Former Hokie Gets Mixed Reaction From Fans, Team

There was a definite sub-story to Tech’s 68-36 win Sunday night over George Washington. It wasn’t that this was one of the best defensive efforts in over a decade for the Hokies or that they avenged a one-point heartbreaker to the team that beat them last year. Without the question, the return of former Hokie basketball player Wynton Witherspoon seemed bigger than the game itself.

Witherspoon spent his freshman and sophomore years playing basketball for Greenberg until he transferred to George Washington. After sitting out last season due to the NCAA requirement for transfer athletes, Witherspoon became the second leading scorer on GW, averaging 13 points a game.

During introductions, the crowd gave Witherspoon a rather loud boo, something he probably expected and he shook it off with a smile. However, Witherspoon probably did not expect to be booed every single time he touched the ball…for the entire game…without relent. If Witherspoon even touched the ball for a mere second before passing off to a teammate, the crowd’s defensive chant of “ohhhh” turned into “booooo” then back to “ohhhhh” once the ball was out of his hands.

Anyone could tell the constant heckling was making Witherspoon uncomfortable and uninvolved in the GW offense. Witherspoon took the first two shot attempts for GW in the second half, almost as if coach Karl Hobbs was trying to force the monkey off Witherspoon's back to get him going and more comfortable.

Witherspoon finished with only 7 points, all of them coming in futility with his team already down 30. He was held scoreless in the first half, shooting 0-2 and not scoring until the 10:20 mark of the 2nd half.

It seemed every member of the crowd Sunday night, particularly the student section, wished he finished the game with zero.

But how do Seth Greenberg and some of the players feel about their former teammate?

While the Hokie fans may feel like they did right, at times even chanting “traitor”, Greenberg and the rest of the team have a much different view of Witherspoon.

“Let me tell you something, I love Wynton Witherspoon. He’s always going to be part of our program. I visited with his dad before the game in my office and he’s having a great year. It will be very easy for me to root for him and follow his season and his career,” said Greenberg after the game.

In addition, Greenberg made reference to Witherspoon being a member of the team in 2006, where tragedy seemed to lurk around every corner. If you’re flashing back to Sean Dockery’s half court miracle heave to give the Blue Devils the victory of Tech, think again. That year, the team was bombarded with family deaths, illness, injuries and a hurricane.

Then sophomore Deron Washington and his family lost their home that year in Hurricane Katrina.

A.D. Vassallo missed a game to attend a funeral of one of the members of his host family in Lynchburg. Vassallo is a native of Puerto Rico.

Then senior guard Shawn Harris missed a game to attend his grandmother’s funeral—a grandmother who raised him as he grew up in Ettrick, VA.

Significant injuries seemed to not carry as much magnitude that season compared to everything else going on around them. Terrance Vinson suffered a season-ending back injury while Robert Krabbendam experienced a season-ending knee injury.

And guess who else suffered a season ending injury? That’s right, Wynton Witherspoon himself with a broken foot. However, sadly, that is by far not the worse news the Wynton and the team had that year.

Then senior Allen Calloway was diagnosed with a rare form of tissue cancer in his left calf that could not be treated by chemotherapy but instead by giving himself a shot of interferon three times a week. Still, Calloway continued to get weaker and as of last winter the cancer had spread badly into his lungs and brain.

Sound depressing? I suppose besides all this I could mention that Witherspoon’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier that year, but chose not to tell her son because of the distraction it would cause with school and basketball.

So after a team goes through a season like that one…together…would you think they’re all still pretty tight? You bet.

“It’s been fun. We were talking the whole week on IM just rambling on about who’s going to do what. We got out there and played hard. It was a fun match-up,” said senior Deron Washington after the game.

Even Hokies that were not on the team with Witherspoon had nothing negative to say.

“Off the court, Spoon is our guy. I’ve never met the guy personally but my teammates talk about Spoon a lot. He’s still a Hokie in my eyes. Nobody is our friend on the court but off the court you can be our best friend…so I definitely still consider him a Hokie,” explained freshman Hank Thorns.

So there you have it. An experienced coach, a former teammate, and a freshman speaking in true Hokie spirit. My question is, where was the crowd’s? But who knows… maybe off the court they would have liked the guy…or maybe…just maybe…the crowd got a bit carried away and that is just part of the ruckus that is the Cassell home-court advantage.