ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996             TAG: 9611120093
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG

BOARD BACKS TOUGH STANCE VA. TECH FACULTY SAYS BRAWLING MUST STOP KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER

The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors is backing the get-tough stance of President Paul Torgersen and the athletic department toward eight football players indicted last week in connection with an August brawl and a possible July abduction.

Tech last week suspended five players for one game; a sixth had already served a one-game suspension. Two other players, facing felony indictments, were suspended for the rest of the season. A ninth quit the team during the summer.

"The board is fully behind Dr. Torgersen, and I think that we feel he's taken the appropriate action," said Henry Dekker, rector of the board of visitors, after the matter was discussed in a closed-door session during a regularly scheduled board meeting Monday. The board of visitors passed no formal resolution.

Dekker also said he had "confidence that [athletic director] Dave Braine and [football coach] Frank Beamer are going to resolve this situation."

A Montgomery County grand jury last week indicted six players and a former team member on charges of misdemeanor assault and battery. Another player was charged with attempted malicious wounding, a felony. All of the charges stemmed from an Aug. 31 brawl in front of Squires Student Center that left a track athlete with a broken collarbone.

A ninth player was indicted on a felony abduction charge stemming from a separate incident in July, when a visiting University of Virginia student reported he was detained, threatened and forced to drink alcohol after he wandered into the wrong apartment looking for a friend.

Faculty Senate President Paul Metz told the board on Monday that faculty members "strongly support the steps the president has taken. Whatever it takes, this can't go on."

While pointing out that the players have not yet gone to trial and are presumed innocent, Torgersen said last week that "even the appearance of impropriety impugns the integrity of the entire program. We will neither condone nor tolerate it."

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