News-Record.com

The mad plot was hatched by Ward, an investment broker and a Greensboro native who had returned to the city after working in Atlanta, Miami and New York.

Ward was a former quarterback at Greensboro Senior High School, now Grimsley. He'd also played basketball in high school.

"I had always grown up with a passion for sports," says Ward, 75, who retired March 31 after 41 years in the investment business.

If Atlanta had an NFL team, Ward wondered, why couldn't Greensboro?

"It seemed like a wonderful idea to grow the economy.

"I had been to a game or two games in Washington and New York. Pro football was starting to grow. I guess it just struck me that we had this vast, underdeveloped land in the airport area. New roads were coming in and air service was starting to grow."

In 1967, he shared the idea with a number of people, including High Point business magnate Jake Froelich and former Winston-Salem banker Smith Bagley, a grandson of R.J. Reynolds who was mounting a campaign for the state legislature.

Ward didn't bring money or contacts to the table, but he had a talent for cold calls. He enlisted the help of Bagley, Froelich and others whom he had never previously met, simply by phoning them. Bagley was especially helpful.

"He was a big, tall, good-looking guy who was looking for a role to play," Ward says. "He said, 'We need to fund this. Let me make a call to my mother.' "

Mom responded with $100,000.

With their momentum and confidence building, the group paid a courtesy visit to the Charlotte mayor to let him know what was brewing in the Triad.

"I will never forget the look on John Belk's face when we told him what we were up to," Ward recalls.

Ward even consulted the King, Richard Petty, about the notion of a race track that would be "contiguous with the stadium."

Petty liked what he heard.

Ward and his group also traveled to Daytona Beach, Fla., to meet with NASCAR co-founder Bill France Sr.

They also met with NFL owners, including Rankin Smith of the Atlanta Falcons. They toured NFL venues in Oakland and Houston. They even sought and received an audience with NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who was favorably impressed by the Triad's demographics.
They sought and received legislation in the N.C. General Assembly that created a North Carolina Stadium Authority.

They commissioned an architect to design the stadium.

Here was Ward's vision:

• a 60,000-seat football stadium;
• a 2.5-mile banked race track for stock car and Indy car racing;
• a 650-acre site that would include paved parking for 24,000 vehicles;
• a drag strip;
• a $17 million bond referendum to pay for the complex;
• and another $8.2 million in bonds on the ballot for a Triad park and zoo on the other side of I-40
.
Some thought the idea was nutty and unrealistic. Many others found it bold and exciting.
A scientific poll revealed solid support for the complex among residents in all three of the largest Triad cities, with 65.4 percent saying they would vote yes for a Triad stadium bond issue, even if it involved a tax increase.

(High Point respondents voiced the greatest enthusiasm, with 77.4 percent favoring a publicly financed stadium, followed by 63.5 percent in Winston-Salem and 61.5 percent in Greensboro.)
A consultant’s report cited largely favorable demographic conditions.

Titled "Economic Feasibility Report of a Sports Complex for the State of North Carolina," and compiled by the San Diego firm Darley/Gobar Associates Inc., the report concluded: "The Triad, Charlotte, and Memphis could be considered about equal as potential markets for football. The larger population base in Memphis is offset by its lower family income. Charlotte does not have a strong population base in the metropolitan area and is somewhat weaker than the Triad in terms of hinterland population."

But the complex never made it to the ballot.

In 1969, the Forsyth County commissioners voted in support of taking the grand plan to the voters. Their Guilford counterparts said no.

"So we never got it approved," Ward says.

The $100,000 in seed money ran dry.

"It just sort of faded out," Ward says of the stadium bid with a smile and a sigh.

Ward redirected his energies to his career and his family.

"Personally, I’m trying to make a living, and I’ve got three little girls who’ve got to eat and who I want to provide with an education," Ward recalls.

Ward still wonders about what might have been.

"I think it could have triggered us looking like Charlotte. We've got the railroad. We've got the air service. We've got the interstates.”

But do we have the vision?

On making things happen, in Greensboro or anywhere else, Ward says, the formula is simple.
"I've learned a lot from my friends in Charlotte and the mind set they have there," he says. "I've sort of got this attitude that you can set out and do anything you want to do until it's proven you can't do it."

Yes, the Triad in general and Greensboro in particular are nice places to live, Ward says.

But they can be so much more than that.

"No question about it."

For audio of Tom Ward discussing the stadium bid, click here.

To read a companion story on notable hits and misses in Triad regionalism, click here.