Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 2, 1994 TAG: 9401020127
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SHREVEPORT, LA. LENGTH: Medium
- Losing is a germ; winning, a vitamin.
After seven years, Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer finally has a group of well-nourished kids who haven't caught the virus athletic teams fear most.
There are 18 true freshmen on Tech's roster, six of whom played key roles this season - including defensive starters Antonio Banks and Cornell Brown. To them, Tech football isn't years of frustration, losses and no bowls.
To them, 9-3 and a 45-20 Independence Bowl victory is Tech football.
"It's really foreign to me," Banks said of Tech's bowl-starved past, "because I really hadn't paid too much attention to Virginia Tech."
At last Monday's pre-bowl practice, Beamer told the players that if they played well on national television, "maybe [fans] will stick with us."
More attention, though, isn't as vital as the layer of history the Hokies laid down in Shreveport.
Beamer's first Murray State team went 8-3, his second 4-7. The next four didn't win fewer than seven games, and Beamer knows the first season had an effect.
Tech's seventh-year head coach pondered the Hokies' future over a noontime cup of coffee in a hotel meeting room Saturday after a long postbowl celebration. He lasted at least until 3 a.m., what he described as a "nice night."
"How you think and what you expect are tremendously important," Beamer said. "Momentum is a wonderful thing if you've got it, and right now we've got some momentum."
Tech loses only a few key players, among them perhaps the best cornerback (Tyronne Drakeford) and the best offensive lineman (Jim Pyne) in Tech history.
But most of the talent returns - including Banks and quarterback Maurice DeShazo, the Independence Bowl's two most valuable players.
DeShazo and the upperclassmen are the ones who remember what it was like to lose eight games. All Banks and his classmates know is about winning nine.
All the Hokies, however, read preseason predictions about how bad they would be.
"I just think it comes from self-respect," Banks said. "I think that's what motivated us in the off-season."
Beamer said he knew the program's foundation was right when Tech signed recruits such as Banks and Cornell Brown, two true freshman who were starters against Indiana.
Now, Beamer said, the Hokies finally have a platform from which to advance - instead of always chasing simply a winning season.
"Until you get there, what you've got to read is you haven't been to a bowl, or it's been so long," Beamer said. "Now, you're not reading what you haven't done, you're reading what you have the potential to do."
Tech could be predicted as high as second or third in the next preseason Big East Conference rankings. The Hokies can be expected to enter the '94 season in The Associated Press' top 20, and Banks already is peeved that Tech only had two highlights on ESPN after its 45-20 victory.
The next step, he said, is not to settle for anything but a New Year's Day bowl.
Beamer says the '93 season opens doors.
"The state is talking about Virginia Tech football," he said. "We've got the foundation plus the excitement. Hopefully, that will help.
"This place is hungry for us doing this on a regular basis."
Banks said he thinks more needs to be done, too.
"We're still not looked upon as a good, top Division I team," he said. "I don't think [the coaches] will let this team just be satisfied with this."
At least for one night, though, Beamer sat back and simmered in Tech's accomplishments. He remarked how good it felt that there was no game next week to prepare for, and he looked ahead to the final AP poll, in which he hopes Tech can be ranked higher than 16th - the highest-ever season-ending ranking for a Tech team.
"It's an amazing story, really," he said. "If we could get up there 15th, wouldn't that be amazing?"
by CNB