1st Advantage seemingly cannot lose. Even its women's softball team, which Lucas coached to a one win and four loss start, finished the season with a winning record -- although just barely (8-7-1). "After we went one and four, I told our CEO I never had a losing season," Lucas says. "And we didn't."

Lucas, a 43-year-old Pittsburgh native, doesn't lack for confidence. He refers to himself as competitive, aggressive and tough.

One local bank manager refers to him as a jerk.

Another calls him a creep.

Yet another describes him using two words this magazine won't print.

So, why is Paul Lucas so unpopular with bankers?

Go look at 1st Advantage's marquee, which reads: "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Banks." Inspect the buttons he distributes: The word "BANKS" is set in a red circle with a red line through it. Then listen to the credit union's radio spots: Shock jock Howard Stern, the king of base humor, pumps up 1st Advantage -- and bashes the banks.

Not all credit unions are marketing themselves -- and attacking banks -- so aggressively. In fact, most aren't. But across the country credit unions and banks are feuding over whether credit unions are overstepping their bounds.

Right now, this grudge match looks like David and Goliath. Of money deposited in banks or credit unions in Virginia, banks hold 79 percent, according to the FDIC and the National Credit Union Administration. But appearances can be deceiving. It's not the big banks but the smaller, community banks that have the most to lose.

Both sides charge the other with feeding misinformation to anyone willing to listen. "The bankers are spreading a lot of disinformation, a lot of half truths and in many cases downright lies," says Donna St. Clair of the Virginia Credit Union League, which represents most of Virginia's 264 credit unions.

The bankers say that credit unions offer similar services but do not pay taxes. "If they want to behave like a bank, act like a bank and be a bank, they must pay taxes like a bank," says Walter Ayers, executive vice president of the Virginia Bankers Association.

Bankers admit credit unions look good to consumers: They pay more interest on savings accounts, charge lower interest rates on loans and offer more free services, such as free checks and no-fee accounts. "If you don't pay taxes, you can price your products differently," says Mike Brenan, chairman, president and CEO of MainStreet Bankgroup Inc., a holding company for eight banks in western Virginia.

Credit unions counter they can do what they do because, unlike banks, they don't pay stockholders or board members. Credit unions don't have a branch on every corner, so they have lower overhead. And they are exempt from federal income taxes because they are nonprofit, member-controlled institutions; profits are returned to members as dividends, where they are taxed as income. They liken the competition between credit unions and banks to that of nonprofit and for-profit hospitals.

"We're not the same as banks," says Rick Pillow, executive director of the Virginia Credit Union League. "Bankers say they want a level playing field. They want to own the playing fields."

Bankers didn't pay much attention to credit unions until 1934, when Congress passed the Federal Credit Union Act. The act includes this wording: "Federal credit union membership shall be limited to groups having a common bond."

Which brings up the real sore point for bankers. They say credit unions have become too liberal about whom they admit. Bankers say credit unions were formed so small groups of people with a "common bond" could pool their money and get cheaper loans than banks offered. Bankers interpret a common bond as a common employer. They think the XYZ Company Credit Union should serve only employees of XYZ Co. and immediate family members. Credit unions define a common bond more broadly. Some say people who live in the same city or county share a common bond.

And so this year the Martinsville Dupont Credit Union was granted a charter to serve everyone in Henry County and Martinsville. The Waynesboro Dupont Employees Credit Union received a charter to admit everyone in Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro. The University of Virginia Community Credit Union can now serve everyone in Albemarle County and Charlottesville. Bankers in western Virginia are fuming.

"The common bond has disappeared," says Tom Winfree, president and CEO of Community Bank in Staunton, near Augusta. "If blood flows in your veins, you can join a credit union or two."

Brenan of MainStreet Bankgroup, which includes Piedmont Trust Bank in Martinsville, does him one better: "Now it has about come down to, if you ever had lunch with someone from Dupont, you can join. I think this is going to elevate the feud to a different level," he says. "You can bet we're going to fight this."

Credit unions that can serve everyone in a city or county are essentially community banks, says Ayers of the bankers association. If they want to expand their memberships, "then they ought to have to behave like a bank," he says. That goes beyond paying taxes. Credit unions, he argues, should have to follow the same stringent regulations as banks. When bankers say this, they note the federal Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to fund low-income housing projects and create special programs to loan money to poor people.

"It's ironic that the industry that is getting the tax subsidy," Ayers says of credit unions, "is not required to do something to earn that subsidy."

Bankers point out that the credit unions' most recent membership survey shows the average credit union customer has a household income of $43,480, compared with average household incomes of $31,660.

Credit union managers argue that the average household incomes of bank patrons is even higher, and they say credit unions have a long history of serving poor people. "We provide loans to sailors with absolutely no credit history," says Agnes Parker, director of marketing for Atlantic Fleet Federal Credit Union in Norfolk, a 22,500-member credit union with about $63 million in assets. "You find a bank that will do that at a decent interest rate. A sailor needs a new transmission, and he doesn't have the money. We loan him $300. We take just as much time with that loan as with someone who needs a $100,000 mortgage."

Bankers say they don't want to run credit unions out of business, as credit unions charge, and they don't mind the competition -- as long as it's fair. Right now, they say, it isn't. "If it's a duck and it acts like a duck, it might as well be classified as a duck," Winfree says. "If they're going to do everything a bank does, they ought to be treated like a bank."

Although banks still have most of the money, credit unions are chipping away at banks' share, and credit-union managers are sounding more and more confident.

"Before we were kind of just a small entity," Parker says. "Now we're more viable. People ... see us as more of an alternative to banks. Before we were just a mouse. Public knowledge about us has grown since the lawsuit."

Those who work for banks and credit unions don't need Parker to specify which lawsuit. In 1990, a group of banks, supported by the American Bankers Association, filed suit against the AT&T Family Federal Credit Union of North Carolina. The banks contend that the National Credit Union Administration, which oversees credit unions with federal charters and allows them to sign up new companies or groups, has allowed too many people -- regardless of their affiliation with AT&T -- to join the credit union.

The sticking point is over multiple-group membership. Rather than representing just one group with a common bond, credit unions argue that they should be allowed to represent a collection of unrelated groups. Credit unions argue that a business with 50 employees couldn't operate its own credit union, but if it teamed up with other small businesses and organizations it could.

In July 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals in North Carolina -- home to such heavyweights as First Union Corp., NationsBank Corp. and Wachovia Corp. -- sided with the banks in saying the definition of membership had grown too broad. Credit unions are fighting the decision.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the credit unions' appeal as early as this fall, and it may issue a ruling early next year.

Meanwhile, credit unions are lobbying Congress to pass H.R. 1151, a bill that would amend the 63-year-old Federal Credit Union Act by affirming the National Credit Union Administration's authority to allow multiple-group membership.

Closer to home, the Virginia Bankers Association is asking the State Corporation Commission to take another look at state-chartered credit unions which fall under the Virginia Credit Union Act. The bankers last month asked the state to disallow multiple-group membership and geographic common bonds.

So, why should businesses care?

Right now, most businesses with more than 100 or so workers have teamed up with a credit union. If the Supreme Court makes it harder for credit unions to admit more diverse groups, fewer businesses would be able to offer this benefit. "That would be considered small loss, but a loss nonetheless, says William E. Jackson III, an assistant professor of finance at the University of North Carolina.

Large businesses could expect fewer credit unions to court them, and smaller businesses might be shut out altogether. It's also possible that if credit unions can't grow, they will offer fewer services. "As credit unions have become larger, they have become more sophisticated," Jackson says. "For example, they are doing more in the way of providing small loans for businesses. In the past, this was solely the domain of banks."

The CEO of a Newport News company that's affiliated with a local credit union says he sympathizes with banks on the tax argument, but he is happy he can offer his employees the chance to join a credit union. "Our people seem to really like it," says the CEO, who doesn't want his name published. His brother-in-law is an executive at a local bank. "I don't want to start a family feud."