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Tiki Barber could have spent a career in broadcast journalism and hardly been prepared for the event that punctuated and punctured his first day on the "Today" show.

Barber, an All-Pro running back for the New York Giants before a surprise fall retirement, was on the set April 16 for his formal "Today" show introduction and followed that with a workout.

"When I came out of the gym, they told me that my assignment for the next day was canceled because of the Virginia Tech story, and I said, 'I have to go,' " Barber said.

Keep in mind, Barber is a well-known graduate of the University of Virginia -- Virginia Tech's biggest rival. On the UVa Web site there's a video titled "Tiki Barber's University."

However, Barber also has a rich Virginia Tech heritage. His mother graduated from there. His dad was a Hokies running back.

The Barber twins, Tiki and Ronde, were born at Montgomery Regional Hospital. That's the same facility that treated Virginia Tech students wounded in an April 16 shooting spree that left 33 dead.

"It was home for me," Barber said. "I grew up down that way. I spent a lot of my early childhood down there. We'd go back for games. My mother knew a lot of people there."

As he flew into Roanoke on the night of April 16, Barber realized that he hadn't been back to Southwest Virginia for four years.

"I hadn't been there since my mom left," said Barber, whose mother, Geraldine, now works outside Washington, D.C. "I went into the Roanoke airport, and everybody knows me there. It wasn't a good occasion to be going home."

Barber had called his mother to find out what she knew. His aunt -- Geraldine's sister, Sharon Brickhouse Martin -- is on an advisory panel that helps identify minority prospects for Tech's engineering school.

"We reached out to her," Barber said, "but it didn't lead to anything. There was too much chaos going on."

In the 48 hours he was in Blacksburg, Barber was involved in two stories, one on the school community and one on the Blacksburg community.

"It was weird," he said. "To the students, it was like I belonged there, even though I went to the rival school. They appreciated that I was there."

One of the students with whom Barber spoke was Derek O'Dell, a 2005 graduate of Cave Spring High School, the Barber twins' alma mater.

"When I went out in the community, that was a little bit tougher because a lot of the merchants have family that work at the university," Barber said. "At one of the places we went, [the proprietor] wouldn't talk to us because it was too close for him. His wife's boss, I think, was one of the professors who was killed.

"It was tough talking to the adults. It seemed like a lot of the kids were in shock and didn't know how to respond. The adults were more aware of the gravity of it."

Barber's next notable "Today" show appearance came May 4. He showed up in Cape Town, South Africa, as part of the feature "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?"

After some friendly banter with the "Today" co-host, Barber donned a wet suit and entered a cage in anticipation of a visit from a great white shark.

"I was in the cage for 40 minutes or so," Barber said. "It was a while. It was probably a 10-foot cage, and about 3 feet was out of the water. You can use a breathing device if you want to, but I just held my breath. They bait the shark in, and then, when it gets close, you just dive down and it's right there in front of you.

"Leading up to it, I was nervous. You're in the middle of the ocean, the Indian Ocean, and people are shouting, 'Oh, my God, there's the shark.' Once I got the nerve to get in the water and the tank, everything went away, and I was completely calm. The only sense I used was sight."

While making plane connections in London, Barber lost his luggage, prompting an MSNBC.com blog from producer Sean Reis that opened, "I bought Tiki Barber underwear."

The segment generated considerable online traffic, including a predictable post by "Noel" from Mitchell, S.D.

"Tiki, forget all the traveling and stress," it read. "Minicamps start in two weeks."

Giants fans may still hope Barber is experiencing withdrawal symptoms. After 10 seasons, he left the NFL at the top of his career. Maybe he misses it.

"Absolutely not one iota," said Barber, 32. "It's funny. I talked to my brother [in Tampa Bay], and he said, 'It's so hot down here; I'm sweating my ass off. I'm working out two times a day, sometimes three times a day.' I told him, 'Hey, I feel bad for you, but I'm done.' "

They still communicate regularly, although Tiki could not tell either his mother or his brother his destination before the trip to Cape Town.

He also has been to Buffalo, N.Y., for a story on the first all-female entry in the National Science Bowl and to Atlanta to interview members of the Fugees, a soccer program made up entirely of refugees and coached by a Jordanian woman.

"I had been told that she was very strong-minded and focused, and there were a lot of things we had to do with her," Barber said, "but, when we were done, she told me, 'I just felt at ease talking to you.' I don't think she knew who I was, but her kids did."

No introductions were required in Blacksburg, where Barber's contributions to the overall coverage were minimal, although the memories will stick with him forever.

"It was an unbelievable experience, a learning experience," he said. "Anybody who was anybody in the industry was there, and for the most part I got to watch. I talked to the cameramen and the people who run those big trucks, and they said they'd never seen a staging ground like that."

He doesn't know if this will be a defining moment in his career as a broadcaster, "but it's a definitive moment," he said. "That's for sure."