Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993 TAG: 9305090239
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Profitable though it may have been for the athletes, it is a practice frowned upon by the NCAA.
Last week, to show just how mean it can get, the NCAA penalized Mr. Jefferson's campus, limiting athletic scholarships and doing away with some coaching positions.
Virginia Tech fans, bred for their ability to cultivate wheat, practice animal husbandry and hate the University of Virginia, cried over the penalty.
These were not sympathy pains, they were the contortions and the anguish felt so poignantly by the slighted and the downtrodden.
Justice is a state of mind. Tech fans, while grateful for what little suffering was imposed on UVa, felt somehow stiffed by the weenie penalty.
"It couldn't have happened to a nicer person," muttered one bitter Tech fan from Giles County. "Too bad it wasn't worse."
Tech fans, who've been through an NCAA prison camp of their own, had secretly hoped for the worst.
"I felt like they should have got the death penalty," said Randy Garnett of Troutville, an ardent Hokie. "It was ignorance. They didn't do it one time. They did it 45 times for 10 years! And they're supposed to be a good law school?"
Garnett can pontificate long and loud about the shortcomings of The University. He's not a Tech alumnus, but he loves Tech with all his soul.
"If that were us? If that was Tech? All the local high school teams would be able to play all their games at Lane Stadium next season because there wouldn't be anybody left to play there," said Garnett. "The NCAA would have dismantled us in a heartbeat."
Garnett's belief that UVa was treated far more gently than Tech was when it broke NCAA rules, is widely held among Hokies.
But most don't want their names to appear alongside their opinions.
Tech graduates, it seems, get jobs. They rely on clients to earn money. And UVa money smells just as good as Tech money. Why lose a contract just because you hate UVa?
"I was shocked," says one Techie who is willing to accept money from any UVa supporter. "I didn't think they'd do anything like that. Seems they got off awfully light. They must have somebody looking out for them."
Oh, and don't use his name.
"It's a rip-off! If it'd been Virginia Tech, they would have plowed up the football field and put sheep out to pasture there," says another.
Oh, please don't use his name. He's got friends, business associates, you understand.
And then, of course, there's Randy Garnett.
He can rail for hours, pausing only occasionally for the disclaimer - "I don't wish any ill on `em, you understand" - before continuing his anti-UVa diatribe.
"What do we know? We're farmers! Engineers! They're lawyers," says Garnett. "They're supposed to know this stuff . . . "
by CNB