Win Over Buckeyes Reminds Of The Days When They Played To Be Somebodies

When I was a kid, my old man had an idea. He decided to spend the warm months on a scaffold aside our Victorian home. He removed each shudder and stripped the old paint. In colder days, he'd sit in a little house on our farm and repaint each one by hand.

It was an admirable project. He was an admirable man.

Fall would roll around and I'd run around outside as he worked. We'd turn on a radio and catch his alma mater — my future alma mater — play college football. Hokies broadcasts appeared on the tube less often back then. Most games came on the dial.

Those days offered simplicity. Part of it was childhood, another part was the radio. The biggest factor was Virginia Tech's football program.

We didn't desire more than what the team offered. Instead, we listened and hoped they could beat Pittsburgh and Miami. The Rutgers and Temples of the world normally gave way to TV by the third quarter. Still, we listened on an AM station, the sound rang through the patio and sometimes, inside the house.

Imagination was important then. So when Keion Carpenter took Miami quarterback Scott Covington's pass 100 yards to the house in The Orange Bowl in 1996, it came alive. It lived in a dream-like state as we could visualize a maroon helmet bobbing down the sideline. When Carpenter crossed the goal-line, we crossed the Canes out of the big slate. Tech closed the season with wins over West Virginia and Virginia. Nebraska crushed them in the same Orange Bowl. But hey, that was expected.

It all changed after a while. Dad died, the Hokies made a national title game and each game was on TV. The alumni base gradually evolved, too. My father remembered his march to Roanoke's Victory Stadium for the VMI games. Now, a march is a dash for those who are watching Florida and Georgia on flat screens in Lane's parking lot.

That's what happens with time. It ticks at the same pace but it always seems so far away. In 16 years since we shared father-son moments, the past became a story of what once was.

Tech grew up. The program became relevant on a year-to-year basis. That's what we all wanted. Now, stores carry merchandise. I remember the first Hokies jersey Nike sold and the eight weeks I impatiently waited as it was backordered from my Eastbay catalogue.

But, Saturday night in an Arlington bar with the game on several TV's and even more orange-and-maroon jerseys around me, I stepped back into the old days.

Perhaps it was my old man or maybe my young naive self who pushed the attitude we had back then. It meant no game was a given victory and the toughest challenges would always be a Carrier Dome or the dreaded state between home and Ohio. No opponent went overlooked because Tech wasn't good enough to do so. Frank Beamer wasn't a household name and few outside the Commonwealth knew Blacksburg's location.

Each contest offered a chance at respect and the lone representation the university had on the east coast. Lane Stadium's loud now because of those who came before — the ones who sat in a somewhat-simple stadium with temporary end-zone seats and yelled out their brains. The school didn't have a pedigree to hang its hat on. We watched them create one.

That mattered. I believe the stretch of Beamer's woes against top opponents helped make Saturday matter that much more. There was a lull of the program — in its constituents' eyes — and the 35-21 win rectified downtrodden beliefs.

Expectations are a tricky thing and don't offer much in the way of imagination. When a team should win a game, they never win it by enough points. Shoulds turn into demands. Then, the whole damned thing gets stuck in a universe where it becomes untouchable and unexplainable.

Saturday night, the Hokies played like the teams who were out to put the school on the map. They punished the Buckeyes with tenacity and toughness. When Ohio State tied the score at 21-21, that's when it became clear to me Tech would pull it out.

After years of watching outcomes cut from the same template, familiarity with a pattern struck me. Alabama, Boise State, Florida State in the title game and many other games — they held the same traits. Beamer's squad would come out flat, make a miraculous comeback to take the lead or tie. Then, the wad was shot and the opponent ended the contest on a high note.

This time, the big, daunting foe tired itself with catch-up and the result couldn't have been any clearer.

The uncomfortable comfort set in and the Hokies marched down the field. Bud Foster's sharks circled. The Buckeyes never had a prayer. A group of fans stood in a bar and cheered as they chanted the words — "Let's Go Hokies." The same refrain used to echo in 75-percent capacity stadiums against Rutgers. I'm not sure many of those fans thought about the space and time between.

I did. For the first time in years, I genuinely felt the reattachment to the school I came to know in the last few years of my father's life.

It was a football program looking for respect and a tad of awareness. Eventually it found it. On Saturday night, it found it again.

Back then, it was an admirable goal. In the Horseshoe, it was an admirable win.