Matthew Gregory Gwaltney

• Age: 24
• Status: Graduate student
• Major: Environmental engineering
• Hometown: Chester, Va.
• High school: Thomas Dale
• Parents: Granville Gwaltney, father;
  Karen Gwaltney, mother;
  Linda Gwaltney, stepmother

Related

• Sign Matthew's guest book
• Virginia Tech shooting victims

Credentialed with a master’s degree in civil engineering he was to receive in May, Virginia Tech graduate student Matthew Gwaltney held the ticket to a good-paying job.

One company wanted to pay him $65,000. Another was offering $85,000, according to his grandfather, Granville Gwaltney, 84.

“It looked like he had things really going good for him,” the elder Gwaltney said.

His grandson, 24, died in Monday’s shootings.

The man he called Papa recalled Thursday giving Gwaltney his first taste of ice cream as a boy, rides on a rope swing and exposure to baseball cards. He last saw Gwaltney, a strapping young man on the verge of leaving college for work, at spring break several weeks ago.

“He just had a brilliant mind. You just wouldn’t believe it,” Gwaltney said, noting that his grandson had great name recall. He could recall the names of the more than 100 Virginia Tech undergraduates he taught when not focused on his own studies. His academic thesis, which reflected an interest in river mechanics and restoration, was on methods of predicting droughts.

At Thomas Dale High School in Chester, Va., from which he graduated in 2001, a memorial to Gwaltney references his success as a varsity athlete in basketball and baseball. He was sports editor of The Knightly News.

Basketball coach Eddie Goss told The Associated Press that he once used Gwaltney, who played guard, to fire up the team before a big game.

“I told Matt, 'I need to jump on you real hard, and you’ve got to respond to me to get the team going,’” Goss was quoted as saying.

So Goss uncharacteristically berated Gwaltney, who “always worked hard, played hard. The team came first.” The incident stunned the other players.

After practice, Gwaltney then had asked his coach to tell the team that he suspended Gwaltney for “talking back.”

“You saw all their shoulders slump. But then I said, 'I do have one thing that will help you win this game tonight,’ then we opened the closet door,” Goss said. Gwaltney popped out, and his teammates swarmed and hugged him.

“We won the game,” Goss said.

— Jeff Sturgeon