Delegate says he is nearing end of his public life

By HARRY MINIUM
The Virginian-Pilot

RICHMOND After a career filled with victories, accolades and championships, Robert Tata retired as a high school football coach nearly 26 years ago.

He was content to continue as a guidance counselor at Norview High School, watch his three children grow up and quietly fade from the public eye.

But on a cold winter day in 1983, then-Congressman G. William Whitehurst pulled into Tata's driveway and asked him to run for the House of Delegates.

Tata hesitated only a few minutes before agreeing.

The son of Italian immigrants, Tata grew up in a poor neighborhood in Detroit. His father laid masonry block for a living, a bruising task father and son did together during the summer.

"I always thought I was the little man, you know what I mean?" Tata said. "Joe Lunch Pail. And Joe Lunch Pail always seems to get the shaft.

"So I thought I could make a difference."

Tata narrowly won the Republican nomination at a caucus , then ousted a Democratic incumbent in the 1983 election.

Since then, the 85th House District, which includes much of the Kempsville area in Virginia Beach, has been Tata country. Most years, the Democrats haven't bothered to challenge him.

Tata, who turned 76 on Friday, is the most senior member of the Virginia Beach delegation and is eighth in seniority in the 100-member House of Delegates.

He chairs the House Education Committee and sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee as well as on Commerce and Labor.

Tata is a maverick who once bluntly conceded that members of the General Assembly don't read the majority of bills they vote on.

He angered many in his party in 2005 when he voted to increase taxes for education, health care and public safety.

Tata is a moderate who often votes with the Democrats when it comes to education and transportation. He is more conservative on social and law enforcement issues.

"He's a good guy who treats Democrats fairly," said Del. Kenneth C. Alexander, D-Norfolk. "People on both sides of the aisle like him and respect him," Alexander said.

"If you can say anything about Bob Tata, he's guilty of having an outbreak of common sense," said Del. Harry R. "Bob" Purkey, R-Virginia Beach.

"He's one of those people who can reduce things to their simplest, most accurate forms very easily," he said.

Unlike many of his colleagues, Tata doesn't often sink his legislative teeth into high-profile or controversial issues. Instead, he has worked on concerns he said benefit consumers, children and working people the Joe Lunch Pails he said he came to Richmond to represent.

The first legislation he sponsored allowed the Virginia Beach Recreation Department to offer child care at school buildings. It has been emulated by dozens of cities and counties.

When beepers were the tool of trade used by drug dealers, he had them banned from public schools.

Tata wrote laws strengthening requirements for accurately dating meat in supermarkets. He wrote a law outlawing high-rider trucks on monster tires from Virginia's highways.

Tata is constantly pressing for more money for public schools, said Del. Leo C. Wardrup Jr., R-Virginia Beach, one of the House's most conservative members.

"Bob tends to be a little more supportive of the type of things that an old hard-core conservative like me would term teachers' union types of issues," Wardrup said. "But he's been there."

Tata has introduced a bill, HB1408, that would allow public school systems to provide transportation for private school students in return for a fee.

One of Tata's most passionate causes in recent sessions has been his proposal to do away with the estate tax . His proposal passed both houses three years ago but was vetoed by Gov. Mark Warner.

Tata has submitted an estate tax bill every year since, including HB40 this session. Democrats call Tata's proposal a giveaway to the rich. He says it will preserve the estates of middle-income families .


The year 1953 was a watershed for Tata.

First, he was drafted by his hometown Detroit Lions, the defending National Football League champions.

It was a dream come true for Tata, who lettered three seasons each in football and baseball at the University of Virginia.

But he was cut by the Lions and came back to Charlottesville, where he finished his student teaching .

Th ere he met his wife, Jerry, who was teaching at Albemarle High School.

"We met in the lunch line," Tata said. "We just seemed to fit."

Tata then spent two years in the Army, most of it coaching football .

After leaving the Army, the Tatas came to Norfolk, and he began a coaching career that would take him to Norfolk Catholic, what was then the Norfolk Naval Base, Granby High School and U.Va., then finally back to Norfolk to coach at Norview.

Tata would remain at Norview, a blue-collar school, for 13 seasons. His head coaching record at Norview and Granby included seven Eastern District championships.

"I got out while we were still good," he said. "That's always the way you want to leave."

Jerry taught for 40 years, then served four years on the Virginia Beach School Board.

Their three children were athletes at Kempsville High School and in college and have obtained at least two advanced college degrees each.

Son Robert M. Tata is a lawyer in downtown Norfolk with Hunton & Williams. He is president of the Virginia Beach Bar Association and is director of the Hampton Roads Soccer Council.

The younger Tata was just 5 feet 1 inch as a ninth-grader and recalls his dad giving him a bag of balls and telling him to learn to kick. "It was the only way I was going to play," he said.

He later kicked at the Naval Academy.

Son Tony, a baseball and wrestling standout, attended the United States Military Academy at West Point . He served in the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia and is now stationed in Afghanistan, where he was recently commissioned a brigadier general.

Del. Tata missed the first day of the House session to see his son promoted . When Wardrup announced the reason for his absence , Tata was accorded a standing ovation.

Daughter Kendall ran track at U.Va., where she was part of a national championship team, then played field hockey at James Madison University before returning to Kempsville High, where she is the head coach for cross country and an assistant track coach.

"In high school, he came to every race I ever ran," she said about her dad. "Even in my adult life, he's come to 90 percent of my races. He's my hero."

Tata was the only House member from Virginia Beach to vote for the tax increases last year.

For a short time, many of his colleagues shunned him.

"It was the right thing to do," Tata said. "The only people who were upset were the hard-core Republicans, and most of them don't live in my district."

"About two weeks after the session, we all had a meeting," said Del. John J. Welch III, R-Virginia Beach. "We agreed to put it behind us."

Tata said he is close to the end of his public life. If he runs for re-election in 2007, it will be his last term, he said.

"There's a clock that ticks in people that tells you when it's time to do something else," he said. "People get tired of you. I want to get out before that happens."


Reach Harry Minium at (757) 446-2371 or harry.minium@pilotonline.com.




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