Return to Blacksburg

Last weekend we went to the first football game of the season, and it was my first trip to Blacksburg since the shootings in April. It was an emotional time for everyone. We went out to dinner and then to a divey Irish Bar on Friday night in Roanoke with a group of friends. Since we stayed in Roanoke, we were able to head out to Blacksburg early for a trip to the memorial. We walked from our parking spot to Norris Hall, where 30 people were shot and the shooter took his own life. A small parking lot across from Randolph, where most of my classes were, there were a few people outside looking at the doors that he chained to keep his victims in and the windows where students escaped. About 50 yards from the front of Norris is the “interim” memorial on the drillfield in front of Burruss Hall, the main administration building and the building you see on the front of postcards and such. There was a large group of people there, decked out in Orange and Maroon, solemnly and quietly processing by the 32 “Hokie” stones, each with the name of a victim carved in them. A man and his young son, each wearing a replica football jersey laid flowers on each of the stones in front of us as we joined the procession. In a few hours, we would transform in to a creaming horde of football fans, but for a few minutes we reflected and remembered – you could have heard a pin drop. The memorial is beautiful (I actually hope they leave it instead of building the planned memorial) – A reminder in the middle of this large secular university that we are mortal and the land is borrowed. Holy Ground. (Genesis 28:16-18)

Afterwards, while our minds were not completely on football, our feet were. We hit up the bookstore to buy Hokies United t-shirts, and then walked to the soccer practice fields where ESPN Gameday was being shot, to a tailgate where some friends were for a quick visit and a Natural Light, and then onto the stadium. After a pregame ceremony (watch the beautiful video shown on the dumbotron here - the song is by folk/pop band Eddie from Ohio, the lead singer Julie is a Tech grad), and an F-15 flyover, an exciting game started. The fans and the team seemed a little drained, and ECU played really well (I think they will be better than expected), but the Hokies played well enough to win 17-7. Our O-Line will have to be much better to win next week against #2 LSU in Baton Rouge (I really wish I was going).

I never lost it, but I came close: once when walking around the memorial and once during the pregame video.