Letter to the Students and Administration of the University of Virginia
Date: April 17, 2007

On behalf of 30,000 students, administrators, and our Virginia Tech community, I cannot begin to express our gratitude for the outpouring of sympathy, support, and compassion UVA has shown us in the past two days.

It is an understatement to say the aftermath of our losses has been emotionally trying for us. The realization of losing 32 valuable lives in our Virginia Tech family is something that we are trying desperately to recover from...but even in the most difficult day of Virginia Tech history, we have found strength-it is your university in particular that has sustained us, far beyond what you will ever know.

We thank you for your students and faculty that gathered to memorialize our victims and to share in our sorrow.

We thank you for the initiative and commitment your student government made towards finding 30,000 candles for our grieving campus, so that our student leaders could focus on healing and comforting instead.

We thank you for the hundreds of Hokies who saw your painted bridge, and were moved to tears.

We thank you for the way your students instantly put aside our infamous rivalry to the point where the greatest measures of compassion from another institution have been from you.

Your aid has had such a profound impact upon our students. Please know what UVA is doing is being noticed, is making a difference, and is nothing short of extraordinary.

Thank you for being a testament to the best of collegiate student leadership-and to humanity in general. In what we have been calling the darkest night Virginia Tech has ever seen, you are one of our brightest lights. The strong alliance that has been formed between our school and yours is part of our foundation in moving forward.

From our hearts to yours, thank you for your noble efforts. May you also find solace and restoration as we grieve together as students and as a nation.

In or out of times of need, Virginia Tech will stand beside you as fellow students, Virginians, and most importantly, as friends.

With gratitude,

Elizabeth Hart on behalf of Virginia Tech students
Virginia Tech Student Government Association
Director of Public Relations
eahart@vt.edu
 

Depressing and inspiring
Lane Stadium hosts a subdued crowd Tuesday
David Teel
April 18 2007

So many commencement celebrations. Beaming graduates, proud parents.

So many sporting victories. Elated athletes, rabid fans.

This was Virginia Tech's Cassell Coliseum and Lane Stadium - before Tuesday.

One memorial service. Grieving students, faculty, staff and parents. Consoling words from politicians, preachers and - God bless her - a poet.

This was Cassell and Lane on Tuesday after the worst mass shooting in United States history.

Virginia Tech family lined up by the thousands to attend the memorial, and officials opened the football stadium to accommodate overflow from the basketball arena. The sight was both depressing and inspiring.

Depressing because of the circumstances: A student, one of their own, murdered 32 people on campus Monday before killing himself.

Inspiring because the family, most of them our treasured youth, did not abandon the campus and people they hold dear. Rather, they remained - to hug and cry, to vent and cope, to pray and remember.

"The world saw you and saw you respond in a way that builds community," Gov. Tim Kaine told the crowd. "The world needs that example before it. ... What an amazing community this is."

Amazing, indeed. Fervent, unabashed and resilient, too. About their school, about their teams, about - most important - one another.

Anyone who's set foot in Blacksburg knows. Anyone who's sampled the farmers' market on Draper Road or the art gallery on Main Street or the gumbo at Boudreaux's; anyone who's strolled the campus, from the Drill Field to the Duck Pond to the sporting venues.

And everyone who watched Tuesday knows, too. Anyone who heard the words, observed the pictures and felt the emotions.

They were overwhelming if not paralyzing.

The powerful comforted the powerless, and vice-versa. Voices cracked, tears flowed, and even a few smiles appeared.

Football coach Frank Beamer (Virginia Tech '69) and his wife, Cheryl, sat motionless, their eyes welling. President Bush reached into the crowd to touch hands. A school band played "Amazing Grace."

But the most moving images were those of the students, many dressed in Virginia Tech gear - sweatshirts, caps, T-shirts. They embraced, held hands and conversed, attempting to comprehend the incomprehensible.

They appeared before television cameras, bravely and eloquently describing the horror, questioning police response and honoring the fallen.

"We have lost the sense of peace that comes with learning," said Zenobia Hikes, the school's vice president for student affairs.

"Cherished and innocent," she called the victims before adding: "Today, the world shares our sorrow."

Yesterday, today, tomorrow, always. For we all realize, this could be our alma mater, our children, our loved ones.

Seth Greenberg understands. He's the basketball team's coach. Most important, he's Paige Greenberg's dad.

Paige, a Virginia Tech freshman, was typing a paper in her dorm Monday when word of the tragedy's magnitude hit. Once Seth knew she was safe, he began the maddening process of tracking down his team's players and managers.

It took hours. Landlines were jammed, and text messages failed. Once Greenberg accounted for everyone, his attention turned to the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, where his wife, Karen, serves as an advisor.

The news was awful. One of Kappa Kappa Gamma's sisters, Caitlin Hammaren, was among the fatalities. She was a sophomore from Westtown, N.Y., majoring in French and international studies, according to the Collegiate Times student newspaper. The Greenbergs mourned at the sorority house until the wee hours.

"Unbelievable," Greenberg said. "I have no words."

Nikki Giovanni had words. Man, did she ever.

A Virginia Tech professor and renowned poet, she brought the house down Tuesday with a staccato, 90-second sermonette that raised the hair on your neck.

Giovanni began:

We are Virginia Tech

We are sad today

And we will be sad for quite a while

We are not moving on

We are embracing our mourning

We are Virginia Tech

We are strong enough to stand tall tirelessly

We are brave enough to bend to cry

And sad enough to know we must laugh again

We are Virginia Tech

And she concluded:

We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid

We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be

We are alive to the imagination and the possibility

We will continue to invent the future

Through our blood and tears

Through all this sadness

We are the Hokies

We will prevail

We will prevail

We will prevail

We are ...Virginia Tech

But printed words don't do Giovanni justice. So do yourself a favor: Go online and watch her delivery. Watch as the crowd rises as one, applauds and cheers. Watch as they, with Giovanni conducting, break into the chant we've heard echo so many times at Cassell and Lane.

Let's go Ho-kies!

Clap, clap. Clapclapclap.

Let's go Ho-kies!

'Twas music to the ears. All of our ears.
 

By Dave Johnson
Daily Press (Newport News, Va.).

My first conversation with Lisa, a former co-worker, covered the usual introductory bases: hometown, past jobs, college. When she told me she had graduated from Kent State, I heard Neil Young singing in my brain . . .
This summer I hear the drumming . . .
Four dead in Ohio.
In 1970, four Kent State students were killed by national guardsmen during a protest against the invasion of Cambodia. It not only shut down the campus for the remainder of the school year, it further divided the nation along political and generational lines. Kent State became nationally known for one thing: tragedy.
Now, the same will become true of my alma mater. And it sickens me, almost as much as what happened earlier this week at Virginia Tech.
I've been a sportswriter for nearly 20 years, and we're trained to check our school colors at the door. We must be unbiased, so my car has no decals and my yard no VT flag. But I'm a Hokie, Class of '87 with a degree in communications. I know the campus like the back of my hand.
Watching footage of panicked students and armed officers with familiar sights in the background — there's Burruss Hall, there's the drill field, there's the library — has been surreal. I don't want to watch the news coverage, yet I can't turn away. I suspect that's how a lot of us feel.
The thing is, Virginia Tech isn't just my alma mater. I grew up in Christiansburg, an eight-mile drive from campus. One of my high school classmates — we were born in the same hospital less than a day apart, in fact — was Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum. I started going to football games back when sellouts were almost unheard of in 35,000-seat Lane Stadium.
The family blood was burnt orange and Chicago maroon. My father earned his master's at Tech (or VPI, as it was often called then) in the early 1950s, and my brother Jay is Class of '76. My mother used to take me to the Duck Pond, maybe the prettiest setting on campus. My father used to take me to football and basketball games.
He also took me to his office, where I'd draw pictures on a spare desk until he finished working. That office was in Norris Hall, the building in which 30 of the victims were killed Monday. Pop passed away last summer, and though it might sound cliche, I'm glad he didn't live to see this.
Sad doesn't even begin to describe it. Thirty-two innocent lives lost, all for doing nothing more sinister than going to class. Thirty-two families (33 including the gunman's) devastated. An entire community dealing with a feeling unlike anything since 9/11.
And an inescapable perception being formed. Like Kent State, like Columbine, this will be my alma mater's legacy. There's already an entry on Wikipedia.com for "Virginia Tech massacre." And does anyone doubt that a TV movie is already being discussed in Hollywood?
Despite all the "cow college" jokes (some of which, I'll admit, I've retold), Virginia Tech isn't a punch line. The U.S. News & World Report ranked Tech 34th among public universities in its latest "America's Best Colleges" issue. The engineering department is among the nation's absolute best. The campus is beautiful, from the buildings made of Hokie Stone to the drill field.
But for the next several days — and, I'm afraid, well beyond — few will be talking about that. And whenever I mention my alma mater, I know where the conversation will go.
And I hate it.

This is my hope: Folks will fill every seat.
Aaron McFarling

This is my hope: Folks will fill every seat.

Those who can't find a seat will wedge shoulder-to-shoulder on the hill overlooking left field.

For three hours, they will carry no candles.

For three hours, they will shed no tears.

They will put their cellphones away, not because the airwaves are too jammed to use them, but because all the people they want to talk to for those three hours will be close enough to touch.

They will not worry about their family and friends, because they asked all their family to come, implored all their friends to join them, and they all said yes.

This is my hope: Just as the convoy of news trucks begins pulling out of a heartbroken town, a different one begins its journey in.

This one will have Virginia Tech windsocks flying from antennas, Hokie magnets clinging to every piece of metal.

This one will be coming to see a ballgame.

This is my hope, and that is all it is.

I'm not naive enough to think that thousands of people will suddenly care about Friday's Tech baseball game against Miami at English Field. I'm not callous enough to think that it shouldn't be too soon for some people, that the thought of being among a crowd -- any crowd -- will be unappealing to many given the devastation one man has wreaked on Blacksburg.

But this is the sports section, a six-page palette for hope.

And this is mine: At 7 p.m. on Friday, when Tech conducts its first athletic contest since Monday's events, English Field will be overflowing with Hokies.

The images in Tuesday's newspaper dripped with horror and sadness. Teens being pulled away from carnage. Students hugging. People crying. Police with automatic weapons drawn, seeking a killer of 32 innocent people.

These pictures were enough to crush anybody, but somehow they seemed abstract. Distant. Like a chilling photo spread from some war-torn country overseas.

The image that knocked me flat appeared on page 8 of the Virginia section. It was a illustration by Jim McCloskey of the News Leader in Staunton. It showed a black background, and in the bottom left-hand corner in white was "April 16, 2007." On the right, a Hokie bird sat on the ground, eyes closed, teeth clenched, his right hand on his left knee, his left hand covering the right side of his face.

Sobbing.

The Hokie bird is not an academic symbol. He is a sports mascot, and other than the VT logo he is the most recognizable symbol this university has.

This is no accident. People can say what they want about the trivial nature of sports -- and at a time like this, anything not involving life and death does seem trivial -- but sports matter here. Football games are weekly celebrations. Basketball games have become regular sellouts. The football spring game -- a scrimmage, remember --routinely draws 20,000 or more.

There will be no spring football game this year. Tech canceled it Tuesday, an understandable move -- one supported by coach Frank Beamer. The players will not practice this week, either, effectively ending on-field football activity until late summer.

But Friday, they play baseball. It's a slower game, a less physical game, a game that, collegiately, largely unfolds away from the lenses of the national media.

In other words, it's the kind of event we need. And if those who are willing and able decide to embrace it, it could be a special night.

Today, a campus continues to mourn. At Virginia Tech, sports mean less than they ever have.

But this is my hope: On Friday, they'll matter just a little. The fans will come, the teams will play, and the Hokie bird will take his left hand off his face and watch it all happen, one small step closer to rising again.
 

Hokies Nation is unnerved by bloodshed
BOB LIPPER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Apr 17, 2007

Who cares about sports at a moment like this?

Who cares about games?

Sports? Games? Diversions? Fun?

Who can even think about stuff like that in the aftermath of so much tragedy, so much loss?

One senseless spasm of violence rocked a college, our state and our country yesterday. So many deaths. So much bloodshed. So much of a shock to the senses that you can barely breathe it all in.

The families. Those poor families. That's what you think of first. You send your child off to college - to Blacksburg, to Charlottesville, to Chapel Hill, to Knoxville or Athens or State College, wherever - and you never contemplate this.

You worry, sure you worry. You worry about binge drinking. You worry about drugs. You worry about sex. You worry about homesickness. You worry about grades. You worry about lots of things.

You don't worry about weapons and chaos and a deranged, cold-blooded killer invading dorms and classrooms to claim lives and turn worlds upside-down.

Look, I'm a parent. I've got children. Two of them are still students. I've strolled their campuses with them, marveled at their surroundings and experiences, gotten a little misty-eyed as my gaze swept across young people criss-crossing along walkways between classes, sat in crowded, noisy dining halls, watched psych majors and future engineers whoop it up at ballgames.

All that energy. All that potential.

All this devastation.

For all its splendor and promise, it can be a brutal world. This, we're reminded daily. Bodies are blown up and maimed in Iraq, cut down in drive-by shootings, violated in alleyways, ruined by crack pipes and syringes, tormented by abuse. So much can go wrong, it's a wonder so much goes right.

But still . . .

A university. A campus. A community of ideas and books and growth spurts. Homecoming parades and caps and gowns. Seminars. Sorority dances. Term papers. Who could imagine this sort of horror in that sort of setting?

"This is such a caring, friendly place," Tech football coach Frank Beamer told ESPN, and you could almost hear the sorrowful bewilderment in his voice. "This is a college town."

As if to say, doesn't some form of immunity come with that?

I can't tell you how many times I've been to Blacksburg. Too many times to count. Too many I-81 adventures. Too many Saturday traffic snarls. Negotiating at Gillie's for a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich before they switch to the lunch menu (my record is 1-1 in that department). Climbing the steps of Burruss Hall. Walking past shivering tailgaters on a November morning. Running around the duck pond.

It's a fine place. Fine school. Good people. Bonded community. And maybe that spirit, that togetherness. can somehow guide Virginia Tech and its sprawling Hokie Nation through this terrible time. It's a sight to behold when Lane Stadium is packed and raucous and no place for visiting Terps or Tar Heels. But now, what's called for isn't earth-trembling noise. What's called for is the grandest, sweetest, most tender huddle anyone has ever invented.

That said, there's precious little way to blunt the pain. It's as horrific a day as we've experienced in our state, and there's no way to turn back time and erase this event from our consciousness and 24-hour news cycles.

Tech basketball coach Seth Greenberg told ESPN he was "numb right now" thinking about parents who'd be traveling to Blacksburg to identify their children. That's where all our thoughts should be.

Say a prayer for those families. Be well. Be safe.

Sports / Bob Molinaro
The Virginian-Pilot
© April 18, 2007

Before this tragic week, the last time the media flocked in such great numbers to the Virginia Tech campus was for a football game.

We all know how it works at a football game. After the final score is posted, the media roll up their sleeves and second-guess the losing coach or criticize a player who failed to get the job done. Fans do the same. It's part of the trivial process that makes up the sports mosaic.

In that context, taking part in the blame game is a relatively harmless exercise. But now satellite trucks, cameras, notebooks and media magpies, not to mention President Bush, have focused the world's attention on Virginia Tech because of an unfathomable tragedy.

This is not the time for Monday morning quarterbacking. Not while the campus is still a crime scene. Not while Tech students are still dealing with the carnage.

Could Virginia Tech's administration have responded better, quicker, more decisively after Cho Seung-Hui, your classic troubled loner, first struck at the dormitory? Should the campus have been locked down sooner? If so, can anybody explain how you go about locking down a campus of 2,600 acres?

It has been reported that the killer lived on campus. If a lockdown had taken place, could that have stopped the South Korean student from turning his deadly rampage on targets inside his own dorm?

Nobody's got a satisfactory answer. But now is a time for mourning, not finger-pointing.

Security issues will be discussed and reconsidered, but blaming officials for what they could have done if only they had known what they couldn't have known - that isn't helpful to anybody.

People point fingers and second-guess because we don't want to believe that we are powerless to control our environment. Nobody likes feeling helpless. But what we've learned from Columbine and other spree killings is that too often, the rules are written by a gunman with nothing to lose.

With the campus still reeling from the massacre, few may question Tech's decision to cancel Saturday's spring football game. The Hokies sports message board Techsideline.com contains somber, stunned reaction from people with a sudden, new perspective on the importance of football.

The online dialogue between Hokies and contributors to TheSabre.com, a popular U.Va. fan message board, reflects a grieving process that extends beyond Tech students and alumni.

Normally, message boards are to be avoided; they're a tool for swapping insults, nonsense and sports minutia. But this week, people usually inclined to celebrate the misery of a rival school's players and teams have used the technology to share a prayer.

A Tech alumnus, a salesman, tells of a business stop he just made to a physician's office. The doctor, a U.Va. grad he barely knew, walked up to him and without a word, gave him a big hug. The grief-stricken Tech fan said he started to cry.

Another message, this one from a father whose son is interested in attending Tech's honor program. The father expressed second thoughts after what just happened, but U.Va. supporters messaged him back that Tech is a fine and safe place, that he shouldn't hesitate to send his son there.

One more posting from a U.Va. fan - "topman" - conveyed the hope that Hokies and Cavaliers will "take this as an opportunity to continue to compete, but with great mutual respect."

He went on: "Somehow, I have to believe this whole experience is going to improve the relations between U.Va. and VT. I've always said VT people are great people and it's been displayed in the last 30 hours."

This is a sentiment that should be shared and carried on after the shock of the mass murders wears off.

Would anybody, at this moment, second-guess that?

 

Zimmerman, Nats show their support for Tech
By Jay Jenkins / jjenkins@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
April 19, 2007

The thoughts of battling the Atlanta Braves were suddenly meaningless.

As Ryan Zimmerman sat in his house Monday morning just hours before the Washington Nationals faced the Braves at RFK Stadium, he got a text message that he will never forget.

“My brother, Shawn, who goes to Radford, asked me if I was watching the news,” Zimmerman said. “I turned it on and I couldn’t believe it.”

The former University of Virginia standout was stunned that a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech had taken the lives of 33 people prematurely.

“Blacksburg is such a nice place and you would never think that something like that would happen there,” Zimmerman said. “I have a lot of friends that go to school there and a lot of people that I know have gone there throughout the years.”

On Tuesday, Zimmerman, his teammates and coaches tried to show their support for those affected by the horrific events by donning Virginia Tech hats during their game with the Braves.

“Any time you can do something like that to help those people it shows them that we are thinking about them,” Zimmerman said. “I’m sure little things like that mean a lot. It was just nice that we were able to do something like that.

“An event like that makes you realize how lucky we have it and that you can’t take anything for granted.”

After the game, Zimmerman and the other Nationals autographed their hats for a potential auction.

Zimmerman’s inscription, which read “God Bless, Ryan Zimmerman, Nationals and Cavaliers,” hopefully, echoes the thoughts of every Virginia fan, he said.
 

D'Alessio tough to replace for Clemson
By Todd Merchant / tmerchant@dailyprogress.com | 978-7236
April 19, 2007

One of the ways that stat geeks like to measure an athlete’s worth is to see how much better he is than his alternative. The sabermetricians who have infiltrated the game of baseball refer to it as a PVOR, or player’s value over replacement.

But when it comes to Andy D’Alessio, you don’t need any fancy acronyms or formulas to figure out how important he is to the Clemson baseball team. Just look at the most basic stats.

In his career, the Tigers’ first baseman has a .303 batting average to go with 45 doubles, 45 home runs and 186 RBI, and he’s one of the best fielders on the team. When he recently suffered a pulled groin in a game against Miami and was sidelined for five games, his replacements, Tim Morris and Ben Paulsen, combined to go 4 for 27 (.148) with no extra-base hits and one RBI, and Paulsen committed an error.

Needless to say, Clemson would much rather see D’Alessio in the field instead of riding the pine.

“It was the first time in my career I was unable to play because of an injury,” said D’Alessio, who has more than 200 career starts with the Tigers. “It was difficult to watch my team play and not being able to do anything. It made me think about what could be happening.

“It also made me think about working harder and what I have to do to get to the next level.”

To anyone who follows ACC baseball, it’s a bit surprising that D’Alessio isn’t playing in the pros already. Earning All-America honors as a senior in high school, he was selected by the Cincinnati Reds in the 10th round of the 2003 draft.

He chose instead to come to Clemson, where he has gradually worked his way into the pantheon of former Tigers greats. Last season, D’Alessio was a semifinalist for two different player of the year awards, and he was named to a slew of All-America teams.

But major league teams didn’t seem to take notice on draft day as he was taken in the 10th round again by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“Whatever happens happens. Obviously I was a little disappointed with what happened that day,” he said. “But I’ve put that behind me, and I’m just focused on the season.”

In the summer, D’Alessio returned to the Cape Cod League, where he’d played in 2005 for Hyannis. Last year, after arriving midway through the season with Harwich, he hit .344 with one home run and 10 RBI in 22 games.

Despite his short stint, D’Alessio still managed to make an impression on his teammates.

“He was a cool guy. He definitely worked hard,” said Virginia junior Brandon Guyer, who played for Harwich with D’Alessio. “Just seeing his batting practice is like ‘Wow.’ He put on a show in BP. I would say that he hit the farthest balls that I saw all summer in batting practice.

“When he gets a hold of a ball it will fly. He can definitely swing it.”

While doing well in the Cape Cod League will certainly help his draft stock, D’Alessio’s main motivation was to prepare for his senior season and possibly another run at the College World Series.

After failing to advance out of regional play his first two seasons, Clemson made it to Omaha, Neb., last year, where the Tigers were one of four ACC teams in the World Series.

“It was great having four ACC teams out there,” D’Alessio said. “A lot of us have good friends on the other teams, and it was really cool to play out there with them and getting to experience that with them.

“Unfortunately none of us brought home the title, but that’ll change soon.”