The Unseen Here and Now . . .
Stuart
Revercomb
Stuart
Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four
children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be
a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.
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Hokies are the Class of the Top
For two years now as an ardent University of Virginia football fan, (you remember -- the little blip on the map in the middle of the state), I have suffered through all manner of sensational, hyper-hyped football coverage that has touted Virginia Tech football as the greatest program in all the land.
For Wahoo fans it has been a burden beyond description. At times so overwhelming as to drive one from his bed in search of cherry flavored Rolaids in the wee-ist of morning hours. Hokie this, Hokie that -- Vick said, he said, Beamer said, Randy King said -- ESPN darling, Sports Illustrated cover, No. 2 ranking, BCS bowl, Double Centerfold Game Day Coverage -- Suggs, Davis, Pugh, Beasley and the worst of the worst -- the part that really stings ...
THEY'RE ALL GREAT GUYS !!!
It's one thing to be annoyingly good. It's even worse to be perfect gentlemen while doing it.
Consider Mr. Vick . Try for a moment to think of one other college superstar and soon to be NFL mega-star with Vick's talent and potential who has handled himself with such quiet composure. OK, maybe Peyton Manning, but to find anyone comparable prior to that you'd have to go back to Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr. And Vick probably faced more media coverage before the Akron game this year than Johnny and Bart did during their collective Super Bowl appearances -- much less their college careers.
Why couldn't he steal some life savers or something.
It gets worse.
If Frank Beamer and his coaching staff were any more congenial they'd be working for Disneyland. Their down-to-earth, above-board, plain-talk demeanor flies so beautifully in the face of so much of the present day hype and glitz of college football that you can't help but like the bums -- er ... "boys." They are a credit to their profession, and even a dyed-in-the-wool, blue-and-orange Wahoo has to admit it. Honesty and character are paying off big time for Beamer.
And then there's Suggs. If only they didn't have Lee Freakin' Suggs.
Ever since watching Lee Suggs run all over every high school team in the commonwealth and then hearing, horror of horrors, that he was going to attend VPI, I have been looking for a chink in the armor. Something, anything, to show that he was the cocky, money-grubbing, low-SAT-scoring, concerned with nothing but fast cars and women dude he must be, to spurn my beloved Wahoos.
And the result?
Nothing.
Absolutely, positively nothing.
If Lee Suggs were any more of a classy, well grounded, and spiritually beautiful person the very angels in heaven would descend and minister to his every need. The guy is unbelievable. Having led the nation in scoring touchdowns and setting a pace to shatter every school record in existence, Suggs has quietly and gracefully persevered.
His father, the Rev. Lee Suggs Sr., raised him that way.
"We're so proud of Lee," Lee Sr. recently said. "He's been blessed and he should be so thankful and mindful of that. He's all boy now, but we never had any major problems with Lee."
"All boy?" That's about as bad it gets when it comes to Lee Suggs. I don't guess he would have fit in too well as a Miami Hurricane.
"Being the son of a preacher, everybody always expects you to do the right thing," the Tech tailback added during the interview. "My parents always told me that when I get around people to act like I know how to act. Act polite, you know, and say yes sir and no sir and stuff like that."
"Stuff like that," is the "right stuff" in my book.
It hurts like hell to say it and I'm chewing a Rolaids as I write this, but for two years running Tech football has not only been at the "top of the class" -- they've been the class of the top.
Soon-to-be Virginia head football coach Al Groh has his work cut out for him.
I hope he's been watching the Hokies.