January 2008
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The Will Call: Your Ticket to the Game (Video Included) Stop. Stop reading this right now. Before you continue, the Will Call wants to make sure that everyone is at a desk made of wood or at least has some kind of lumber around them. At the small chance someone is reading this outside on campus with an iPhone or something--get next to a tree. Knock on it. The Will Call is about to do exactly what Hokie sharp shooter A.D. Vassallo pleaded for the media not to do after the Florida State game Tuesday night. “Don’t jinx it, don’t jinx it,” said Vassallo at mention of the Hokies 4-3 ACC record. Hokies Hold Off Seminoles 89-80, Continue To Climb ACC Ladder (Video Included) Virginia Tech used a dominating first half Tuesday night against Florida State to seal a key ACC victory at home in Cassell Coliseum. The Hokies shot 61 percent in the first half, led by junior A.D. Vassallo who scored 15 points and finished the game with 22. Their defense also held FSU to its second lowest scoring first half of the season as they headed into the locker room with the score at 42-24. With the win, the Hokies move to fourth place in the ACC with a 4-3 league record. With a Boston College loss against North Carolina on Thursday, the Hokies would actually move into third. Tech To Take Part In Focus The Nation On Jan. 31, Virginia Tech will be part of more than 1,550 institutions in the U.S. participating in Focus The Nation, an initiative on global warming solutions. The Environmental Coalition at Virginia Tech hosts the events on campus. The program has four key components: the 2% Solution, National Teach-In, Choose Your Future, and Green Democracy. The 2% Solution is a live webcast on Jan. The webcast will kick off Focus Nation at campuses around the nation. Actor Edward Norton will be one of four guests speaking on the webcast. Members of the community can view the webcast in Torgersen 3100 at 8 p.m. Roundtable discussion is now being held in the Squires Haymarket Theatre.
High Preseason Rankings for Virginia Tech Softball For the first time in program history the Virginia Tech softball team is ranked nationally in the preseason. The team is also picked for the first time as the Atlantic Coast Conference preseason favorite. The USA Today/NFCA Preseason Top 25 poll has Virginia Tech sitting at No. 16 in the country. Last season’s national champion, Arizona is ranked at No. 1 again for this season. The only other ACC school to join Tech in the top 25 is Georgia Tech, who is ranked at No. 17. Diversity Summit Searches For Solutions Dr. Guy Sims, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs leaned over to look at the answer one group had written as its definition for diversity. He stifled a laugh before saying “Diversity is hard.” The room chuckled as he moved on to the next table’s statement. This set the tone for the 11th Annual Diversity Summit that took place Friday in the Commonwealth Ballroom of Squires Student Center. The Commission on Equal Opportunity and Diversity and The Office of Multicultural Affairs sponsored the round table discussion, with ten people at a table. Dr. Sims prompted the discussion with questions and sentiments for the small groups to dwell on. Candidates Play Nice in Florida With a sense of civility and Hillary Clinton in their sights, the Republican presidential candidates squared off in Boca Raton, Fla. at Florida Atlantic University. The initial 30 minutes of the debate focused on the ailing economy and the new stimulus package put together by President Bush and members of congress. All except Ron Paul agreed that the new economic package is a step in the right direction. However, those in favor agreed the step could have been larger. Former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, said that a permanent tax cut for the people on the lower end of the spectrum would have been preferable. Cloverfield: A Cinematic Thrill Ride The mysterious Cloverfield movie stormed into packed theaters across the country January 18. The days following proved to be a success not matched by any other January movie in history. It made a record 41 million over the first two days surpassing the Star Wars re-release in 1997. Producer of the TV series Lost, J.J. Abrams, was the man behind it all. His saying at the 2007 Comic Con that America needed its own monster, like Japan’s Godzilla, sparked immense internet speculation. Websites sprung up blogging about the movie and producing theories as to what the monster would be. Viral marketing started up with the characters’ myspace pages and company websites were created to give back-story on the monster and how it came to be. The Will Call: Your Ticket to the Game What an emotional start to the semester for the Hokies! For just a second, it looked like the Will Call would be able to rave about all things positive in the world of Hokie hoops…but then…Jeff Allen. The Big Donut will have just that in the stat column for the next two games, hosting Duke on ESPN Thursday and away at Boston College, due to a suspension thanks to a not so wise decision to nudge referee Zelton Steed with an elbow on his way to the bench after fouling out in Atlanta. More on that later… RECAP MD Since the last Will Call, Tech has pulled off exciting victories at home against Maryland and away at rival Virginia. The Will Call predicted the close Maryland victory, admittedly a bit high on the score, but basically got the concept down. Jordan McHorney and Abby Barney: Childhood Friends To Hokie Sisters Two girls, ages five and six, stand on the edge of the pool anxiously waiting for the whistle gun to sound. The gun fires. Splash. They race fiercely in the 50-yard-freestyle until they reach the opposite wall. Both look up to see who won, and then immediately look at each other, exchanging big smiles. Then they climb out of the pool and dry off sharing the same towel. Inseparable, the two wait on the deck for their next race together. Now it’s the 50-yard-backstroke. The gun fires. Splash. Again they glide through the water down to the other side, smile at each other, then huddle back into the same towel. PBTV: Men's Basketball - UVA Preview
TEPR Postseason Preview (Divisional Round) Praying for snow in Foxboro, it’s the TEPR (Thomas Emerick Postseason Rant-tacular)! Forget the past four months. Forget 12, 13, or even 16-win marks. The coming of January signals the beginning of a whole new season. Just ask the ’05 Colts or the ’06 Chargers, who each tore off a 14-2 record during the regular season, only to go winless come playoff time. This works on an individual level as well. Last week at Heinz Field, Jacksonville almost found out the hard way. David Garrard nearly equaled his season interception total Saturday night as the Jaguars narrowly avoided a collapse under uncharacteristic mistakes.. Hokies Bounce Bucs, 79-49 Virginia Tech cruised to a 79-49 victory over Charleston Southern in the Hokies’ final non-conference game of the season. Tech opened the game with a 16-point run and never looked back. “It was a good win. I didn’t have to bang my fist on the scorer’s table or slap myself on the head in this one,” joked Tech coach Seth Greenberg after the game. Junior A.D. Vassallo notched the first points of the game with a layup, and then proceeded to drop seven more over the course of Tech’s initial run. NFL Playoff Preview: Round One Morphing from a Power Ranking into an NFL Playoff preview like Optimus Prime, it’s the TEPR (Thomas Emerick Power Rankings)! I acknowledge that publish and broadcast analysts have the ability to pick victors about as accurately as anyone with access to NFL.com and too much time on their hands. There’s just too much variability and parity in the NFL to gauge all the factors successfully every given week. Though, as Bob Dylan once mused, “Half of the people can be part right all of the time. Some of the people can be all right part of the time. But all the people can't be all right all the time.” Like last year, I tend to be all right come playoff time. The success of my short-lived regular season picks section wasn’t quite becoming of an expert. Though, my hours upon hours of number crunching and the bounty put out on my legs and fingers hopefully figures to turn things around! Richmond Steals Game From Tech, 52-49 The Richmond Spiders recorded 13 steals and forced the Hokies to 24 turnovers to grab a victory at the Robins Center on Thursday night. Despite a large contingent of Virginia Tech fans present, which at one point got off a rather loud “Let’s Go Hokies” chant, the team’s offense was cold to say the least. Tech finished the game shooting 38% from the floor and 26% from behind the arc. Their 49 points was the lowest in a regular season game for the Hokies since January of 2006 when Virginia also held them to 49. |
PBTV: Hokie Hookup The Hokie Hookup is back with your latest in Hokie sports news. It's a new season which means new sports are kicking off, including wrestling and swimming and diving. Caroline covers Seth Greenberg's contract extension and all the latest from Tech's olympic sports. French and Francophone Film Festival Comes To The Lyric Home to many local film festivals, The Lyric Theatre located on College Avenue is hosting the French and Francophone Film Festival in Blacksburg. The first showings ran on Saturday, Jan. 26 and will continuing through Saturday, Feb. 23. All showings are at 3 p.m. on Saturdays and are free. This week’s showing is the award winning, Vers le sud (Heading South) directed by Laurent Cantet. Taking place in 1970s Haiti, three older North American women, who have been heartbroken throughout their lives, break free from real life and engage in an adventure with local men that they pay for a tour until two of the women fall in love with the same man. Heading South has won the ‘CinemAvvenire’ Award (the Cinema for Peace Award) and the Marcello Mastroianni Award in the Venice Film Festival. Virginia Tech Student Dies In Crash A Virginia Tech student died following a car accident that involved four other Virginia Tech students Saturday evening. Nicole Lee, 18, of Derwood, Md., died after the vehicle she was riding in collided with a tree along U.S. 219 in Greenbrier County, W.Va. Other victims that were involved in the crash were Virginia Tech students Gaurav Raja, Harry Rosenbaum, Trevor Helderman, and Mike Hochkeppel. Bush’s Final Address, Virginia Tech Student In Attendance For President Bush’s State of the Union address on Monday night, a Virginia Tech student received an invitation that few students are offered. The State of the Union address was viewed in person by more than just officials and the elite. Among the two-dozen guests seated in the “special box’ with first lady Laura Bush was Kevin Sterne. Sterne was among those injured during the April 16 shooting, suffering two gunshot wounds in the right leg. He was able to stop the bleeding and save his own life. Blacksburg Protesters Arrive in Richmond, Bill Fails (Video Included) Protests at the Virginia State Capital are not unheard or uncommon. But on Monday, Jan. 21, the protestors did not come from a group within the city of Richmond; these protestors came from Blacksburg. A bill brought before the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate attempted to close a gun show loophole. As it stands, the loophole allows unlicensed sellers to sell fire arms at gun shows without performing a background check. If the bill passed, every vendor, licensed or unlicensed, would have to perform a check on each individual before releasing the gun to be sold. The bill went to the Virginia House of Delegates on Jan. 18 and failed. In addition, the bill failed in the Virginia Senate on Jan. 23. UPDATE: Video included. Hokies Melt Down in Second Half, Fall to Duke 81-64 (Video Included) A cold chill fell over the Hokie offense in the second half Thursday night, as the #4 ranked Duke Blue Devils became the first Tech opponent this season to win at Cassell Coliseum. The cold chill fell over the fans as well. When Duke opened up a 17-point lead with just under 10 minutes left in the game, the cold Blacksburg air could be felt as the doors opened with disappointed fans leaving the coliseum. Opinion: What You Do Does Matter Too many times in our society, people tend to think that what they now does not affect them later. The live-for-the-moment mentality of today’s socialites does not help in correcting this misconception. I believe that your body is an expression of who you are and should be treated with respect. Furthermore, what you do to your body expresses the amount of respect you have for it. From a human perspective, your body is an expression of who you are. In addition, it affects how others see you. How you are perceived can affect the job you get, the loan that pays your bills or the people that surround you. As the saying goes, “appearance is everything;” even if we do not like to believe it. Nicholson and Freeman; An Unlikely Pair Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman have proven to be big-screen powerhouses in the last few decades. Director Rob Reiner brought the two actors together for his 2007 Comedy/Drama, The Bucket List. The movie begins with Carter Chambers (played by Morgan Freeman), an auto-mechanic of 46 years who once had dreams of becoming a history professor and the first black president. Though children and marriage intervened on his young dreams, Carter begins a list of more realistic things to do before he “kicks the bucket” while in the hospital with cancer. Back and Forth Game Goes Hokies’ Way In its final non-conference match up of the season, the Virginia Tech women’s basketball team outlasted Dartmouth 80-73 in overtime Sunday afternoon in Blacksburg. Both teams shared the lead numerous times with Dartmouth holding a 30-28 lead heading into halftime. The Hokies had balanced scoring for much of the first half. Six of the ten Hokies who played in the half scored led by Brittany Cook’s 9 points and Utahya Drye’s 6. Hokies Reverse Late Game Misfortune, Topple Terps 67-66 With the largest and rowdiest crowd of the season packing Cassell Coliseum, Virginia Tech battled to their first ACC victory with a win over the Maryland Terrapins. “I think this win will get us really confident and we see what it takes to win in the ACC,” said senior Deron Washington. “We have to play the whole game and I think the freshman are learning that real quick and coming along just fine.” While the Hokies led by as many as 10 points early in the first half, Maryland slowed Jeff Allen and got A.D. Vassallo in foul trouble and ended the half on a momentum swinging 28-12 run. The Will Call: Your Ticket to the Game Turn on the lights, unlock the window, and flip over the OPEN sign…the Will Call is back! What’s that, you didn’t even know it existed in the first place? Yes, yes well after a pre-Christmas appearance to preview Virginia Tech’s opener at Wake Forest….the Will Call took a bit of a break along with the ACC season. However, that’s not to say nothing has happened in the last few weeks. In fact, a lot has happened. RECAP Did anyone know that the Hokies were going all Santa Claus on us this year? The Will Call witnessed first hand Tech gift wrapping the game in Winston-Salem and giving it to the Deacs with under 1:30 left to play. Jayhawks Use BeamerBall To Knock Off Hokies In Orange Bowl
Virginia Tech is known for its stout defense and outstanding special teams, but tonight it was the Jayhawks turn to show off in those two areas. Kansas recorded three interceptions on defense, returning one for a touchdown, but was even better on special teams converting on a fake punt as well as blocking a crucial momentum-changing field goal. Perfect Season? Big Deal
But really, who cares? Sure, they became only the second team in NFL history to finish the regular season undefeated, but the 1972 Miami Dolphins team that accomplished the feat initially won the Super Bowl, something these record setting Patriots have yet to do. |
In a game that saw a role reversal of sorts, the Kansas Jayhawks silenced the critics as they triumphed over the Virginia Tech Hokies in the 2008 FEDEX Orange Bowl by a score of 24-21 capping off their unprecedented season.
