Goodbye, Charlotte. After 15 years, the CIAA basketball tournament heads to Baltimore.
Last Friday morning in Charlotte, Tryon Street was bustling.
People were making their way into uptown by foot, car or train. The sound of jackhammers rang through the air. Pedestrians didn’t seem to notice. Later that morning, inside the Charlotte Convention Center, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association honored its 2020 Hall of Fame class a few hours before the semifinals of the basketball tournament’s last stint at the Queen City’s Spectrum Center.
After 15 years in Charlotte, the nation’s oldest black conference tournament was celebrating its final days in the city. Beginning in 2021, the CIAA tournament, which has been deeply rooted in the south since 1953, will move to Baltimore for three years.
On its last Friday in Charlotte, however, the tournament had four games that brought fans, alums and students to uptown. Some were dressed in school colors. Some were playfully trash talking their rivals.
Others were in town just to socialize but had no interest in the games, that included Winston-Salem State’s 63-62 win over Fayetteville State in the men’s championship game and Fayetteville State’s 61-53 win over Bowie State in the women’s title game.
A RETURN TO THE NORTH
The first CIAA tournament was held in Washington, D.C., in 1946 and stayed there for six years. In 1952, the tournament did a one-year stop in Baltimore.
After that, it moved around North Carolina and Virginia to cities such as Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Hampton Va., Norfolk Va., Richmond Va., Raleigh and Charlotte. The CIAA was founded on the campus of Hampton University in 1912. Of the 12 current conference members, 10 are in the south, with seven in North Carolina.
For the past 26 years, the tournament has been in the Tar Heel state, starting in Winston-Salem, before spending six years in Raleigh. In 2006 the-then Charlotte Bobcats opened a new arena in the heart of uptown Charlotte, with plenty of hotels and restaurants nearby.
Charlotte and the CIAA were such a good fit that the conference in 2015 moved its offices from Hampton, Va. to Charlotte. In 2018, the tournament’s economic impact on the city was about $50.5 million, according to the Charlotte Observer. But Jacqie McWilliams, the CIAA commissioner, said a “reset” isn’t a bad thing.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to see what rebranding looks like to us in a different demographic of fans, in a different type of building, in a different type of city,” McWilliams told the News & Observer in a one-on-one interview on Wednesday in Charlotte. “There’s an alumni base up north for all of our institutions. I think everyone is trying to think about how they can position themselves new in these areas as well as tap into a new demographic.”
A move to Baltimore’s Royal Farms Arena means less travel for Bowie State, located about 30 miles south. . It’ll also be closer to schools like Lincoln, Virginia State and Virginia Union.
“They’ve been traveling and spending a lot of money down south,” McWilliams said about the schools. “If you think on the institutional side, it gives them an opportunity to save a little more money in their traveling to Charlotte, but it also gives them a chance to build that demographic of fans who don’t come down here. So they are excited.”
When the league announced last January that its tournament was leaving North Carolina, not everyone was happy. Charlotte provided familiarity for fans from where to stay, where to eat and meet up with former classmates for a postgame cocktail. Those who have been going to the tournament for years, however, are committed to going, no matter where it is.
Cornell Royster and his wife, Linnoya Williams-Royster, have been attending the CIAA tournament since 1982, when it was in Norfolk, Va. This past Wednesday, the couple, who lives in Henderson, roamed the concourse shortly in Shaw color after the Bears 80-65 loss to Fayetteville State.
Royster said the biggest concern is the unknown and not knowing what to expect from the tournament being held in a new city after 15 years in the same spot. But he did see an upside.
“A new opportunity, give someone else a chance,” Royster said. “Hopefully it’ll be much different in Baltimore and we will be appreciated.”
There has been some conflict over the years with the tournament being held in Charlotte. In 2015, the Ritz-Carlton added a 15 percent CIAA service charge to the bills of its bar patrons. The Attorney General’s office got involved after complaints were made and the hotel refunded the money. Royster hasn’t forgotten the incident.
“The deals, the expense, working with the fans,” Royster said when asked about his biggest concerns. “It seems like to me, just in Charlotte, when it comes to the CIAA, room rates sky rocket. But when you have other major events, it doesn’t do that. I’m wondering if that will be the same in Baltimore.”
A NEW OPPORTUNITY
Stephen Joyner Jr. grew up in Charlotte, won a conference championship as a player at Johnson C. Smith in 2001 and returned to coach the women’s basketball team in 2012 and led it to a CIAA tournament title in 2017. Even with his ties to Charlotte, he’s happy about some parts of the move.
“Everything’s got its positives and its negatives,” Joyner told the media after his Golden Bulls were eliminated by Bowie State on Thursday. “Of course we hate it because we always get a home crowd here.”
However, by being the home team, his players don’t get to isolate themselves and focus on just basketball. Joyner’s players went to class on Wednesday while the rest of the teams were at hotels and focused on the tournament.
“Bowie is up in a hotel and they are kumbaya with each other getting ready to go and my kid still has to go to class at 8 a.m.,” Joyner said. “That’s neither here nor there, it doesn’t take away from it. We look forward to going to Baltimore. With every change in life it’s a new opportunity.”
A new opportunity could mean additional costs for member institutions. Each school is responsible for its teams’ travel.
The conference also sends an allotment of tickets for students to each school. It’s less expensive to bus students from Raleigh and Fayetteville to Charlotte than it is to bus them to Baltimore.
“When you start talking about really having to travel that distance, that could be a burden on the school trying to get transportation for the students to attend,” Williams-Royster said. “The students bring the momentum to the game.”
Longtime Saint Augustine’s athletic director, George Williams, said that’s one of his biggest concerns moving forward.
“How do we do that? I don’t know, I haven’t had time to sit down and think about it, but the institutions will be the deciding points on how many students came and what we will have,” Williams said. “Schools will have to get donors to (sponsor) a bus of students, we just have to figure out how to do that.”
CHARLOTTE VS. BALTIMORE
The tournament will be in Baltimore for three years. It will be up for bid again in 2023.
McWilliams said she expects Charlotte to make a bid for it then. She has already heard from members of the community about it.
McWilliams told the N&O that about 40 people from the City of Baltimore were in Charlotte last week to study the tournament, the culture and what makes it so important to its passionate fan base.
On the upper concourse of the Spectrum Center, fans could reserve rooms for next year and there was a map of the layout of the area near Royal Farms Arena.
Like the Spectrum Center, there are several hotels within walking distance of the arena and the Baltimore Convention Center is a few blocks away. The CIAA Super Saturday, a free event that included shows and activities for kids, was held each year at the Charlotte Convention Center.
The Charlotte light rail made it easier for fans to get uptown without having to pay for parking. Baltimore also has a train system that stops in front of the arena.
Royster, who’s unfamiliar with Baltimore, said he plans to take a trip to the city before next year’s tournament to scout out the area around Royal Farms. He and his wife have loved attending the tournament in Charlotte, but wherever the tournament goes, they’ll be there to cheer on the Shaw Bears.
“Well see what happens when we go to Baltimore,” Williams-Royster said. “We’re looking forward to it.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 3:09 PM with the headline "Goodbye, Charlotte. After 15 years, the CIAA basketball tournament heads to Baltimore.."
