole country.’

Destination: Syracuse? Sounds good to Campbell.

‘It would be unbelievable,’ he said, ‘the biggest thing that ever happened in this town.’

It won’t happen for a while, though. The Division I Men’s Basketball Committee will send specifications to the NCAA membership this August. By December, the committee reduces the field to a group of finalists, which provide information on hotel contracts, venue information and space for such events as Hoops City — the NCAA’s interactive display — and the National Association of Basketball Coaches conference. By June 2003, the committee will make its decision on the 2008, 2009 and 2010 men’s Final Fours.

Crouthamel is fine by that. SU’s director of athletics since 1978, he is more than content continuing to host the East Regional, which Syracuse will next do in 2005.

‘We’re right where we should be,’ Crouthamel said. ‘And we should fight like hell and do the things it takes to retain what we’ve got. It’s nice to think what-ifs, but they are what-ifs.’

Hosting the women’s Final Four, on the other hand, isn’t as big a what-if.

‘The university is working on that,’ Quitzau said. ‘They may not admit it publicly. I’ve heard talk. And when they’re ready to do it, they’ll go for it.’

When asked whether SU plans to pursue the 2008 and 2009 women’s Final Four, Veley, who managed the East Regional in March, said: ‘There is no committee put together as of yet. We will go through that (bidding) process, but until Destiny USA and some things become a reality, it’s a long shot. Certainly of the two, the women’s is more realistic. They’ve gone to the point where they’ve outgrown 18,000- and 20,000-seat arenas.

‘The Carrier Dome would provide an ideal backdrop for that. Because it’s an on-campus facility, it plays right into the notion of the NCAA.’

Donna Noonan, the vice president for Division I Women’s Basketball Championship, confirmed SU representatives have contacted her with questions about the bidding process. It works the same way as the men’s Final Four, with a five-person sub-committee determining the final sites, visiting them and ultimately deciding in June 2003.

However, the necessities for the women’s Final Four — which drew more than 29,000 at the Alamodome in San Antonio — are much less restrictive than the men’s. The committee requires an 18,000-seat arena (the Dome seated 33,048, its biggest basketball crowd ever, March 3, 1991 against Georgetown). It needs about 4,000 to 5,000 hotel rooms. Manley Field House could house an all-star game played that weekend, and the Oncenter would hold the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association conference.

Syracuse, Noonan said, presents an intriguing possibility.

‘You have a lot of people in that area,’ she said. ‘The committee is not interested in the size (of the city itself). We want to know, are there things to do besides fans going to the three games? Are there restaurants that stay open past 11 o’clock? What else is there to offer?’

‘Plenty of things,’ DeFrancisco said. ‘We’ve got enough in our community to keep them busy. Syracuse Stage, the opera, the symphony, festivals.’

Quitzau salivates over the potential. Signs and banners hung around the city during the East Regional, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau planned everything from live entertainment to jumbo-screen televisions in the Armory Square area during the weekend.

Snow dampened that, but it did not quell Quitzau’s enthusiasm. In order to secure future events, Syracuse must look its best. It did during the National Sports Festival in 1981 and the Junior Olympics in 1987. It’s the dress-to-impress philosophy: dress up your city and impress the visitors.

‘In the grand scheme of things when you’re trying to convince the NCAA hierarchy to consider us seriously, you’ve got to have a history, a good track record of doing everything you can,’ Quitzau said. ‘That’s why we do what we can do for the Sweet 16. Other than making sure people who come to Syracuse leave saying it was the best city they’ve seen a sporting event in, we want to make the NCAA recognize we’re doing everything we can to make a good impression.’

That would be the stepping stone toward landing the men’s Final Four, Quitzau said, though Noonan added that no venue has hosted the women’s Final Four and then the men’s.

Yet realism always trumps idealism, and university administrators insist landing the men’s tournament is what Quitzau knows all too well — a dream.

‘We’d love to be able to do a Final Four, but realistically we can’t,’ Campbell said. ‘We’re not going to lose any sleep over it. We’re not a player in that game — at least not right now.’

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Published on April 9, 2002 at 12:00 pm