Sunday, 20 April 2008 01:11 by
Dave Today would have been my father’s 88th birthday, so if you’re out playing golf this week, I need you to do something in his honor.
Reach into your bag, and find a new sleeve of balls. Take one out, and regardless of whether the dangers of water, the rough, or trees are present, hit away. If you lose it, grab another new one. Hit away again. Don’t succumb to the temptation to use an older ball because it may be headed for a watery vacation. Think positive. Live for today.
My father loved to play golf. He was never any good at it because he enjoyed the camaraderie of a foursome far more than the rewards of a low score. To play good golf generally requires you stop talking and concentrate before swinging, but he never did. He just gave it a good swing and hoped for the best.
As a result, he spent a lot of time in the woods, as well as portions of the golf course that lawn mowers rarely see. It killed him to lose a golf ball, and the ultimate indignity was to lose one that he had just taken out of the box. Losing a new ball that had survived only one swing, in his world, was a sin.
As I grew older and would return to Norfolk once a year to play with him, this became quite a point of debate. I once looked down at a ball he had hit on the green, and it had a small picture of an elk on it, as well as a bruise mark that generally occurs when you’ve hit a tree with some force. Having just given him a dozen new Titleists, I queried him as to why he would be playing a ball not even as good as a range ball.
“I’m saving the new ones,” he’d say. “I don’t want to lose them.”
So as the years went on, the routine got more pronounced. At first I would check his bag before we left and make sure there were plenty of new balls. That rarely worked, so I started making him show me what he was playing on the first tee, then handed him new ones on subsequent tees. Somehow, he’d hit one into the trees, find an old one, then keep playing the old one so he wouldn’t lose the new one.
Keep in mind, a dozen golf balls are the easiest gift anyone can send a Dad who plays. My father got a dozen at least three times a year – on his birthday, Father’s Day, and Christmas.
When he turned 70, he still kept playing, but he was hitting the ball shorter and shorter distances. I got him to try a 100 compression golf ball, and the first time he took a swing, he hit it as far as he had hit one in years. He became convinced that it wasn’t the fact he kept his head down and followed through – no, it was the 100 compression ball. So I started sending him 100s several times a year.
Eventually, my father got too old to play, and our arguments about using new equipment stopped. His last round of golf was probably eight years ago, and in August of 2006, he passed away.
My mother left his things undisturbed for the next year or so, but in the last months, my sisters and mother started going through them. As most of his generation did, he saved just about everything, and if any family member got their name in the newspaper, he clipped it and saved it. In one closet, every gadget gift of the last decade was there, from the snake light, to the automatic bending screwdriver. The only thing missing was a salad shooter, and it’s probably in there somewhere.
Once done with that closet, I thought we were finished, so I headed back to Ashburn. Last week, my mother and the Vista operating system had a significant difference of opinion, so I drove back south to fix her computer. Once there, she said they had gone through another closet, and found something I might want to see.
She showed me an old Navy footlocker. Inside it, I finally got the answer to my “what is he doing with all these golf balls I’ve been sending him?” question. Neatly stacked were 12 boxes. Each contained a dozen or more golf balls. All 100 compression.
So no matter how big the lake, how foreboding the tree, or how high the rough, swing away. Golf balls don’t increase in value over time, so use them. And if you lose one, don’t sweat it. Think of it as a birthday present for my father.
Happy 88th, Dad. We all miss you. One day, we’ll play again.
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Friday, 18 April 2008 11:19 by
Dave Now I know why LoudounExtra.com’s Erica Garman took lessons to fire a gun.
Apparently, Loudoun County is the REAL danger zone.
Last night, in watching the Washington Capitals lose a heartbreaker to the Philadelphia Flyers, I listened as announcers made mention of a column written by Mike Wise of The Washington Post. Wise had taken issue with the Neanderthal physical approach the Flyers use, saying “They flat-out market and sell violence here, sanctioned, unbridled assaults disguised as sport.”
Couldn’t agree more. But wow, Mike. Get tired of taunting pit bulls while holding a 16-ounce ribeye? Need something a bit more challenging in your life?
Wise was in Philadelphia for last night’s game, and several media outlets took notice of the potential fireworks, wondering whether the City of Brotherly Love would embrace Wise’s words with a left hook or a right uppercut. Between the third period and the first overtime, Comcast Sportsnet did the same, showing tape of an exchange on “Washington Post Live”, seen earlier in the day.
In the studio was Paul Tenorio, who covers high school sports for the Post and LoudounExtra.com here in Loudoun County. “I’m hopeful that they don’t have too many snowballs to throw at you like the way they treat Santa Claus up there,” Tenorio told Wise. “What are you going to do to sneak out of there?”
Wise, who was grinning throughout the exchange, said he didn’t think it was going to be that bad and that he wasn’t really worried. “If worse comes to worst, I’ll get someone to drive me to my car,” Wise said. “I’m more worried about you getting back out to Loudoun County, Paul.”
So forget Philly. Loudoun County’s where you really need to be careful.
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Tuesday, 15 April 2008 21:03 by
Dave
Today is the day it all comes back. All the images, all the sounds, all the memories of one of the worst days many have ever experienced.
April 16, 2007. The day “massacre” and Virginia Tech became synonymous. The day the world learned about Blacksburg, Va. The day we all became Hokies.
The airwaves today will be full of replays from that day. Newspapers have been running stories since Sunday, with The Roanoke Times running a 10-page special section entitled “One Year Later.” The Washington Post has had several excellent stories, including stories on the parents of the shooter, and survivor Derek O’Dell.
Each will bring back memories and stir emotions. The memory I won't ever be able to get out of my head involves a phrase I’d never heard before. I was at WAGE that morning when the phone calls started coming in from parents of Tech students asking for information on the shootings. I immediately turned on CNN, then went online in search of any details. One site, Techsideline.com, was filled with posts from students and people in the area, and several were suggesting the situation was far worse than what was being reported.
One post had a link to the police band radio in Blacksburg, so I connected with it and turned the sound up as loud as it would go. I then grabbed another computer and was able to pick up streaming video from a Roanoke television station.
While monitoring all three sources of information, I selectively listened to each for a few moments at a time. Just as I was turning my attention to the police scanner, I heard the end of a transmission with a voice saying “31 black.” At the time, police were only reporting one fatality. I walked down the hall and asked anyone if they knew what it meant. No one was sure.
As the day went on, and the casualty numbers kept increasing, it became apparent what the transmission meant. Several weeks later, Randy Breton, who runs EMS services locally, told me it was terminology for triage in an emergency medical situation. “Red means critical injury,” he said. “Green means they’re not critical. Black means they’re dead.”
In Norris Hall that morning, 30 students lost their lives, plus the shooter. 31 black.
While much will be made today of the senseless loss a year ago, I hope a few other things from a year ago won’t be overlooked. While devastated by the tragedy – any Hokie who tells you he watched that first week of news coverage and didn’t shed a tear is lying – most Hokies were equally flabbergasted by the outpouring of support from every corner of the world. As each show of support became known, the waterworks among Hokie Nation kept going. If you were one of them, thank you. The world will never know how much that support meant to so many.
Then there’s the person who really started the healing, but will probably never be identified. He or she is probably a student, and just followed an instinct during the convocation ceremony the next day. After Nikki Giovanni hit a home run with her “We Will Prevail. We Are Virginia Tech” speech, and the applause died down (click on the screen below to see), one person started clapping as if at a basketball game. “Let’s go Hokies” started off quietly, then immediately rose to a level that filled Cassell Coliseum. The crowd roared.
In my mind, that’s the moment the healing began. It’s as if the students were saying to the world, in their own way, we’ve taken a huge blow. But we’re going to be OK.
One year later, a lot of healing has taken place. There's still a long way to go. But we're going to be OK.
Nikki said it best: We are the Hokies...we will prevail, we will prevail, we will prevail.
We are... Virginia Tech.
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Monday, 14 April 2008 20:12 by
Dave He would never do it, but when Mickey Thompson faces any teams from the Northern Region next football season, he should consider running up the score.
That’s because the Northern Region has been trying to railroad his team (and all programs at Stone Bridge) out of the region for the past year. Justice prevailed Monday, however, as Stone Bridge won its appeal to stay in the Liberty District and compete in the Northern Region for future seasons. It marked the end to one of the most transparent attacks on a high school program in memory for committing the unforgiveable sin of winning early in its existence, and often.
The vote was a narrow 7-6 margin, and that only happened because Liberty District administrators voted 6-0-1 to keep Stone Bridge in the Liberty. The drama started back in the fall, when increasing enrollment pushed Heritage from the Group AA ranks of the Dulles District into a Group AAA classification. Heritage was placed in the Northwest Region’s Cedar Run District for the 2009 season, where nearby Loudoun Valley is already playing.
Much to Stone Bridge’s surprise, the Bulldogs soon found they were part of the conversation. They were happy in the Liberty District, they hadn’t asked to be moved, and they weren’t bothering anyone, except perhaps the football coaches in the rest of the Northern Region. They were included in the Heritage move to the Cedar Run District, and although they immediately protested, all appeals were denied by a lopsided margin. Monday’s hearing was the final chance for Stone Bridge to stay in the Liberty, but given last December’s 18-8 vote against Stone Bridge, it didn’t look good.
That it has gone on this long is beyond ridiculous. When it all started, Heritage had to pretty much take what it was given, because the Pride’s classification had changed. Loudoun Valley used the situation to ask to be moved back to the Northern Region after spending time in the Northwest Region, also asking for a change in status, so they knew the odds were against them.
Stone Bridge just wanted to be left alone. It’s like a neighbor getting transferred to another state, then being told you have to move too, whether you like it or not.
Officials at Stone Bridge have taken the high road in discussions throughout the year, deflecting the question of “why are they doing this to you?” so as not to lose any friends when the time came for the issue to finally be decided. But it’s clearly because of Stone Bridge’s football success.
Many of the Northern Region schools have lengthy histories in Virginia, and the notion that a school that didn’t exist prior to the year 2000 is now a gateway to the state playoffs has to be irksome. Since Stone Bridge joined the Liberty, the rest of the league has been playing for second place, as the Bulldogs have won all three years. They’ve won the Northern Region twice in the last three years, and made the finals all three. Last year, they won the state title.
If you can’t beat ‘em, move ‘em to another region.
Fortunately that won’t happen, as Monday’s hearing should end any further discussions about where Stone Bridge plays. And by the time football season rolls around this fall, all will probably be forgotten.
But just to be safe, here’s my advice to Coach Thompson: make sure you’ve saved a timeout or two this season for the final minutes of games against “friends” from the Northern Region.
Because against some teams, a 48-point lead just isn’t enough.
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Saturday, 12 April 2008 22:15 by
Dave There’s apparently nothing worse than a cat with an attitude.
That’s the lesson Cedar Lane Elementary’s staff learned Saturday night, as the Mill Run Elementary Mountain Lions beat the Cedar Lane Lions 50-38 before an overflow crowd at Stone Bridge High School. Sporting shirts that said “Baddest Cats In Town”, Mill Run Elementary jumped to a 7-2 lead in the first period of the charity event, and Cedar Lane was never able to draw any closer.
The game had a few unique wrinkles, as the contest was divided into eight 5-minute periods to allow for extra opportunities for the players to rest. “We want to play basketball,” said Cedar Lane Principal James Dallas, “but we don’t want to kill ourselves.”
The game also had a special area taped off to the right of the three-point arc at both ends. Should either principal make a shot from that area, their respective team would get five points for the basket. After Shawn “Lookout” Lyons hit the game’s first basket for Mill Run, Mountain Lions’ principal Paul “Bossman” Vickers did just that, hitting a 5-pointer to make it 7-0.
Dallas hit Cedar Lane’s first basket to make it 7-2, but Mill Run went on to a 23-13 halftime lead. The two teams battled evenly in the second half, but Cedar Lane got no closer than six points.
The game wasn’t really about basketball, as the big crowd was packed with students pulling for their favorite teachers. All players sported jerseys with their nicknames on the back, as students screamed for the likes of “Mr. P.E.”, “Guitar Hero”, and my personal favorite, “Third Degree” Burns.
Mike “Mr. P.E.” Kilgannon led Mill Run in scoring with 9 points, including one layup worthy of ESPN’s Top 10 as he passed the ball between his legs in mid-air while going to the basket. Matthew “Jet Settin” Joseph of Cedar Lane led all scorers with 11, followed by “Da Man” Dallas with 9.
All proceeds from the game went to the PTAs of both schools.
MILL RUN (50)
Mike “Mr. P.E.” Kilgannon 9, Matt “Tall Guy” Vinson 6, Mark “Wojo” Wojick 5, Jason “Automatic” Lutman 5, Paul “Bossman” Vickers 5, Ellen “Crusher” Usher 4, Shawn “Lookout” Lyons 4, Lauren “Haz Dogg” Hasley 2, Christine “The Warthenator” Warthen 2, John “Coach C” Cornely 2, Jim “Guitar Hero” Wolslayer 2, Michelle Nyhuis 2, Kadie Jones 2.
CEDAR LANE (38)
Matthew “Jet Settin” Joseph 11, James “Da Man” Dallas 9, Joe “Dunkin” Dougherty 8, Bill “Fierce” Fazzini 5, Greg “Semi Pro” Wuenschel 2, Sarah “Jumpin” Jones 2, Kimberly “Nothing But Net” Kniskern 1.
Halftime Score: Mill Run 23, Cedar Lane 13.
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Saturday, 12 April 2008 00:09 by
Dave The biggest crowd to see a basketball game in Loudoun County this season may be at Stone Bridge High School tonight.
Patiently waiting until the NCAA Tournament was over, the staffs of Cedar Lane Elementary and Mill Run Elementary will hold a charity basketball game tonight at Stone Bridge. And before you scoff at the notion of out-of-shape educators huffing and puffing up and down the floor, consider this:
Two years ago, I watched the game (then between Cedar Lane and Ashburn Elementary) and it was standing room only at Stone Bridge. “Congratulations,” I told my wife, who played in the game. “You just played in front of a bigger crowd the first night you ever stepped on a court than I did in 10 years of organized basketball.”
Tonight’s game can’t help but be a catfight, as the Cedar Lane Lions play the Mill Run Mountain Lions. What’s the difference between a Mountain Lion and a Lion? About two points, as the staffs of these schools go out of their way to keep the game close.
The kids at each school love it. They cheer their teachers and view the game with the same fervor as a Super Bowl. The players? Well, they’re great teachers. And every now and then, one of them makes a basket. If you're betting on the game, take the under.
Both schools’ PTAs have been working hard behind the scenes, and sponsors such as Amvorsia Restaurant, Harris Teeter, and Loudoun Credit Union have donated food, water, signs, and many other amenities. Everything, apparently, except oxygen. Even the Key Clubs at Broad Run, Stone Bridge and Briar Woods are helping as volunteers.
As of Friday afternoon, there were only 75 tickets left, so come early. Doors open at 5 p.m., and tickets are $4, $5 for a fun pack that includes face stickers and a pom-pom. Game time is 6:15. Proceeds benefit the PTAs at Cedar Lane and Mill Run.
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Friday, 11 April 2008 10:13 by
Dave It’s not often I read a story online and think “Wow”. But I’d been out of town earlier this week, and in catching up with my reading, I came across LoudounExtra.com’s Loudoun’s Winter Wonders, which shows their all-star teams for all winter sports.
It’s not that the material is earth-shattering; it’s just that the logistics and resources needed to put something like this together are substantial. It’s one thing to name all-area football or basketball teams, as getting to see games involving those athletes is pretty easy. We televised about a dozen football games and close to 20 basketball games on Comcast this season, so between Comcast and watching live, you could get a feel for the best players in those sports.
But to come up with the details of all the other sports: boys swimming, girls swimming, wrestling, gymnastics and ice hockey…that’s a lot of athletes to consider, a lot of coaches to call, and a lot of results to tally. Then to get the winners together in a central place, take pictures, and write up the winners in a format that does not take weeks to read…
As one commercial used to say, it’s like “herding cats.”
Loudounextra.com, by virtue of being part of The Washington Post empire, has the resources to devote to such a section. It’s just as impressive day-in and day-out to read the scores and detail of every game in every sport on Loudounprepsports.com because the staff, ownership, clean-up crew, writer and editor is the same guy: Dan Sousa.
I like local sports, but I’m basically a football and basketball man. Dan’s committed. And when he’s fielding calls from 27 coaches every day to get every last lacrosse and field hockey score, he probably feels like he should be committed. It’s probably why he picked UCLA to win the NCAA Tournament.
But I digress.
In the bigger scheme of things, these local all-star teams probably mean little. But it does add to the sense of community out here in Loudoun County. I’ve lived in small towns, where a local weekly newspaper made a big deal of any scholastic success; I’ve also lived in bigger cities, where unless you were heading for the big-time, the bigger daily newspaper in town didn’t write about it. We’re lucky enough to get the best of both worlds.
So to Jeff Nelson, Paul Tenorio, Joel Richardson, J.C. Reed, Christian Swezey and Cara McCoy, nice job. Now that you’re done with this project, perhaps you can tackle a bigger challenge: helping Tenorio with next year’s NCAA basketball picks.
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Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:49 by
Dave The email had, shall we say, a certain attitude to it.
“Who is this yahoo from Fairfax that won the basketball pool?” asked one of the competitors.
That would be Tim Hogan of Fairfax. The only man to pick Kansas to win two games in the Final Four. The only man to be second-guessed by his own son when he scored a mere eight points through the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. And the only man who gets bold sports predictions right once every 30 years.
For a bit more background, let me take you back to a feature done in the May 27, 1978 issue of The Roanoke Times & World News. The story was on the Virginia Tech campus radio station, WUVT, and its live coverage of Virginia Tech baseball. The story, written by Jack Bogaczyk, focused on two seniors: Dave Scarangella of Norfolk and Tim Hogan of Fairfax.
Yep, we called baseball games back in the day, graduated from Virginia Tech in 1978, and never saw each other again.
That changed last April. The Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 stunned all Hokies, and I found myself calling and hearing from former classmates all across the country. The week after the shootings, the owners of the radio station I was running (WAGE) decided to fire the staff and go all network, resulting in a few stories in area media, including the Washington Post.
One of the people who saw that story was Tim Hogan of Fairfax. So after a 29-year absence, the voice on the end of the phone said, “ Since you don’t seem to have a job these days, you think you can break away from the couch and play in a golf tournament with me?”
It took only about 10 minutes of golf before we were back needling each other the way we did in college. Three of the four golfers in the foursome were Hokies, as we made fun of each other’s lack of ability, laughed about the old times, and got choked up about the current times in Blacksburg. One of Hogan’s daughters had been friends with one of the victims, and none of us could understand the senseless loss of life.
Another month or two went by before I got an email from Hogan, asking if I would be going to the Virginia Tech football game with East Carolina, the first time Hokie Nation would be together in one place since the shooting. “No,” I said. “It’s going to be too emotional.”
A week later he called, saying he’d secured a gig for me to keep stats for the Westwood One Radio network at the Tech-ECU game, thus forcing me to go to Blacksburg. “We all needed to be here,” Tim said to me when I made it up to the press box. I sat next to Terry Bowden, wiped away a huge buildup of fluid from my eyes when they released 32 balloons in memory of the victims, kept stats, then drove home. But Tim was right. We all needed to be there.
Hogan, as I learned from the golf course, has always been good with his foot in the rough.
So that’s who Tim Hogan of Fairfax is. During our years at Tech, he was a huge fan of any D.C.-area team, and seemed to predict every year that the Washington Bullets were going to win the NBA title. In 1978, he was actually right, as Dick Motta of “it’s not over until the fat lady sings” led them to a championship.
Thirty years later, he finally got another one right.
The fat lady sings again.
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Sunday, 6 April 2008 13:37 by
Dave Well, this should come as no surprise.
Although there is still another night of basketball left in the NCAA Tournament, the winner of the Loudoun County Magnificent 7 King Of All Media Basketball Challenge can already be determined.
That’s because NO ONE can get tonight’s championship game right. Three – Dan Sousa, Carl Lukat and Jason Rufner – picked UCLA to win, while the other four – Erica Garman, Paul Tenorio, Paul Draisey and myself – picked North Carolina. UNC and UCLA were both told “thanks for playing, enjoy the summer,” Saturday night by Kansas and Memphis State.
Nice job, folks. We’re now renaming it the Loudoun County Magnificent “0 for 7” King Of All Media Basketball Challenge.
This means Garman, of Living In Loco fame on LoudounExtra.com and Comcast Cable, won with 21 points. Garman was the only woman in the contest, and the only non-sportswriter in the competition. She’s also the only gun-toting member of the field, which may have intimidated the rest of the group.
I came in second with 20 points, and blame it squarely on Kristine Condie, the owner of Total Basket Cases in Lovettsville. Kristine, who was a guest several times on shows at WAGE, is a combustible ball of energy, and has a steely look of determination in her eyes. That, combined with a degree from West Virginia, and a company motto that starts with “We’re crazy…” convinced me it would be in my best interests to pick the Mountaineers to make it to the Final Four.
“You’re a good man,” Kristine emailed after I made the pick. Yeah, and a dumb man. A misguided man. A man who lost by a single point.
Lukat, of the Loudoun Times-Mirror, made the pick of the weekend, choosing Kansas to upset North Carolina, although he negated that brilliance by picking UCLA to win it all. The pick propelled him from the cellar to third place, edging The Washington Post’s Tenorio by a point. Dan “California Dreaming” Sousa of Loudounprepsports.com finished fifth, followed by the Loudoun Times-Mirror’s Rufner.
My Comcast broadcast partner, Mr. Draisey, finished dead last. Paul, who also left the Nationals’ season opener before Ryan Zimmerman’s dramatic game-winning home run, is having a tough week.
All is not finished in the general contest. Former WAGE news director Tim Jon leads everyone with 23 points, but can gain no more as he has neither Kansas nor Memphis State as the winner Monday night. Loudoun County Commonwealth Attorney Jim Plowman is in second-place with 21 points, and has Memphis State to win the tournament. If Memphis wins, Plowman wins.
The most unlikely scenario, however, involves Tim Hogan of Fairfax. Hogan entered the weekend with a mere eight points – good for dead last and an email from me suggesting he actually watch a basketball game in the future before making such pitiful picks. But Hogan correctly picked Kansas to beat UNC to move up to 13 points, and he has Kansas winning Monday night. A correct pick there earns 10 points, and would tie Jon for the lead.
Since the first tie-breaker is who got the championship game right, Hogan would win. Hogan, who has been chanting “was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” from the movie Animal House, could go from worst to first.
Even Dean Wormer couldn’t have seen that coming.
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Saturday, 5 April 2008 11:51 by
Dave It was one of the more touching scenes of 2007: Stone Bridge Coach Mickey Thompson wins a state championship on the same Scott Stadium field he played on from 1974-1977; his kids are star players, and his parents return to Charlottesville for the first time since Thompson’s senior year 30 years earlier to see it.
Good thing it happened this season.
That’s because after only one year, the Group AAA championship football game is being moved off the University of Virginia campus. Ken Tilley, the Virginia High School League’s executive director, was quoted in the Charlottesville Daily Progress as saying costs at UVA ran three times higher than those of previous venues in years past. “We were extremely well-treated,” he said. “The reason we won’t be returning is purely financial.”
The VHSL will now consider places the AAA game has been played in the past, including Norfolk State, the University of Richmond, Darling Stadium in Hampton, and Todd Stadium in Newport News. But the Daily Progress said that for this next football season, Richmond is not available, and Norfolk State has not expressed an interest in hosting another title game.
It should not be a surprise this venue was more expensive. When we were unloading our Comcast equipment for the state championship game, we visited with several security people, and they were all hired from a firm from Richmond. When games are at high school fields like Darling Stadium and Todd Stadium, they defray a lot of these costs with volunteers. Apparently at UVA, you can’t.
But despite the higher costs, this is an incredibly boneheaded decision by the University of Virginia to let this happen. They should just offer to pick up the additional expenses. The Cavaliers have at times struggled to recruit football players from the Old Dominion, and having this game in their home stadium could certainly change this. Group AAA is the biggest classification in Virginia, and the state title games generally have several of the state’s top players involved.
Some would argue that by that point of the season, a top prospect would have already seen any school’s facilities he was interested in. But it’s not the seniors it impacts. It’s the underclassmen, the families, and the younger brothers of players who see Scott Stadium at a young age and say “I’d like to play on this field one day."
As a proud Virginia Tech alumnus, even I had to admit that after Stone Bridge won, I spent a little extra time walking the campus and found it quite impressive. I even found myself thinking that if my daughter one day wanted to go there, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I then slapped myself in the face, dumped a bucket of ice water on my head, and started intensive therapy. Within a day or two, I returned to normal.
Incidentally, Tilley was quoted in the Daily Progress story as saying “We are looking into sites in the immediate regions of Group AAA schools that would meet the minimum criteria. If those sites are unavailable, we would possibly go to Virginia Tech.”
If that happens, something tells me costs won't be a problem. Frank Beamer will see to that.
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