
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991                   TAG: 9102220092
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COACH'S REJECTION OF PAY RAISE WAS OFF THE BEAM

Virginia Tech offered its football coach, Frank Beamer, a 10 percent pay raise. It would have meant $10,100 more per year for the Beamer household. Keep the calculator in the drawer. Coach is paid about $101,000 annually.

He turned down the raise.

Beamer said he won't accept the money until the rest of Tech's workers also get a raise - not likely soon, given the state's current flirtation with fiscal ruin.

It was a noble act, and he did it with the best intentions - to show solidarity with other state employees in the Tech community.

A prince among men, that Coach Beamer, if you don't count the Temple game, which wasn't entirely his fault.

"I admire him for getting something nobody else got - and then giving it back," said Billy Hite, Beamer's assistant.

But what's the fallout? When the Head Hokie makes a gesture so rare, how does it affect you? More importantly, how does it affect me?

You can bet that every employer around here has noted Coach's example. They have laminated the newspaper article about his exemplary leadership.

And next time you go in for your salary review, you can be sure it will be brought up. More importantly, I know it will be brought up with me.

"Ed," they will say (and you can fill in your own name here, if your imagination is poor), "why do you insist on fussing so much about your pay? Why can't you be more like Coach Beamer?"

Even assistant head coach Hite agrees. "I think he's great now. Come July, I might have a very different opinion." Hite talks salary in July.

And so we've come across a new ploy for managers. You've been laid off and furloughed. You've endured staff reductions through attrition, wage freezes and cutbacks.

Now you could be Beamerized.

When you are Beamerized, your pay is frozen, but your supervisor twists the news to make you feel the insensitive lout to suggest higher pay.

"Coach Beamer did it," they say, waving the laminated copy of Frank's rejection of 10,000 clams. "He cares about others. Don't you?"

When your pay is frozen, you react by grumbling about the cheap rats who rake mega-bucks from the sweat of your back and don't share them.

When you're Beamerized, you leave the one-on-one grinning sheepishly, eyes glazed, telling comrades how glad you are that you can help them out.

400 Beamerized at Tech. 200 Beamerized at Volvo GM plant. Orvis threatens Beamerization.

"I didn't intend it that way. The intention was to put myself with everyone else," Beamer said. "But you bring up a good point."

We beseech you, Coach: Accept the money. Buy everybody on campus a Butterball turkey next Thanksgiving if you feel guilty. Or throw a great party the night after the ConAgra General Dynamics Studebaker Metamucil Quaker Oats Grecian Formula Bowl.

Why can't Coach Beamer spare us the solidarity and ask Tech to use the money for a contribution to charity?

Why can't Coach Beamer take the money? He's worth every penny. Whatta coach! Whatta guy!

Columnist Beamerized.

by CNB