Hokies going back to the future by hiring Torrian Gray

By Nate Crossman  |   Tuesday, May 09, 2006  |  Comments( 0 )

Virginia Tech Hokies
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When a football program has problems in the present, the most effective way to deal with them is to bring back a symbol from the past to remind fans that all was well once, and all will be well again.

In essence, that is what Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer did when he hired former player Torrian Gray as defensive backs coach.

The Hokies were suffering from a slight image problem after the 2005 season. Of course, there was the Marcus Vick saga, which featured obscene gestures to opposing fans and flagrant penalties committed on national television. But there was also the Gator Bowl - which Virginia Tech won - but not without committing several personal fouls and having its best defensive player ejected from the game for making contact with an official.

Part of the problem was that the Hokies had such a good reputation of being hard-working (one of their team symbols is a dented lunch pail) that their petulance was magnified out of proportion.

That was what Beamer was facing in the offseason. First, Vick was dismissed from the team. Then he had a mass coaching exodus which gave him the opportunity to hire four new coaches. His last hire, Gray, was perhaps his most important one. In Gray, not only did Beamer acquire the services of an experienced college and NFL coach who also played in the NFL, he got a direct link to the Virginia Tech teams of the mid-1990's, which laid the foundation for the Hokies' current success and personified the lunch pail mentality.

Gray played rover, safety and even cornerback for the Virginia Tech Hokies from 1993-1996 and was a three-time All-Big East selection. He helped the Hokies to four straight bowl appearances for the first time in school history. After a brief NFL career cut short by knee injuries, Gray entered coaching with the University of Maine. After two years there he joined the staff at Connecticut, before moving on to the Chicago Bears. He was going to take a job with Temple before Beamer enticed him to come to Blacksburg.

Gray's credentials as a coach and player should make him an effective teacher for the Hokies talented but young defensive backfield, which includes multi-talented cornerback Victor "Macho" Harris. But it's his status as an alumni that could be the most valuable. He'll not only serve as a reassurance to the fans that Virginia Tech is going back to the old way of going about its business, but he'll be able to impart the moral code of the program to the players. To put it more simply, Gray will exemplify what it means to be a Hokie.

At the end of the season Beamer saw a program that was ever so slightly spinning out of control. His answer was to bring back part of the past to help shape the future.
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