NCAA will not exclude South Carolina because of flag controversy

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The NCAA will not exclude any school in South Carolina from consideration as a Division I baseball tournament host because of the state's controversy over the Confederate flag.

Monday, April 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The NCAA will not exclude any school in South Carolina from consideration as a Division I baseball tournament host because of the state's controversy over the Confederate flag.

The NCAA baseball committee met Monday to discuss which schools will receive letters soliciting bids to host regional and super-regional games in May and June.

"They listened to a report on it. There was a brie fdiscussion," NCAA spokesman Wally Renfro said. "We are not having this (flag) discussion in our governance bodies until later this summer, but it's our understanding the South Carolina legislature has in fact voted to remove the flag from the dome."

In South Carolina, a bill passed by the state senate last Thursday would take the flag off the Statehouse dome and out of the House and Senate chambers, but place a similar flag behind the Confederate Soldier Monument on the statehouse grounds. The NAACP, which organized a tourism boycott of the state, is among groups that regard the flag as a symbol of slavery.

Flag supporters say it represents Southern heritage.

"There will be no states excluded," Renfro said. "I don't think we are releasing exactly who we are sending the letter to, but I can tell you no school in South Carolina will be excluded because of the flag issue."

South Carolina, ranked No. 1 this week by Baseball America, was last chosen in 1985 but has tried to upgrade its baseball facilities and has submitted bids for regionals the past two seasons, athletic director Mike McGee said.

Clemson, ranked No. 9, was a regional host the past two years.

Each of the Division I baseball committee's 10 members was assigned specific parts of the country and specific conferences. During Monday's meeting, conducted by telephone, the group went through each conference to consider which schools might be likely candidates to host one of 16 regionals on May 26-28 or super-regionals June 2-4.

"I would say, conservatively, probably half of the 281 schools will get a mailing," baseball media coordinator Jim Wright said. "It's only April, and although in certain parts of the country teams have played a lot of games, but, say, the Big Ten, they probably haven't played more than 15 or 20 games, so it's pretty hard at this point to speculate where these teams are going to be in a month."

The 16 regional sites will be announced May 15 and the eight super-regional sites will be announced May 29. The College World Series will be in Omaha, Neb., on June 9-17.