Blacksburg's Lane Stadium/Worsham Field with 66,000 Fans
By Harry Covert
There’s something about the excitement of college football that regenerates us. Not only is the game fun to watch but being in the stands with the students who look younger and younger and the alumni who celebrate a fall Saturday in the mountains.
The tailgaters are something. Many have satellite television setups and don’t have to go inside the stadium.
Here it is another weekend. Colleges, large and small everywhere, are on the fields as thousands watch and cheer, laugh and cry. Cheerleaders have become athletes and acrobats. The game is something else, too, nowadays, the one-minute breaks for broadcasters’ commercials, are also minutes for the marching bands and all sorts of enjoyable time fillers.
The games on the gridirons are million-dollar-plus enterprises for the universities. The players may be considered amateurs but everyone else is a pro. One of the happiest days I’ve spent recently came as I sat in the south end zone of the Lane Stadium/Worsham Field in Blacksburg, home of what we once called the Gobblers. Sitting in Section 102, Row P and Seat 11, the view was sensational. The video scoreboard was more than gigantic. I was politely told Tech is not the Gobblers anymore even though the school symbol is a Turkey.
“We”re the Hokies,” my surrounding seatmates bellowed.
The game involved the now No. 4 ranked Virginia Tech Hokies hosting the Boston College Eagles in an Atlantic Coast Conference tussle. Everywhere you turned there were maroon and orange tee shirts and hats and all sorts of football paraphernalia — 66,000 people packed the stadium. It was fun everywhere, young and old alike.
What made it more fun was listening to my longtime friend Steve Maguigan, a Tech grad from 37 years ago. He knows every player on the team. He pointed out the Tech long-snapper wears his old number 63. Maguigan was a great football player in those days, recruited by the late Jerry Claiborne, a former head coach at Maryland and a respected coach from the 60s and 70s.
Steve acquitted himself well in his playing days at offensive guard and was named an Academic All-America at Virginia Tech. He has a right to be proud of that.
Last Saturday, Tech whipped Boston College easily, 48-14. Going into this game, Virginia Tech was the fifth-ranked team in the country. They’re awesome. The crowd didn’t leave the stadium until the last second of the fourth quarter ticked off the clock. No one wanted the exciting day to end.
Maguigan gave a running account of the game while keeping up ongoing conversation with surrounding alumni and friends. Collegiate players today are bigger and stronger than from days past, he said. Almost everything is different about the college game today. The number of players offered scholarships today are limited to 25 while in the ole days it was unlimited. Not only are the players more gifted, the coaches are probably better, too, and there are more assistants and coordinators. They have more money to play with and the radio and television coverage and the internet seems to overshadow the print media.
Football as we know it today brings multi-millions to the collegiate purses and enables other collegiate sports to enjoy a prominence. #
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This column also appears at www.allfootball247.com
The Harry Covert Report . . . 