Frank Beamer

The military helicopter peels sideways through the broad blue sky as the crowd roars, and soon enough Frank Beamer appears at the mouth of the tunnel here at Lane Stadium. He’s about to lead his team onto the field, but as usual he pauses as he allows the fervor to gather, all the while surveying the world he has built from what was once the quaint mediocrity of Virginia Tech Football.

On this day, his face is drawn and tired and fixed with the grave concern that always clouds over him when one of his teams stumbles. This 2010 group waits nervously behind him in the tunnel. The players are mostly young and uninitiated yet very eager to please Beamer. But stumble they have in spectacular fashion. They appeared to have beaten third-ranked Boise State in a season-opening Monday night game, only to collapse and lose at the end. Five days later they suffered the greatest humiliation of Beamer’s impressive career by falling here, on their home field, to lowly James Madison.

“It is what it is,” he told the media afterward. It is a phrase Beamer has used often in his 30 years as a head coach.

It’s the phrase his mother taught him long ago. Projected to perhaps challenge for the national championship, Beamer’s club instead began the season with two losses. So now he stands here, eyeing the expanse of Hokie faithful who have spent the past dozen days venting their anger on talk radio across the state.

He is eager to see if they still love him.