![]() When Tech was looking for a coach after the 1986 season, Beamer jumped at the opportunity.Īnd when things got tough after the first few seasons (he was 24-40-2 after six years), the school stuck with him. His coaching career saw stops as an assistant at Maryland, The Citadel and Murray State, where he became a head coach in 1981 and compiled a 42-23-2 record. The injuries didn't prevent Beamer from becoming a star quarterback in high school and a starting defensive back at Virginia Tech. There is still a scar and permanent swelling on his neck. Over the next several years, he had some 30 operations, some skin grafts. The broom was still smoldering, however, and it ignited a can of gasoline that exploded in front of him.īeamer had severe burns on the right side of his neck and upper body. He was burning a pile of trash, then carried the push broom he had been using into the garage. Beamer was 7 years old, working on the family farm. ![]() So did a childhood accident that left scars that remain today. Growing up an hour south of Blacksburg helped Beamer's perspective. "The fact that Frank played here and was part of the family I don't want to overstate it, but that's important." "There is a sense of family on our campus," said Virginia Tech president Paul Torgersen, who last year extended Beamer's contract. And his home state roots go over big at a school that has long lived in the shadow of the University of Virginia and had little, if any, football tradition. "But they did."īeamer played defensive back at Virginia Tech from 1966-68. "If I'm not a Virginia Tech grad, they probably don't let me hang around," Beamer said. Virginia Tech has won three Big East titles and will play in its seventh straight bowl.Īnd no doubt that Tech fan would love to be part of the Beamer family today. Since the beginning of that 1993 season, Tech is 64-19, an average of nine victories. Now in his 13th season at Tech, Beamer, 53, won three national coaching awards this season for leading the Hokies to an 11-0 record. So it was for Beamer, 53, who survived the rocky times to build Tech into a power. "Not with a 2-8-1 record we're not," replied the fan. "Do you suppose we're related," Frank Beamer finally asked. In fact, they were from nearby Virginia towns. Speaking at a Hokie Club booster meeting in Richmond, a Tech fan introduced himself to Beamer afterward. Go back several seasons, to the fall of 1993, when the Hokies were coming off a 2-8-1 season that nearly cost Beamer his job. But it wasn't always that way, of course.
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