Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer

“We absolutely will not give into one person coming in here and causing all this pain and suffering. We’re too proud of a group of people.”

Who's going to play where and how much?

Who's going to fill the holes on the offensive line?

Finding answers to such questions aren't nearly so important to Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer anymore. Not right now, anyway.

In the aftermath of Monday's mass shooting that killed 32 people and injured more than a dozen others, Beamer has taken on a much more serious assignment of leadership this week.

Beamer, whose football program's rise to national prominence the past 13 years has made him the face of Virginia Tech to many people, spent part of Wednesday meeting with the families that lost a son or daughter in the tragedy. On Thursday, he was at Montgomery Regional Hospital, visiting some of the injured.

"When you walked in that room [Wednesday] of all the families of people that didn't make it, that's the ones who are tough to look at. The families are who you feel for right now," said Beamer, speaking Thursday on an ACC spring football coaches teleconference.

"The one thing I told them was that people do care about them and we're not going to forget. Right now, we're working on some things with our uniform for each of the 32 who were killed to try to recognize them and to make sure we don't forget them. For those families, you just feel so sorry for them and you just hope that they will somehow can have the strength to get through these next few days.

"And [Thursday], to see the faces of those students who have been shot but are making it ... that's kind of what keeps me going. I told each one leaving the room that we will not let one person change how we do things at Virginia Tech, and each overwhelmingly agreed. They're going to get better and we're going to come back stronger than ever.

"That's the message I got. I'm really glad that I went. They probably did more good for me than I did for them ... just to see their face and many of them smiling now."

Beamer, 60, the Hokies' football coach the past 20 years, said he thinks all of Hokie Nation will "come out of this better than ever."

"I think when it's all said and done ... if I know Virginia Tech people, we will become tighter, we'll become closer together, we'll care more for each other, and we'll show more respect for each other," he said.

"We absolutely will not give into one person coming in here and causing all this pain and suffering. We're too proud of a group of people. Like I say, we grieve with the families, but we're going to come back stronger than ever. We've got to overcome it and we've got to be a bigger family than we've ever been before. And that's what I see happening. That's what we're going to make sure happens."

When asked if he had received any calls from the families of current players or freshmen who will enter the program in August, Beamer said he did talk with a "very concerned" parent Wednesday.

"They had a person that they worked with who had a son who was shot [Monday] and you can just imagine," Beamer said. "We're having a team meeting Monday and make sure if anybody needs us to get them counseling or whatever ... just a little get-together to make sure all of them are OK."

Beamer said that he hasn't heard of any player who has mentioned the possibility of transferring from the program to another school.

Beamer said he and his staff have received "at least 50" calls from coaches all across America wishing to pass along their sympathy and support. Virginia coach Al Groh called him Wednesday. He also received a call from Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who talked about how the Buckeyes hope to wear a "VT" logo on their helmets in their Saturday spring game.

Hokies associate head coach Billy Hite said Thursday that the football office has been flooded with calls from former Tech players and coaches.

"It's been unbelievable," Hite said. "Bruce Smith [ex-Tech All-America defensive end] wants to do something. I don't know what to tell him. Bruce Smith has called me four times and left me a number if he can do anything. Coach [Bill] Dooley [ex-Tech head coach] has called twice ... I talked to his wife this morning.

"The amount of college coaches from around the country who have called ... it's been wonderful. I'm talking about ACC coaches, too, people that you're competing against. The phone has just rung off the hook."

After meeting with his coaching staff, Beamer made the decision Tuesday to cancel the team's final three spring workouts that were scheduled to conclude with the annual spring game in Lane on Saturday.

"At some positions more than others, we needed this week," Beamer said. "It's a big week, really, because we get into the spring game. And I think you find out a lot about your players when they're playing a game, how they react in a game as opposed to a practice drill. In one sense, we'd loved to have seen our quarterbacks play a game, we'd loved to have seen some offensive linemen play in a game like that. There's no question it sets us back.

"But the other side of it, out of respect for these families, we felt like this was the right thing to do. [Football] is not the most important thing here right now. The most important thing is we help these families the best we can to get through this week. We'll make the other up.

I met with my coaches today, we're going to meet again Monday and go through each player, and what he needs to do to get better and be ready for next fall, how much playing time we see him having right now and what we want them to come back weight-wise and so forth."

Beamer said he thinks his football team, which will enter this fall ranked highly in the national polls, will help build an even stronger bond between Tech's students, faculty, alumni and fans.

"I think when we open [Sept. 1] against East Carolina that there will be a togetherness in [Lane] Stadium that we've never seen before," Beamer predicted. "And it's been a pretty together place ... that's helped us win a lot of football games in that stadium. But I'll just bet ... if I know Hokie people, we'll be tighter than ever next fall."