2007 College Football Preview

Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

In wake of the tragic April 16 shootings, the Virginia Tech football team hopes to assist in their nation's recovery.| See a closeup

The Beamer File, 1987-2007

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Virginia Tech

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Special section: Hokies at home

• Open the package

BLACKSBURG — Don’t come.

That’s what the voice on the other end of the line was saying. Virginia Tech quarterback Sean Glennon had just begun to leave his off-campus apartment and head out into the cool, windy April morning when the call came.

“Don’t come,” Glennon’s roommate said. “Class is cancelled.”

“Why?” Glennon said.

“I don’t know. They just told us to leave.”

Glennon sat back down and relaxed.

Nice, he thought. No class.

Twenty minutes later, his phone rang again. Same voice again. But this time, the roommate was stuck in thick traffic trying to leave campus. It seemed everybody was trying to leave campus, and there weren’t enough roads.

“Apparently,” the voice said, “there’s been a shooting.”

Glennon rushed to turn on his TV. What he saw made his jaw drop once, then again and again and again as the victim total kept rising.

It would be days before he really understood what happened, weeks before he could put it in perspective, months before he realized what this ultimately meant for himself.

Because of the events of April 16, Sean Glennon would no longer be just a quarterback.

He would also have to be an ambassador.

The inside cover of the 2007 Virginia Tech media guide lists 32 names alphabetically, from Ross Abdallah Alameddine to Nicole Regina White. They’re the names of students and faculty members gunned down on April 16 by Seung-Hui Cho.

Their memories serve as motivation.

The Hokies began spring practice with soaring expectations and ended it four days early with shattered hearts. The spring game was cancelled, the annual celebration of a regional passion replaced with solemnity and tears. Players saw their campus overrun by local and national media looking for explanations for the killings, 30 of which occurred in Norris Hall.

A new season dawns Sept. 1. The Hokies approach it with hope for great things, but also with a sense of responsibility to give their school something to be proud of in the wake of such devastation.

“Even now that we’re in August,” running back Dustin Pickle said, “every time you’re walking on that part of campus, you’re like, Wow.”

The first few nights after the shootings, shots still rang in Pickle’s ear. He’d left his calculus class in nearby McBride Hall that morning when he saw police officers with weapons drawn and dogs sniffing outside Norris.

Then he heard the shots.

Authorities ordered the students back into their building. Pickle huddled in a stairwell with about 20 other frantic students.

“We were calling out with cellphones like crazy, wondering what’s going on,” Pickle said. “Moms are calling. Dads are calling. Girlfriends. My brother was in the building on the other side of Norris, so I was calling him.”

Meanwhile, while watching the news from his apartment, receiver Eddie Royal got a phone call.

“It was my mom,” Royal said. “She was bawling her eyes out. I was mainly trying to calm her down. It was a terrible feeling just seeing how many people were affected by this.”

After about two hours of lockdown in McBride, Pickle and his classmates were escorted to their cars by police. Pickle returned to his apartment, turned on the news and started calling teammates.

“You think about it: 120-something guys a part of this team, just praying that none of them are involved in this and hoping that the best would come of it,” Pickle said.

“Then realizing that everyone on the team is OK, but know that you knew some of the 32, physics partners and such, it’s heartbreaking. You’re bound to be connected to somebody somewhere down the line in that.”

For Tech coach Frank Beamer, shock came first.

Then came sadness.

Then came anger.

Visiting the families of the victims shook him the most. Beamer met people who’d lost sons and daughters, then visited some of the 25 wounded survivors.

He noticed that few of them appeared to be shot just once.

“When you see the eyes and the hurt and the pain,” Beamer said, “that’ll hit you right in the face.”

What hit Beamer was a combination of grief and nausea — and gall at what Cho had done.

“For him to cause that much pain and suffering...” Beamer said, then paused and shook his head.

Support poured in from across the country. Major-league baseball players wore Tech hats in tribute. Crowds at college spring games were awash in maroon and orange. East Carolina, Tech’s first opponent this season, donated $100,000 to support the victims’ families.

“This is what I believe: People can talk about you had 32 people shot on your campus, and that’s what people are going to remember,” Beamer said. “But I think we’re going to be remembered for how we reacted to the situation. I could not be more proud of Virginia Tech right now.

“It was a terrible, terrible tragedy caused by one very, very sick kid. But I think we’ve reacted to it and we are reacting to it in the best possible way we could.”
Beamer traveled a lot this summer and met many different people with a variety of allegiances.

“Generally the last thing they say,” Beamer said, “is, 'We’ll be pulling for you guys.’ ”

Bob Bernhard remembers the flight back being a long one.

Bernhard and his two sons had traveled to Blacksburg from Baton Rouge, La., in 2002 hoping to see a competitive game. Instead, they watched their beloved LSU Tigers get manhandled in a 26-8 Hokies victory.

“It wasn’t too good a stay,” Bernhard said with a laugh. “We got our butts kicked.”

Ever since, Bernhard and other LSU fans like him have been looking forward to this season, when the Hokies will have to travel to Tiger Stadium, one of the most difficult venues for a visiting team.

Bernhard, the president of the Tiger Gridiron Club, promises it will be noisy come Sept. 8. But he promises something else, too: Tech fans will feel most welcome.

“People lent out a hand to Baton Rouge and South Louisiana when Katrina hit, and believe me, people here feel for other people very strongly,” Bernhard said by phone from Baton Rouge. “I know all the campuses around the country learning of that tragedy at Virginia Tech just thought, 'How can that happen?’ That could have happened here. It could have been us.

“To go through what they did and see fellow students get slaughtered is terrible. No question about it, the people here in Louisiana will offer their condolences and be very supportive of the fans when they come, especially for that reason.”

He paused, then added a dose of reality.

“Until the game starts,” he said. “Hey, football’s football.”

The Hokies know they won’t be given any free points out of sympathy, but there is a sense of compassion among their brethren at other schools. Glennon saw it when he went to summer camps and met other quarterbacks, who went out of their way to wish him luck. Snapper Scott King saw it when he visited his brother in Portland this summer and saw “more Virginia Tech apparel than I’ve ever seen.”

“Everybody just gives us their regards,” linebacker Vince Hall said. “That’s all you can ask for. I don’t want anybody to change their whole thinking because of what happened. They just send their best wishes, and we appreciate it.”

Dr. Gary Bennett has seen it before in the players who come to visit him. As Tech’s sports psychologist, Bennett is accustomed to counseling athletes on dealing with pressure, but never quite like this.

“They represent more than Virginia Tech now because of this tragedy,” Bennett said. “I think they feel a lot more connected to this community than they ever have before.”

That can be a boost to performance, Bennett said, if it provides motivation to work hard every day.

“I think the point where it can become harmful is when it becomes a distraction,” Bennett said.

But how could it not be? ESPN’s “College GameDay” is coming to the team’s opener, and it isn’t because Tech-ECU is the most attractive on-field matchup of the week. Media from every opposing team is likely to bring up the tragedy. On Tech’s media day this month, Glennon’s first interview was granted to a reporter from the New York Daily News.

Can the players handle all this?

“We’ve got to,” Glennon said. “We have no choice. We know that Virginia Tech football is a very big thing around here. It’s a thing that people look forward to every year, and what better way to get over a tragedy than probably the one event that people look forward to most?”

As Beamer says, “It’s there.” So the players have decided to embrace their role rather than avoid it. The Hokies will wear patches on their jerseys honoring the victims. And even when they aren’t talking about it, they see the effects every day.

“Definitely it brought us closer together,” Royal said. “You kind of notice yourself gravitating toward your teammates. You’re spending more time with each other. Through the hard times, you stick together.”

The Hokies have 16 starters back from a 10-3 team. They’re an overwhelming pick to win the ACC.

But when they look at this season, they don’t see pressure so much as they see opportunity. And Glennon, just a few months after receiving that fateful phone call, has a message for Tech fans: Come. Join the recovery.

“I’ve said this a few times: I want to be the New York Yankees of 9/11,” Glennon said. “I want to be the New Orleans Saints of Katrina. I want to be the factor that brings everyone together, where everybody’s cheering and 4/16 didn’t happen for the three or four hours that they’re watching the Hokies play.

“I hope we really help the healing process.”