THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996 TAG: 9611120364
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: 70 lines
Virginia Tech hasn't scored many style points lately, but give Dave Braine credit for poise under pressure, not to mention a sense of humor.
The athletic director at Blacksburg's large state university and budding detention farm took the microphone at Monday's Norfolk Sports Club luncheon and split an iceberg of tension with a quick, smooth stroke.
``It took about 15 seconds when I walked in the door,'' Braine said. ``The first question I was asked was if Johnnie Cochran was going to be our new defensive coordinator.''
The room filled with laughter, and then Braine got on with his long-scheduled speech. One that just happened to come less than a week after eight football players were indicted by a grand jury for their alleged roles in an Aug. 31 brawl involving a Tech track athlete in Blacksburg.
``I commend (you) for, in early September, figuring out that Nov. 11 would be the worst day in my life to come down here and talk about Virginia Tech athletics,'' Braine told the club.
No, he said later in an interview, he never considered canceling, making the luncheon a no-Brainer, as it were.
``We're not going to stick our head in the sand.''
Or miss a chance at more damage control. And yes, Braine cracked a couple of jokes, but it was clear that humiliation and embarrassment, not levity, have filled up his recent days. Much of his past year, for that matter, which has seen a wearisome relationship develop between Hokies football players and Blacksburg's finest.
Braine likes to say he never feels as though he's going to work when he leaves his house for one of his usual 14-hour days. Last week, Braine said, ``I worked.''
What a radical twist for the North Carolina graduate who became Tech's AD in 1988 while the school was on NCAA probation.
Tech sports have blossomed on his watch: the Hokies entered the Big East football conference and have gone to three straight bowl games; Braine's controversial hire, veteran basketball coach Bill Foster, took the Hokies to the National Invitation Tournament title and back to the NCAA tournament; the athletic program is at 21 sports with a $15 million budget; the upgrading of facilities is ongoing; 70 percent of student-athletes have left with degrees. And most of the time, the Hokies' noses stayed clean.
``I used to brag, when we went on our Hokie Club tours, about how you don't see our kids' names in the papers like you do all these other schools,'' Braine said.
Braine can't say why Tech suddenly is now among all those others. But he suspects that certain football players are victims of their success. And, hey, isn't everybody a victim of something these days?
``You go to three straight bowls and people tell you you're great, sometimes you start thinking it,'' Braine said.
It's fertile ground for piggish arrogance, but not because anybody at Tech, least of all football coach Frank Beamer, is cultivating it, Braine said. Publicly, Braine absolves Beamer of blame for the rash of problems. He's taken heat for that, but he doesn't waver.
``If I felt like Frank Beamer was at fault, that would be the easiest thing in the world to correct,'' Braine said.
``I told the players (after the brawl), `I'm not going to blame the head coach. I've heard him talk to y'all and I know what we've done. You guys are 19 to 25 years old, you know what's right and wrong.' And they do.''
Braine doesn't need an L.A. lawyer to obfuscate the truth. Tech's got a shiner, and it hurts.
But it will heal. And when it does, Braine said, ``you'll see, as time goes on, that it's not as bad as everybody thinks it is. We'll come out of it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine on Hokies'
off-the-field woes: ``We're not going to stick our head in the
sand.'' by CNB