“That team had an unbelievable knack for just being able to lose,” said Chris Colston, a longtime chronicler of the program who had a close-up view of the team that season as the editor of Tech’s in-house publication, Hokie Huddler. “You’re like, ‘Oh, can this really happen again?’ ” said linebacker and senior captain Rusty Pendleton. In five of them, they lost leads in the last three minutes.
It would be the first of a season’s worth of heartbreakers: The Hokies led or were within a touchdown in the final five minutes of seven games that season that they didn’t win. Pirates tight end Carlester Crumpler caught a touchdown with 42 seconds left to reverse Tech’s fortunes in the final minute. The Hokies started 2-1, with victories against James Madison and Temple, teams that weren’t very good, sandwiched around a 30-27 loss at East Carolina that would foreshadow the rest of the season. “They were in the stages of development, so they weren’t already there.” “I think the thing about it was they were being developed, really,” Ballein said. We were 2-8-1 and, quite frankly, that record could have been reversed.” “I think there were really high expectations that we were going to make a bowl that year - in the fan base and I think even with the program,” said offensive tackle Marc Verniel, who has spent the last 13 years as Blacksburg’s town manager. But he entered Year 6 in Blacksburg in 1992 still having not made the postseason. If nearly 40 bowl games had existed back then, it’s likely Tech would have gone to one in Beamer’s first few years at the school. They’d gone 6-4-1, 6-5 and 5-6 in those seasons, playing a tough schedule while trying to overcome the scholarship reductions imposed by the NCAA before Beamer arrived. Much has been made about Beamer’s 24-40-2 record in his first six seasons at Virginia Tech, but the Hokies had made some progress in Years 3-5 (1989-91). “I just got chills.” A promising start with a warning sign “I remember him saying we’re so close,” said John Ballein, Beamer’s longtime director of operations and now an associate athletic director at Tech. And the idea that a Hall of Fame coaching career or a 25-year bowl streak was on the horizon would have been laughed at. A program set back by NCAA sanctions as a result of his predecessor seemed like it was floundering.
CASEY BEAMER SERIES
Tech went 2-8-1 that season, demoralized by a series of crushing close losses. Yes, the 1992 Virginia Tech football season - the last time the Hokies didn’t qualify for a bowl game - had that kind of effect on people. “He wouldn’t give it to me, and he looked me in the eye and he said, ‘You tell your dad if you want to keep this thing, you’d better win some football games around here,’ ” said Shane, now an assistant at Oklahoma. The following spring, when he was at the DMV in nearby Christiansburg getting his driver’s license, 16-year-old Shane Beamer recalls the guy handing it over but not relinquishing it. It turns out the competitor within him has never waned.She wasn’t the only Beamer child to hear it from someone in Blacksburg around then. Though content with his legacy, Beamer does feel like he missed out on one achievement. “In my eyes, he is Virginia Tech,” Foster said. Foster sums up Beamer’s overarching influence with the highest of praise. Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster played for Beamer at Murray State when Beamer was the defensive coordinator at the school, before Foster went on to coach for 35 seasons on Beamer’s staffs at Murray State and Tech. He divides his time now between traveling with his wife, Cheryl visiting his kids, Casey and Shane, who is the associate head coach and tight ends coach at Oklahoma fundraising for Tech speaking engagements working with the College Football Playoff selection committee golfing when the weather is nice and walking his dog, Hank, around Tech’s campus.Īlong his regular path with Hank, he often walks past the statue of himself that was unveiled in October outside Lane Stadium to honor the indelible mark he’s left on the evolution of Tech’s athletic program, facilities and the growth of the university in general. After a career that included head-coaching stops at Murray State and Tech, compiling a 280-143-4 record along the way (238-121-2 with Tech), Beamer doesn’t feel as if he left much undone.
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