Sometimes it’s about more than wins and losses
Posted on April 26, 2007
Approaching members of the Virginia Tech community about the importance of athletics as a healing device wasn’t exactly easy.
When it comes down to it, last week’s massacre will be something few will ever forget in Blacksburg.
But with anything that brings hurt, there are many more things that bring healing.
For the Va. Tech students, faculty, family and anyone else deeply affected, one of these things has been athletics, especially baseball.
At Tuesday night’s baseball game against JMU, more than 1,000 fans came out sporting orange and maroon, while erupting in chants of “Lets Go Hokies!”
And although such serenading proved unsuccessful in propelling the Hokies to victory, the game was about much more than baseball; it provided much needed relief for fans still in mourning.
“It’s just nice to have something besides classes,” Va. Tech sophomore Ryan Droege said. “They have kind of been solemn because so many people have gone home.”
While much of the on-campus time since April 16 has been devoted to memorial services remembering the 32 victims killed in the atrocity, the last four baseball games shifted the attention away from the media-swarmed Drillfield.
For nine innings of America’s past-time on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday the Hokie Nation united with far more smiles than tears.
“It’s so much better because it’s to the point where we can’t watch the news anymore,” freshman Julie Kelly said. “We are bombarded by it and it brings back bad memories and the sports kind of help that.”
The athletes of the terror-stricken school are healing along with everyone else, and for senior shortstop Warren Schaeffer, baseball has been a release.
Although Tech has dropped four straight since the resuming their season, the team has been greatly appreciative of the overwhelming support they are receiving.
At last Friday’s series opener against ACC foe Miami, 3,132 fans came out, setting a new attendance record by packing the seats and filling the slopes down the first and third-base lines.
“We were the first event, sports or non-sports,” Shaeffer said. “It wouldn’t have mattered if it was tennis or softball though, it was just great to have everyone out there.”
That’s the kind of thing sports does though, it brings people together and in Tuesday nights instance it brought opponents together.
Shaeffer’s high school teammate, Rob Altieri, was in the away dugout wearing the purple and gold, but before and after the game it was all about friendship.
Altieri recounted trying to get a hold of Shaeffer, the day 23-year-old of the shootings. He couldn’t reach his friend, but learned through Shaeffer’s parents that he was okay.
“He was definitely thinking about me,” Schaeffer said.
Final score aside, the two hugged and made plans to talk more in depth over the phone later, and when Altieri was asked if beating Tech was bittersweet he couldn’t deny it.
“Yeah, definitely,” the Pittsburgh native said. “We feel bad for these guys, they still have to play baseball.”
Junior infielder Joe Lake also made a point to interact with his opponents.
“I was talking to one of the guys on base, just asking him if they usually get this many fans,” Lake said. “We [JMU] were just making sure everything was going alright.”
In a hard-to-explain way, everything did seem to be going alright during the ol’ ball game.
JMU coach Spanky McFarland admitted to noticing a different atmosphere at the field, saying there was somewhat of a damper on the situation. But he also felt that once the game started, things seemed more normal.
“You [have] got to admire the other team,” McFarland said. “It’s got to be hard to focus, but this is why you play sports.”
McFarland also wanted to respect the school and decided against allowing the team to go by the Drillfield memorials.
“All the indications I get is that Tech wants to move on,” McFarland said. “They’ve asked the media to stay away and I want to respect that, they don’t need a bus full of baseball players.”
Tech will move on, they will never forget but they will continue going to baseball, football, and basketball games, and they will continue to use sports as not only a healing device but an outlet to show the world that they are resilient. Sports will give them positive media and repaint the orange and maroon in a positive light.
“It gives us something happy to do,” freshman Emily Connell said. “We really just came together, not that we weren’t before, but we want to support all aspects of the school. It’ll show that we won’t let this keep us down.”
Connell’s emphasis on “we” resonated throughout Tech’s English Field. Classmates and friends of Connell agreed with her, reiterating the words uttered at last Tuesday’s convocation ceremony by Tech professor Nikki Giovanni, “We will prevail, we are Virginia Tech.”