Opening day at VaTech

[RadioFan]

This is long, but it's a really good read ... gives me chills just thinking about what it's going to be like there in a little over a week.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/footb ... ml?ref=rss

Va. Tech is America's Team

After the horror, Hokies' football team helps with healing

BY DICK WEISS
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

BLACKSBURG, Va. - In this tight-knit college town tucked deep in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains just southwest of Roanoke, they simply refer to it as "4-16," that morning in April when deranged student Seung-Hui Cho went on a horrific shooting rampage on campus. Cho killed a co-ed and male resident adviser in a West Ambler Johnston dorm room, then walked across the Drillfield to Norris Hall, where he chained the three main entrances together and used two semi-automatic handguns to kill 30 more students and faculty and wound 25 others before committing suicide.

The Blacksburg Baptist Church at Main and Turner Sts. has 32 national flags waving in front of its main entrance, to designate the countries of the deceased and serve as a constant reminder of the worst school shooting in history.

Workmen outside Burruss Hall, the school's towering stone administration building, are hustling to put the finishing touches on a permanent memorial, where the reviewing stand on the freshly mowed Drillfield used to be, before the start of classes tomorrow. For now, there is a temporary display made of 32 pieces of stone in a semi-circle arch with the names of the victims printed underneath. Mourners reverently trickle in and out all day, leaving bouquets of flowers, plants and messages of condolence and hope.

Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer, who like school president Dr. Charles W. Steger came across as one of the University's caring voices during the crisis, still carries emotional scars from that day.

He met with the families of the victims shortly afterward, a meeting he will forever carry with him. "I'll never forget, I walked in the back of the room, and school officials had just had a meeting concerning their kids and their families and where they were at that particular time and they asked if I'd just say hello to them," Beamer says. "You walk to the front, and I'll never forget turning around and seeing those eyes and the hurt on those faces. It's just something you never, ever forget. You could feel it. All you can do is tell them that you love them and you'll never forget their people and you'll help them anyway you can."

It didn't take long for Beamer's sorrow to turn to outrage "That one person could cause this much harm and hurt and pain, it makes you mad," says Beamer, a parent himself. "Then, you start reading the resumes of these faculty members and kids and see how talented they were. Life shouldn't be that way."

Beamer knows Sept. 1 will be another in a long series of emotional days for the Hokie nation when Tech opens the season with a home game against East Carolina. The ESPN Game Day crew will be on-site and there will be a sellout crowd of 66,000 in attendance at Lane Stadium. Beamer is hopeful his preseason ninth-ranked team can be part of the healing process at this sports-crazed school.

"Tech people are looking for something good to rally around," he told his team the night before the start of practice.

Then he told them this: "You have a chance to be America's team. People want to root for this team."

The players showed up for media day filled with resolve and wearing school-endorsed black memorial patches on their game uniforms with the maroon VT logo and an orange ribbon. "We're playing for not just us, but for the community and victims that died," says tackle Duane Brown. "It was a bad tragedy. We're trying to find something positive."

Beamer, the coaches and players participated in a charity car wash in the softball/track and field parking lot on Friday with donations going to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. So far, more than $7 million has been raised to assist the families of the victims and set up endowments in each of their names. The money was also designated for grief counseling and memorials.

Tech's story resonates everywhere, particularly for those in the New York metropolitan area who went through the personal hell of 9/11 when the Twin Towers disappeared from the landscape and nearly 3,000 died in the terror attacks.

"I hope we can have an impact like other sports teams have had in the past, like the New York Yankees after 9/11 or the New Orleans Saints after Hurricane Katrina," says starting junior quarterback Sean Glennon. "I'm a lifelong Yankees fan, just like my father, and I saw what they did and I read stories in magazines about how it put 9/11 to the side for a little bit because everybody in the city was together, cheering for the Yankees.

"I hope when we take the field, it can have a calming effect and allow people at the university and the community to temporarily escape from the tragedy."

Glennon was just 16 when the Yankees helped bring the city together with their run to the 2001 World Series. He wears an orange and white bracelet on his right wrist that says, "Team United" with the number '32' inscribed in the middle.

"I think it took 24 hours for it to set in," says Glennon. "You watch it on TV, it feels like it was far away, not just down the street. But at the convocation center the next day, it made it real because a lot of the families were there."

This peaceful 2,600-acre campus - with its 1859 frame house called Solitude located next to the Duck Pond and its War Memorial Chapel - seemed like the last place at which something like this would happen.

"We're not near an inner city," says Glennon. "It's not like downtown Atlanta or D.C. with a high crime rate. We're located in the middle of farms, agriculture. You'd think this was the safest place in the world. It just goes to prove tragedy can strike anywhere. It's not safe anywhere you go."

This has not been an easy summer for the 25,000 students or for the team's players - many of whom spent time with sports psychologist Gary Bennett trying to make sense of all this.

Glennon, wide receiver Eddie Royal and punter Brent Bowden were particularly affected. They all went to Westfield High in Chantilly, Va., where the tragedy took on a personal note.

"Just hearing we lost two people from my high school - I knew of the two girls - 18-year-old freshmen Erin Peterson and Reema Samaha - and knowing the shooter came from my high school is pretty devastating," says Royal. "It's a pretty scary thing to think about."

The tragedy has left haunting memories and sparked a national debate over gun control, mentally unstable students and university security.

"With that kid, if it hadn't happened in a classroom at Virginia Tech, it was going to happen somewhere around Blacksburg," says Beamer.

"The day it happened was surreal," says Brown. "You can't really get a grip when something like this happens. But the next day as you'd see people leaving, driving away from campus and the national media coming in, it hit home and you realize all those people died in that building. It was crazy."

The day after the shootings, Tech canceled classes for the rest of the week and closed Norris Hall for the rest of the semester. The Red Cross dispatched grief counselors, and there was an emotional convocation at Cassell Coliseum. More than 10,000 packed the basketball arena to listen to President Bush, who attended with his wife Laura; Gov. Thomas Kaine; and Professor Nikki Giovanni, the world renowned poet and author who told the audience nobody deserves a tragedy and finished her now famous speech with these simple words: "We are Virginia Tech. We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech."

"I can still remember the people rising up together after that and chanting, 'Let's Go Hokies,'" says Beamer. "That just said it all. It said, 'We got something terrible here but we're going to hang in there together and get through this.' That's no denying it's awful, but in the end, we're going to be stronger."

That night there was a candle-light vigil at the Drillfield. In the weeks that followed, the university received a constant flow of support in the form of flowers and letters.

Nine days after the massacre, Tech AD Jim Weaver was driving to a luncheon honoring Tech's senior athletes when he passed by a local cemetery where a canopy and chairs had been set up for a funeral. "I thought it was for a faculty member," says Weaver. "At the luncheon, I found out it was for Matthew La Porte - a member of the corp of cadets. His mom and dad decided to bury him in Blacksburg because he loved the university so much.

"That got me. I go by there every day when I go to work and I look at his grave every day."

When Weaver got back to his office, he received a call out of the blue telling him the Yankees wanted to give the university $1 million. "I started crying like a baby," says Weaver. "It was the most touching thing, but it was something George Steinbrenner felt he wanted to do."

The Yankees also have talked about playing Virginia Tech in an exhibition game on the way back from spring training next spring. Maybe by then, the university will have taken the first steps toward waking up from this nightmare.

[Mr T]

Va. Tech is America's Team

So are we suppose to hate them like the yankees or cowboys?

[SunCoastSooner]

Va. Tech is America's Team

So are we suppose to hate them like the yankees or cowboys?

In. My heart goes out to all the parents who lost children in the tragedy but that doesn't mean I have to Root for Beamer Ball at Thug U. North. Isn't there another Vick child he should be prepping for the Penn?

[T REX]

They are going to get sentimental votes all year. Heavne forbid should they go undefeated or have one loss.....pencil them in the title game.

[Shoalzie]

Va. Tech is America's Team

So are we suppose to hate them like the yankees or cowboys?

In. My heart goes out to all the parents who lost children in the tragedy but that doesn't mean I have to Root for Beamer Ball at Thug U. North. Isn't there another Vick child he should be prepping for the Penn?

I won't root against them any more or less than I would for any other team not named Michigan. I hate this obligation the media puts on us sports fans to think any feel good story is something we should all embrace with open arms. If it was a Marshall-like tragedy with the football team being decimated and Beamer is fielding a team full of walk-ons as a result, maybe I'll give them a token attaboy when they win. None of these football players were affected as far as I know...they're not exactly relatable to the common student population.

Look, I'm not sayin' "fuck 'em" but I hate this predictable reaction by the pansy media to find a cute story to latch onto. I don't like be told who I should root for...the media insults the intelligent of us to be able to identify what is good and bad and who deserves a little more encouragement from us.

Seeing people wearing VT gear everywhere the week after the shooting was kind of cheesy. We had this same thing with 9-11 and everyone where USA and NYC gear. Everyone feels like they have to show they are the most supportive and compassionate person by wearing a shirt or a hat. Am I supposed to feel guilty because I haven't gone out and bought a hat with a 'VT' on it? You didn't see me rolling around last year with a Saints jersey but it doesn't mean I didn't think it was a shame what happened to New Orleans. If you want to support the Virginia Tech students...donate money to a scholarship fund. Quit struttin' around in your Hokies shirt and act like you're hot shit.

If the Hokies made it to the national title game, all we'd hear about is how "brave" they are to overcome that shooting. How long ago was that anyways? I've already forgotten about it...not to sound heartless or anything.

[Goober McTuber]

They are going to get sentimental votes all year. Heavne forbid should they go undefeated or have one loss.....pencil them in the title game.

No shit. Their coach won’t even have to lobby to get them in.

[Shoalzie]

They are going to get sentimental votes all year. Heavne forbid should they go undefeated or have one loss.....pencil them in the title game.

No shit. Their coach won’t even have to lobby to get them in.

[RadioFan]

I'm neither a fan nor a hater of VaTech ... though I will admit, it was nice seeing them beat Miami 7 out of 10 years ...

I get what you guys are saying about the sappy bullshit aspect of "America's Team." That was a subhead in the NYDN story, and wasn't in the actual story. (Read it.)


I do, however, think it's cool that the Gameday crew will be there next Saturday. On paper, the Gameday crew would be at OSU-Ga. or Tenn-Cal, as those appear to be the biggest games of Week 1.

So are we suppose to hate them like the yankees or cowboys?

No. They aren't USC.

[Blueblood]

Hmmm....

Game Day...

I guess when you take the time to think something out.... it just doesn't get the same "respect" as a "cut and paste" from some sap in the media.

"Oh well".