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June 24, 2010

what’s inside News .............2 Features ........7 0pinions ........5 Sports .........10 Classifieds ...11 Sudoku ........11 107th year issue 65 blacksburg, va.

Community unsettled by BHS’s options LIANA BAYNE news editor The Blacksburg High School community expressed its frustration with the Montgomery County School Board as it examined numerous solutions for where and how students will attend school in the fall.

School Board Superintendent Brenda Blackburn spoke to two groups Monday at Blacksburg Middle School, and two Tuesday at

Christiansburg Middle School. The Monday afternoon gathering was reported by the Roanoke Times to have attracted about 150 parents, teachers, community members and students, while around 300 attended the identical meeting at 7 p.m. The Tuesday meetings were said to have attracted around 200 and then fewer than 100 attendees, according to the Roanoke Times.

During the Monday night meeting, Blackburn said that the

option of opening BHS in the fall after conducting repairs is off the table.

“As much as we all had hoped, that is not the case,” she said.

As opposed to five options offered to the community at last Tuesday’s school board meeting, Blackburn offered only four Monday night.

Blackburn also offered cost estimates for all plans, the accuracy of which were questioned by some audience members.

The plans are: — Use BMS for Blacksburg students in grades nine through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,117 students. Use the old Christiansburg Middle School for Blacksburg students in grades six through eight, putting its enrollment at 883. This plan would cost about $893,000.

— Use BMS for Blacksburg students in grades eight through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,412 students. Send Blacksburg students in grades six and

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what’s inside

Check out page six for a comprehensive illustration of the four possible solutions.

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seven to the current CMS along with all Christiansburg students in grades six through eight, putting its enrollment at 1,410. This plan would cost about $1 million. see BHS / page two

Breaking ground Henderson lawn

to lose sycamore CLAIRE SANDERSON managing editor

LUKE MASON/SPPS

Members of the steering committee for the Center for the Arts scoop ceremonial shovelfuls of dirt.

CEREMONY CELEBRATES TIES BETWEEN TECH, BLACKSBURG IN FUTURE CENTER FOR THE ARTS LIANA BAYNE news editor Virginia Tech marked an important milestone for the $89 million Center for the Arts Monday during an official groundbreaking ceremony.

The center, set to open in 2013 in the area that now houses Shultz Hall, will feature a 1,300-seat performance hall, several visual art galleries and be the home of the new Center for Creative Technologies in the Arts, which will focus on research for applying the arts and technology to preschool through high school programs in the New River Valley.

Ruth Waalkes, center director; Charles Steger, university president; Ron Rordam, Blacksburg mayor; and Congressman Rick Boucher (D — 9th district) spoke to a crowd of about 100 Monday afternoon about the opportunities that the Center will hopefully offer not just to the Tech community but also to the New River Valley.

Waalkes said during her remarks she hopes for the Center to be “not just a building, but an endeavor that will change forever” the university.

Steger and Rordam both commented on their hopes that the center will help both Tech and Blacksburg become nationally known for more than engineering and science.

The Center for the Arts ties in with Blacksburg’s strategic plan for expansion downtown. A portion of that plan is already underway with construction on North Main Street at the intersections of College Avenue, Alumni Mall and Prices Fork Road.

“A decade ago, when we began to map out the master plan for downtown ... the idea of an arts district emerged,” Rordam said.

Rordam added that he hoped the center would help to improve the quality of live for residents and contribute to economic development in the town by attracting new businesses, visitors and faculty.

“As a town, we will continue to work

toward an arts district,” he said.

Steger echoed Rordam’s hopes that the center would strengthen the university’s ties with Blacksburg and the surrounding area, including Roanoke.

The center plans to partner with the Taubman Gallery in Roanoke on the sharing of exhibits.

Steger also said he hoped the center would reinforce his “commitment to students to provide the very best education.”

“I firmly believe (the arts) are integral into the education of a complete person,” he said.

Waalkes, Steger, Rordam, Boucher and others, including Jack Davis, dean of the college of architecture; Mark McNamee, university Provost; Minnis Ridenour, senior fellow for resource development; Sue Ott Rowlands, dean of the college of liberal arts and human sciences, scooped the first ceremonial shovelfuls of dirt.

Waalkes said after the ceremony she expects construction to begin in July, and that the first stages of construction would be close to Shultz Hall, which will be renovated during the construction process.

Standing like a sentinel on the border of Virginia Tech and downtown Blacksburg for more than a century, the ancient sycamore on Henderson Lawn is seeing its last summer. The tree will be cut down in a few weeks.

Though many love the towering Platanus occidentalis, the tree is dying and has become a danger to those under it.

“There’s been so much conversation about this tree,” said Mark Helms, Tech’s director of facilities operations. “This has been a huge ordeal behind the scenes. We did not just look at it one day and say ‘Let’s cut it.’ There’s a lot that goes into how we manage our urban forest.”

Though the tree’s exact age is uncertain, it is visible as a medium-sized sapling in pictures dating back as far as 1872, when Tech first opened.

According to Eric Wiseman, a forestry professor and chair of the Arboretum Committee at Tech, the tree is just as likely to be naturally growing there as to have been planted.

Helms said that the grounds team has been looking at the tree’s declining health for over two years.

According to Wiseman, a variety of factors led to the tree’s decline.

First, he said that its location provided a poor environment for growth because of development, pollution, and soil and water quality.

“In an urban environment, we don’t expect trees to live as long as they would in a natural environment,” Wiseman said. “Although sycamores have the biological

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capacity to live for several hundred years, when they live in an environment that’s hostile that lifespan is greatly reduced.”

In addition, he mentioned that there have been several events during the tree’s lifetime that have caused it injury.

“Back in the ’80s there was some underground utilities work done very close to the root system of the tree, and it’s estimated that almost half of the roots were damaged,” Wiseman said.

The tree also suffers from a fungal disease called sycamore anthracnose. According to Wiseman, the disease hurts the tree by causing it to lose its leaves, making it unable to produce enough energy to sustain itself.

“It’s had a lot of injuries and insults to its health over time,” Wiseman said. “So we can’t point to any one particular reason. It’s a combination of a poor growing environment, past injuries, this disease, and of course its advanced age.”

Admirers have nominated the tree for the “Remarkable Trees of Virginia,” a collection of nominations of trees by citizens from around the state that was made into a book.

The readers of “Remarkable Trees of Virginia” are not the only ones who will be sad to see the tree go.

Renee Gillie, owner of Gillie’s restaurant on College Avenue, said she would also miss the old tree.

“It’s not just the sycamore tree, it’s everything they’ve done to lawn,” Gillie said, recalling that her children would run and play on the lawn as they were growing up.

“I know the tree is sick and that saddens me, but I hate to see the tree leave,” she said. see TREE / page two

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Tree: Safety concerns, BHS: Superintendent seeking disease dictate demolition decision on next year by July 6 from page one

REBECCA FRAENKEL/SPPS

It is feared the tree could fall on College Avenue during a rain storm. from page one

collegiatetimes.com June 24, 2010

Brittney Bibb, a supervisor at Moe’s Southwest Grill, also understands that the decision is a necessary one.

“I had no idea they were going to cut it down. But if it is dying and poses a threat, I’m fine with them cutting it down,” Bibb said.

Moe’s could likely be damaged if the tree fell in its direction.

“If it were to come down it would cause some major damage, likely hitting the buildings on the opposite side of College Avenue,” Helms said.

According to Helms, the tree could come down in a bad storm, and it is necessary to remove it before festivities downtown such as the Steppin’ Out street festival, when many people would be in danger.

“The worst possible scenario would be to have the streets full with people and vendors,” Helms said.

Helms said the wood from the tree would be salvaged when it is cut. “We want to try to save as many large pieces of it as possible,” he said. “Many groups have said that they want the wood from the tree.”

As for what will go in its place, noth-

ing has been decided yet.

“I’d love for them to plant another tree, though it would take a lifetime to become the tree it is now,” Gillie said.

“But I just don’t want to see a monument ... it should remain a green space.”

Bibb agreed that planting another tree there would be best.

“I would like to see them replace it with another tree, maybe not a sycamore, but something that would provide a similar habitat to what was destroyed,” Bibb said.

Other efforts to let the tree’s memory live on include root propagation from some of the tree’s twigs.

“There are efforts being made to propagate the tree,” Wiseman said. “We took some cuttings from the twigs and placed them in a root hormone.”

The result will essentially be a clone of the original tree.

“We can’t yet say whether that attempt will be successful,” Wiseman said, adding that root propagation “is as much an art as it is a science.” However, if the propagates do indeed grow, they may be distributed among the public or made available for planting around campus.

— Use BMS for Blacksburg students in grades eight through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,414 students. Use the old CMS for Blacksburg students in grades six and seven, putting its enrollment at 588. This plan would cost about $693,000.

— Use the old CMS for Blacksburg students in grades nine through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,117.

Allow Blacksburg students in grades six through eight to remain at BMS. This plan would cost about $1.7 million.

BMS and the current CMS, which share identical building plans, both have a capacity of about 1,200 students, while the old CMS is estimated to have a capacity for about 775. Blackburn said many of the potential costs that could be incurred would come from installing portable classroom units at various schools to accommodate student populations larger than the capacity of the school buildings.

She said some concerns of the

school board had been maintaining a high school program separate from the middle school program, ensuring proper parking and transportation arrangements and making sure that cafeterias and classrooms had up-todate technologies to handle the influx of students.

For these reasons, she said, the use of the old BMS on South Main Street, as well as the use of other non-school facilities such as potential commercial property or space on the Virginia Tech campus was not feasible.

Blackburn will continue to seek comments from the community tomorrow at CMS. She said the public input was important to the school board’s decision.

“If I over-communicate, I’m fine with that, but I don’t want to undercommunicate,” she said.

But many of the more than 25 audience members who offered comments at the 7 p.m. meeting Monday felt differently. Speakers were allowed to give three-minute statements on the issue.

Many criticized Blackburn and the Montgomery County School Board in their comments.

Ishwar Puri, engineering science and mechanics department head at Tech, echoed the sentiments of many in his statement that the school board was not focusing on the learning objectives of students. He said he felt it had taken “inclusive leadership” away from the community and that it was not considering the impact that shuffling students would have on their futures, especially their chances in college admissions.

“This is a very grave moment in our community,” Puri said.

Comments also focused on the potential of re-opening the old BMS, the way the current split schedule at BMS was affecting families’ lives, whether middle school or high school students would have a harder time adjusting to a new school and possibly being sent to Christiansburg, and the way in which the school board had dealt with the BHS situation since the initial Feb. 13 gym collapse.

Four-legged residents celebrate summer

DANIEL LIN/SPPS

An owner walks her dog down Main Street in a dog parade during the Summer Solstice Festival in downtown Blacksburg on Saturday, June 19.

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El Rodeo expands to second location in First & Main 3 news staff writer Mexican restaurant El Rodeo, commonly referred to by patrons as “El Rods,” expects to open its second restaurant in the First & Main Shopping Center by the end of this month.

“If everything goes according to plan, we should be opening our second location sometime at the end of this month,” said manager Julio Arellano.

Arellano said the authentic Mexican restaurant would benefit from expanding because its current North Main Street location is popular among college students.

“We saw a great opportunity in opening a new location on that side of town,” he said. “We think the shopping center will bring a different kind of clientele.”

The opening of the second El Rodeo is likely to have an immediate impact on the First & Main Shopping Center.

Suzie Johnson, an employee at Rack Room Shoes, said she thinks El Rodeo has enough support in the area to draw more people to the shopping center.

“Everyone I know has birthday parties there,” she said.

One concern to neighboring merchants is what kind of effect El Rodeo will have on the other restaurants in the shopping center.

Sussi Walters, an employee of On a Whim Gifts and Accessories, believes El Rodeo will not take business away from the other restaurants currently in the shopping complex such as Sake House of Japan, Bull & Bones Brewhaus & Grill, and Sal’s Italian Restaurant.

“It’s a different kind of restaurant.

There is no other Mexican restaurant to compete with (in the First and Main Shopping Center).” Walters said. “All the other restaurants here are wellestablished.”

In fact, she believes the success of these businesses depend not on the neighboring businesses but on the weather.

“Currently, the number of people at the shopping center is very weatherrelated,” Walters noted. “On sunny days, people enjoy walking around, and we can keep the doors of the shops open. It’s not the same on rainy days.”

The new restaurant, located in suite 100 of 1540 South Main Street, will display imported Mexican art and will entertain customers with spirited Mariachi music.

NEWS

GABRIELA CARILLO

REBECCA FRAENKEL/SPPS

Popular Mexican restaurant El Rodeo plans to open its second location in the First & Main shopping center at the end of June. The restaurant is known for its traditional regional cuisine and margaritas.

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NEWS

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Diversity and inclusion candidate to visit campus CLAIRE SANDERSON managing editor This summer, Virginia Tech narrows its search for a new vice president of diversity and inclusion to three final candidates.

The vice president of diversity and inclusion is the top diversity officer at the university, answering directly to President Charles Steger.

“This person leads all our programs in diversity, works with admisNEWSOM sion in seeking a more diverse group of students and with hiring faculty in seeking a more diverse group of applicants,” said Ed Spencer, vice president of academic affairs. “This is the person who helps us facilitate and enhance our efforts in diversity.”

Spencer also chairs the search committee.

The search began when previous vice president for diversity and inclusion Kevin McDonald stepped down in January after taking a job as the as chief diversity officer at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Since his departure, Karen Sanders has been serving as the interim vice president.

The candidates are Antonio Farias, Melva “Cookie” Newsom and William Lewis.

Each will make a visit to campus this summer to meet with faculty and students and get to know the area better.

Each will also attend an open forum where the Tech community is invited to ask the candidates questions.

Farias was the first to visit Tech, attending a forum on June 10.

Newsom is coming to campus on June 29, and Lewis on July 1. The forums are all held at 4:30 p.m. at the Holtzman Alumni Center.

Before each candidate’s visit, the Collegiate Times is sitting down to ask him or her a few questions.

A Q&A with Farias ran two weeks ago and can be found at collegiatetimes.com This week features an interview with Newsom. This is the second of a threepart series.

COLLEGIATE TIMES: What background experience do you have that is relevant to this position?

MELVA “COOKIE” NEWSOM: Well, since 2003 I’ve been director of diversity education and assessment for the provost’s office here at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And previous to that I was a history professor. So, depending on what you think is relevant or what the community thinks is relevant, then I’ve had a lot of work in the area of diversity, particularly organizational diversity more so than individual diversity. I was actually one of the co-chairs that designed the diversity program at Carolina and actually the reports come to my office every year as to what is going on on campus from each administrative and academic unit as far as diversity is concerned, and then it’s my job to compile the report each year.

CT: Why did you apply?

NEWSOM: I decided to apply because it would be a promotion, that’s number one. Because this is a director’s position and that would be a vice president position, so obviously that’s a little bit further up the chain there. The other thing is Virginia Tech itself. The institution has a very good reputation.

There’s a good community of thinkers there, and I also thought it was a good opportunity to kind of help mold an office. And your office, according to the information I have, is only about 13 years old, meaning it’s a relatively new office. And my history in higher education has been kind of unique in that virtually every job I’ve held in administration has been a new position that hasn’t been held by anyone before. One of my strengths is actually making the position more defined and outlining the functions of the office. So that’s another thing that was attractive, was that it didn’t sound like there was a lot of ingrained institutionalization of the office already.

CT: What do you think you could bring to the position if you were hired?

NEWSOM: I am a very good networker. I’m very good at pulling together teams of people to accomplish tasks from different parts of the campus — faculty, staff and students. I’m very organized, so I can bring a good strategic plan. I see that you have a new strategic plan, and part of the responsibility of my coming in at the end of the month for the forum is actually to talk about how I would implement that plan if I’m the one that’s chosen

for the position. And those kinds of things, my organizational skills and primarily my people skills are my strengths. I won the university award for the advancement of women two years ago and that’s one of the things the chancellor said when they presented it to me, was that I was the best networker on campus. I was proud of that.

CT: What do you think is Tech’s biggest problem with diversity?

NEWSOM: I think part of it is location.

It’s not a very diverse part of the state. I think probably another part of it is the idea that I’ve gotten as an exterior view that it’s white males. And so I think those are the two. When I’m primarily looking at in gender and racial and ethnic diversity I think both of those will be challenging as far as making sure people understand that just because we don’t have a large representation doesn’t mean we don’t want it. So that would be one of the challenges.

CT: What do you think Tech’s biggest strength is in terms of diversity?

NEWSOM: I think the biggest strength in terms of diversity is the willingness, at least from what I can see from an external viewpoint to actually address the issues, actually take steps. Actually dedicate time and resources, and the strategic plan, etcetera. It looks like there’s been quite a bit of work done already. And in diversity, you really have two different things. You have the ability and will. Those are the two.

I mean, it’s, can you do it? And more crucial, do you want to do it? It looks like Tech definitely has the will to do it and I think is moving toward the ability to do so. So, I think those are the strengths. And the will is the harder part, so if you have that you’re probably at least halfway there.

CT: What do you think is the most important thing for my readers to know about diversity?

NEWSOM: That it’s not just race, gender and ethnicity. Even though I said those are my favorites, it’s not about that. True, diversity is about the unique properties of any person, it really is.

Everyone has some area of diversity in them, it makes no difference if it’s where you came from, if it’s what your ethnicity is, if it’s what your race is, what your gender is, your ability is, your sexual orientation is. Unfortunately, frequently diversity is categorized as only being about the people who have an obvious difference, instead of looking a little bit deeper at the absolutely marvelous ways that people are so different. And we can use that difference to actually make better decisions, to actually have intellectual diversity. So that’s what I want people to understand — is that diversity is much broader than most people think about when they think about the word diversity.

CT: What do you look forward to the most about coming to Tech, if you were to take the position?

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on the web

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Check out the CT’s website at www.collegiatetimes.com for the full interview with Nelson and part one with Farias.

NEWSOM: Getting to know the people. I’m basically a people person.

People are interesting to me. It really doesn’t much matter what kind of person you are, you’re probably going to be interesting to me. Because I do enjoy actually seeing what people think, and how they view the world and how they would like the world to be and what they are doing to make it how they want it to be. It’s just interesting to me.

So that would be a main thing is just getting to know the people.

CT: What would miss most about your current job?

NEWSOM: I would miss the people. I have wonderful colleagues here, absolutely wonderful colleagues. Everyone has been very generous with their time and talent, and they’ve been very embracing. I came from another state, I came from Ohio, and I came from faculty. And to come into an administrative position in a state and a school where nobody knows you, so you might expect the people you met to be a little bit guarded, but that hasn’t been true at all. So that’s what I will definitely miss is the people at Carolina.

CT: What initially attracted you to a career in diversity?

NEWSOM: I came to the idea about diversity kind of late in life, because where I grew up — I grew up in southwest Ohio — diversity is not very much. I mean we have African Americans and we have white people and that’s just about it. And my own county was probably about eight percent African American.

And it just wasn’t on my radar until probably about when I was in my 30s. I mean obviously since I taught African American history, there were some things there, but as far as really looking at the broader landscape of diversity and the way that things actually work and they way that people interact with each other and even more importantly for me, the reasons behind that. I started getting more and more interested in that as I continued to teach and began to investigate more modern things. My original history was U.S. history before 1877, so it wasn’t about the civil rights movement or any of that, it was about the Civil War. But as we expanded the coursework that was and I began to teach a broader scope which meant that we came toward the 20th century, I began to see some patterns and things that were not changing particularly in the area of race, and it made me curious. I have had a pretty fortunate life for an African American, I’m light skinned, I grew up in the north, and that doesn’t mean that there was no bias or prejudice.

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here is a woman in Radford. She is 39 years old. The youngest of her four children, a daughter, is 19 years old and has given her a beautiful grandson who is now two years old.

She has a husband, about 10 years older than her. He is in and out of the hospital with various ailments and surgeries.

They do not have health insurance, they are not old enough for Medicare and until recently did not qualify for Medicaid. Years of hard labor have left her with severe back pain and knees that do not work. She too has been forced to make multiple visits to the hospital.

Her grandson will go to the hospital for multiple surgeries. He has problems swallowing and there is concern he may have cancer.

In complete, selfless love, this 39 yearold grandmother has sold almost all of her possessions, including 200 year-old family heirlooms, to pay for the medical bills and is now sleeping on the floor of her mobile trailer.

There is a single mother of two in Christiansburg. Her son is two years old and her daughter 12. During the school year she is a full time student at New River Community College working to get her Associates Degree in Business Administration. She also works as a part time manager at Dollar General in Blacksburg.

Because of her situation she is allotted certain benefits from the Department of Social Services. She receives SNAP Benefits (food stamps), income based housing and Day Care Vouchers for

her son while she is a full time student.

During the school year these benefits allow her to just barely meet her expenses.

In the summer, with her daughter out of school she can no longer take classes at the community college.

Because she is not in school she is not eligible for Day Care Vouchers for her son.

At first it might seem that since she is not in school, she would be able to take on more hours at work.

Unfortunately this is not the case.

Working more hours and making more money would actually cost her more than she would make because she would lose essential benefits.

Let me explain this further. When she is not in school she does not receive Day Care Vouchers for her son. If working, she would have to pay day care for her son at $49 for two days per week. If working, her SNAP Benefits would go down and she would not have enough to pay for groceries. If working, because she lives in an income based housing apartment, her rent would go up.

Between having to pay for day care, food, and increased rent, she might break even working at Dollar General or end up having to spend more than she makes.

This summer she is choosing not to work. She receives $300 in child support (sometimes) and is hoping that between balancing her benefits and child support she will make most of her ends meet.

She will maintain a delicate balancing act to maintain until she is able to

resume her schooling and her job in the fall.

As an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer for the New River Valley, I am constantly addressing the issue of hunger relief and I meet people with stories like this all the time. I also spend my days with people like Frank Rogers, Sarah Headrick and many others from a variety of hunger relief agencies.

Frank Rogers is the Food Pantry director at Gethsemane Baptist Church in Radford.

He runs a small food pantry in the basement of the church. He serves more than 100 families per month and delivers to most of his clients. Recently he hosted a “Direct Distribution” initiated by Second Harvest, a regional food bank.

He invited hunger relief agencies from all over the NRV to collect food for their clients. He also invited some people in the area, including the 39year-old Radford grandmother, to come and receive food from the distribution. In total, more than 32,000 pounds of food was distributed.

Fieldstone United Methodist Church in Christiansburg recently began hosting a Community Meal where people of all different walks of life can come and enjoy a meal together. It does not matter if you are rich, poor or in the middle, the table is for anyone who eats. This is where I met Sarah Headrick, who is the coordinator for the Community Meals. She is instrumental in getting different groups to sponsor meals each month so that the church can help build commu-

nity and feed students, families, the homeless, the affluent and single mothers working on their Associates Degree at the local community college.

There is an overwhelming amount of poverty in the New River Valley.

Hunger is one small part of poverty, but it is a part with solutions. The common goal of every agency I work with is to eradicate hunger.

Whether they know it or not, by addressing hunger these agencies are also allowing each recipient the opportunity to be one step closer to winning the battle against poverty.

These agencies are not only supplying food but also are giving an ear to a tired grandmother, and a network of support and community to a single mother.

Are you ready to be a part of the solution?

If so, you can contact the Center for Student Engagement and Community Partnerships in 1660 Litton Reaves Hall, or contact Tara WMilligan at NRVHungerRelief@gmail.com Regardless of your passion or skills there is a way for you to help in the fight against poverty and we will connect you with an agency that is right for you.

TARA MILLIGAN -NRV Hunger Relief coordinator -AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer

Letters must include name and daytime phone number. Letters must not exceed 300 words, and should be in MS Word (.doc) format if possible.

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purses or watches?

Or if you were walking to D2 and in front, there was a student with an amputated leg asking for small change so that they could eat?

Or what if we are going by the area between Newman Library and Squires Student Center, and came across individuals sleeping in boxes?

All of these are examples my students and I have seen; how would you react?

I suspect that we would be amazed that an institution of our caliber (a city known for its reputation) would have such issues.

Too many times, we often just walk past these individuals without blinking an eye as we become blind to the issue at hand.

I, myself, am guilty of walking by with a sense of guilt, as I know that I can’t provide monetary support to these individuals.

It raises interesting issues of how would you respond. Do you have enough spare change to help everyone you encounter? How are they going to use the money? How did they get here?

Isn’t it the government’s responsibility to help them? Why should I help them?

The last few years in Madrid, in the Plaza Mayor area, we have encountered

an individual that wears a Spiderman costume in order to raise money. In the 90-degree weather, this middle age individual is wearing this skintight outfit. The tourists take photos while he works the crowd for money, whether it is that one euro coin or any type of change.

The students have asked why someone would do this day in and day out?

I suspect that the answer is complicated but suspect that it is exacerbated by that fact that Spain has a 20 percent unemployment rate.

Imagine if within our Tech city, we faced an abundance of street performers raising money. I could imagine someone dressed as a Hokie Bird, or as we have seen in all of the cities, someone dressed in a gold King Tut outfit.

As a Tech community, we pride ourselves in coming together in times of need, whether it is through Hokies United in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the aftermath of April 16,2007, or the Haiti earthquake.

We have countless students and others that provide community service and other service learning projects.

But these disasters are far away. What are we doing for those at the margins of society who are closer to home? How

would we respond if our city, our Tech community, were to experience things similar to cities?

I suspect that we are already aware of these things thought they are not as visible. We have staff members who with the increasing cost of gas have difficulty in getting to work, or making ends meet. We have wage employees who are working for the university but without needed benefits, praying the each day that they don’t get sick. I can relate, as I have had no health care benefits since April 1.

We have students on welfare, who depend on food stamps to make it, and we have students with three or four jobs trying to make ends meet while trying to get a degree.

There are members of our Tech community who are experiencing these challenges and are at the margins.

How will you respond the next time you come across such a situation?

RAY PLAZA -regular columnist -director of diversity initiatives

collegiatetimes.com June 24, 2010

Subscription rates: $65 semester; $90 academic year; $105 full year. The first copy is free, any copy of the paper after that is 50 cents per issue.

n my first column, I mentioned that I was coordinating a study abroad during this first summer session. One of our focuses is exploring issues of diversity and social justice as seen through the European experience. As the weeks have progressed, we have been exposed to many things, and one of those things has been the lives of those on the margins of society.

We often tend to ignore or “not see” those that are on the margins. We all know who they are, but we move on with our daily lives.

I have been thinking about this recently, and wondering how we as a Virginia Tech community would deal with those on the margins of society.

We often describe Tech as its own city, and in many respects it is. It has its own power and water systems, its own security (the Tech Police), its own government (the Tech administration), its own citizens (all of us with Tech IDs), and its own food and housing. As a city, how would we as a community deal with issues that impact other cities?

How would you react if you walked on the steps of Burruss Hall and came across a heavily scarred individual asking for money? Would it be different, if walking across the Drillfield, you were faced with students selling designer

OPINIONS

Collegiate Times Editorial Staff Editor-in-Chief Peter Velz Managing Editor Claire Sanderson Production Manager Taylor Chakurda News Editor Liana Bayne Features Editor Debra Houchins Sports Editor Alex Jackson Layout Designer Kelly Harrigan Online Director Jamie Chung

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PLAN 1: Use BMS for Blacksburg students in grades nine through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,117 students. Use the old Christiansburg Middle School for Blacksburg students in grades six through eight, putting its enrollment at 883.

Cost for grades 9-12: $25,000 Cost for grades 6-8: $868,910 PLAN 2: Use BMS for Blacksburg students in grades eight through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,1412 students.

Send Blacksburg students in grades six and seven to the current CMS along with all Christiansburg students in grades six through eight, putting its enrollment at 1,410.

Cost for grades 8-12: $297,000 Cost for grades 6-7: $738,910 PLAN 3: Use BMS for Blacksburg students in grades eight through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,414 students.

Use the old CMS for Blacksburg students in grades six and seven, putting its enrollment at 588.

Cost for grades 8-12: $297,000 Cost for grades 6-7: $396,910 PLAN 4: Use the old CMS for Blacksburg students in grades nine through 12, putting its enrollment at 1,117. Allow Blacksburg students in grades six through eight to remain at BMS. Cost for grades 6-8: $0 Cost for grades 9-12: $1,731,910 PLAN 5: Not an official plan, but many parents advocate reopening the old BMS. photos by daniel lin, spps

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KELLY HARRIGAN/COLLEGIATE TIMES

Weekend celebrations for local Somalian refugees staff writer This past Saturday, the Mukumbira family and the refugee community in Roanoke opened their houses and their hearts to a group of Virginia Tech students for two special occasions: A soccer match and a wedding.

Seldom is such a window as honest and friendly enough for us to experience the traditions of a family and a neighborhood. Completely new to all of us and not really sure what to expect, we ventured unto a day full of activities.

LAURA GARCIA/COLLEGIATE TIMES

Habiba Abdi designs a henna tattoo as part of the wedding preparations. The dye will take hours to dry before it can be removed, and the residual tattoo can be sealed with vegetable oil to preserve it. ing your arms and coating them with vegetable oil to seal the tint. After waiting for more than an hour with our hands in the air so we wouldn’t get our clothes dirty, our arms were starting to burn. We headed out into the sun in the hopes that it would dry faster, but the only thing we accomplished was being hot and tired.

ROANOKE VICTORIOUS After waiting for our henna to dry we headed over to River’s Edge Soccer Field in Roanoke for the long awaited soccer match with the community in Roanoke playing the North Carolina refugee community. After a long game, Roanoke picked up the advantage and won the match 5-4.

The coach, Mohamud Mahdi, was excited for the win and recognized the amazing change the team has gone through in the past three years. One of the players, Christopher, has recently been accepted to play Division I soccer at Radford, were he will pursue a psychology degree.

“Football is life for these guys. It is life. We are called the Lions FC because all these guys are lions. They are not afraid,” said Mahdi.

Regardless of its intense love for the game, the Lions FC has a lot of challenges to get over. Playing in local leagues and regional leagues costs money — money that the team doesn’t have. This year it missed registering for the Roanoke league because it lacked the $1,100 for the registration fee. Practices are held at River’s Edge Soccer Field and that costs $12 an hour to play on.

Jerseys, balls, cleats, shorts and travel expenses — it all turns out to be more than what the team can afford. Most of the team members are high school stu-

dents, so they do not work and therefore cannot contribute to the team’s finances. But the rest do everything in their power to save up and finance the team as best they can. Part of your involvement with the community is helping to write press kits and grant

applications to finance the growing momentum of the Lions FC. PECULIAR WEDDING The game was done at 7 p.m., and everybody rushed to get changed for the wedding reception, scheduled to

see CELEBRATIONS / page nine

collegiatetimes.com June 24, 2010

HENNA TATTOOS This time our guide was Brittany Gianetti, a biochemistry major who has been working as a tutor for the Mukumbira children at Landsdowne apartments for a little over a year.

She had been invited by the family’s daughters to spend the afternoon getting ready for the wedding and we were invited to join as well. So Brittany, Alejandra Rios, Erika Perez, Carolina Martinez and I set out to meet the Mukumbira family and be a part of the wedding preparations.

We arrived around 2 p.m. at their house on Salem Turnpike. An army of kids of all ages received us: From the oldest Sahara, 18, to the youngest, Ali, who was one year old, the Mukumbira family adopted us for an afternoon.

The concept of family in the Somali Bantu community is different from that of the American immediate family. Somali Bantu families include neighbors, cousins, friends and occasionally a group of students interested in spending an afternoon together.

Most refugee families are made up of broken families left over from the civil war in Somalia. Parents will take on orphans and treat them as their kids, aunts and uncles will care for their deceased brother’s or sister’s children and grandparents also take on guardianship roles in the case of missing parents. Not only are families big compared to traditional size, but they are also undeniable proof of the unrest that led the refugees out of their homes and into the camps in Kenya.

One of the older girls of the family, Habiba Adi, took on the task of decorating our hands with henna tattoos.

It’s tradition within the Somali-Bantu community that girls and women get their hands, forearms and feet decorated with black and orange henna.

The young people in the community are fabulously open and eager to receive outsiders, show off their culture and make us understand their heritage. So while Habiba and her older sister Sahara started on our henna, the volunteers with available arms started teaching Mexican clapping games to the children. We, too, were anxious to show off our own culture and heritage.

The thing about henna is that after the paste-like tint is applied, you must wait for it to fully dry before wash-

start at 8 p.m. We arrived at the wedding and changed into the dresses that the Mukumbira girls were kind enough to lend us. I wore a bright yellow dress with white sequin swirls.

I was instructed by the girls to stick parts of the dress into my pants so that it would not drag on the floor. The wedding reception for the Kenyan couple was held at a community gym off of 14 Street and it was a big event.

We stepped into the gym unsure of what we had to do or what the custom was. Some of our friends from Tech joined us at the wedding. We soon found out men are supposed to stay on one side of the room and the women on the other. Any sort of dancing was done in two lines, one of boys and one of girls. If the lines and dancers got too close, there were a couple of older women more than willing to scream and walk between the lines to pull them back. The children were not allowed to dance, nor the married men and women. Only single teens could dance. So there we were.

“Just shake your booty left and right,” answered Habiba when I asked her how we were supposed to dance. So there we were, attempting to shake our booties left and right. We were then pulled into a circle that cycled around the bride and groom while people would stuff dollar bills in their mouths for luck. Their godmother

7 FEATURES

LAURA GARCIA

page

Pixar continues tradition of excellence with ‘Toy Story 3’ I

collegiatetimes.com June 24, 2010

8 FEATURES

page

t’s been a long run for Pixar and the “Toy Story” franchise. In 15 years, Pixar has amazed us with space exploration and monsters under the bed, insects and talking race cars— but it was always the love from a pull-string cowboy that some of the “first generation” enthusiasts go back to.

We all love Buzz (Tim Allen), Woody (Tom Hanks), the Potato Heads (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris) and gang, yet everyone has to grow up, and they do it with all of the poise they have.

It’s hard for any filmmaker to make a sequel, and subsequently harder for a third movie. Double that with an 11-year hiatus — it’s staggering for any man.

Thankfully, director Lee Unkrick was nonplussed, setting up the movie for instant success and making sure that all loose ends are neatly knitted

away.

You can tell that the love and warmth that the audience feels for these little toys is right there in the finished product, even as you watch the opening sequence. Grainy 8mm footage rolls and sputters though, showing child-owner Andy (John Morris) setting up his “home movies” as he plays with the assorted cast of heroes.

What other company but Pixar would truly have depicted such a small, yet substantial piece of creative information? This is also the time to take a moment and give a small nod and farewell to the lost and fallen toys such as Wheezy (Joe Ranft).

Even still the memories fade, and Andy (like the rest of us) has grown up, promising to move the toys in the attic to wait for the next child.

However, things change when

the toys get shipped off to a daycare center. On the outside, this would seem like the perfect setup: daily interaction, a new child once one became old, as new character Lotso’-Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty) excitedly explains. Yet as night approaches, the daycare evokes a prison break escapade, fit to replace the calamity that used to be on Fox. It’s because of the shadier side of the daycare center that Pixar really steps up their game. You see low-angle composition shots, and hue saturations that, as of this moment, one doesn’t normally see in a CGI film, let alone a children’s movie.

Even action sequences are bolstered, making it so that the 3D elements (which are a gimmick and not required to enjoy the film) a pleasure rather than a burden.

Thankfully, the extra stock of characters didn’t burden the film down as well. It boils down to making your target audience happy while pushing the plot along. All of it immerses you with the original cast, making it one complete ensemble.

It’s surprising, but you could almost say that more would have been nice, if the movie would have kept on going.

And that’s the heart of it: not wanting to let go. The emotional ties that Pixar has planted in the first and second movies of “enjoy the little things” have become fully grown and vibrant in this film.

Everything works while nothing supersedes the other. Can it be

MCT CAMPUS

Buzz and Jessie from Toy Story 3 exchange glances. Both return to the main cast. a little intense for younger children?

Possibly, because of well-sculpted effects and because Pixar was aiming for an audience that is now eleven-years-older. Does that mean they can’t enjoy it?

Absolutely not. “Toy Story 3” has all of the adorable jokes, the lifelong morals, and honest sentiment that we have come to expect from Pixar films. It’s a great way to end

a trilogy, even if they will be sorely missed.

WILLIAM CASE -features staff writer -senior -English and theatre arts major

Celebrations: A weekend of fun 9

FEATURES

Loop

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Wondering what’s going on around the ‘burg?

Check out the events of the upcoming week.

[Thursday, June 24] What: Music — HopeHop Where: Henderson Lawn (rain site: Squires Old Dominion Ballroom) When: 6 p.m.

Cost: Free What: Music — Bobby Parker Where: Gillie’s When: 7 p.m.

Cost: Free

[Friday, June 25] What: Music — College Night w/ DJ Dat Boi Where: Attitudes Bar and Cafe When: 9 p.m.

Cost: Cover, ladies free before 11 p.m.

Note: College ID required

[Saturday, June 26] What: Music — Ash Devine Where: Gillie’s When: 7 p.m.

Cost: Free

[Sunday, June 27] What: Film — Blacksburg Stories 2010 Premiere Where: The Lyric When: 1 p.m.

Cost: Free

LAURA GARCIA/COLLEGIATE TIMES

The Lions FC, Roanoke refugee soccer team, beat the visiting team from North Carolina 5-4 during last Saturday’s friendly match. Soccer is a vital part of this community. from page seven

would then retrieve them and hold on to them. The bride and groom wore sunglasses for the whole celebration to conceal their eyes looking at people and to cover their faces. They weren’t supposed to show them until they are officially man and wife, or so the Mukumbira girls explained.

The night unfolded pretty much the same. It was awkward not really knowing what we were allowed to do, so we hung out with the kids and took pictures.

The girls tried to teach us how to dance and talked about the boys they liked. The younger girls are growing to be more American each day, reclaiming their right to date and choose their

boyfriends rather than be assigned ones by their parents. The new generations are growing up differently and the culture clash can be hard on their parents.

Like all first generation immigrants, the refugee community will have to learn to deal with the generational shift that inevitably occurs when cultures meet.

[Monday, June 28] What: Virginia Tech Blood Drive Where: Torgersen Museum (Room 1100) When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Note: Schedule your appointment by calling 800-GIVE-LIFE (800-448-3543), or by visiting www.redcrossblood.org.

What: Film — Tosca Where: The Lyric When: 7:30 p.m.

Cost: $5 general admission, $3 with Tech ID or children under 18

[All Week] What: Play — You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown Where: Squires Studio Theatre When: Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 2 p.m.

Cost: Free

What: Summer Arts Film Festival — The Sound of Music Where: The Lyric When: Saturday, June 26; Wednesday, June 30 at 3 p.m.

Cost: Free This week, the Lyric is showing “The Runaways” starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. Check out TheLyric.com for showtime information.

collegiatetimes.com June 24, 2010

What: Play — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Where: Theatre 101 When: Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Cost: Free

page

collegiatetimes.com June 24, 2010

SPORTS

10

A chat with author, alumnus Chris Colston: Part II ALEX JACKSON sports editor Last week, Virginia Tech alumnus Chris Colston, formerly of USA Today, took some time out to discuss his forthcoming book, The Hokie Annual.

He discussed his departure from USA Today, how the book came about and a little bit about what the 100-plus-page Annual would COLSTON offer readers when it hits shelves in July.

This week, he offers more details about the project.

Colston received his bachelor’s degree in marketing from Tech in 1980.

An 11-year veteran of the Tech athletics department as editor of The Hokie Huddler, Colston has written four books on Tech football, including Frank Beamer’s autobiography Turn Up the Wick (2000).

For nearly three years at USA Today, Colston covered the NFL and NBA and won several writing awards, including first-place in the Pro Football Writers of America national writing contest.

From 1996-2005, he served as a writer and editor for USA Today Sports Weekly, where his work was mentioned in the Best American Sports Writing series.

Look for The Hokie Annual at the University Bookstore after July 4.

COLLEGIATE TIMES: How long did the

reporting aspect of this process take?

COLSTON: Oh my goodness. Before the process, it was probably December 1 when I got laid off. So, you go through that initial process of saying, “Well, let me see if I can get another job with somebody.” And then you just realize, if I form my own company and do this, this could be as lucrative if not more, if all things go well.

You know how you make your January resolutions? I just decided — OK, I’m going to take a leap of faith. I’m going forward, and this is what we’re going to do. So, it started in January and we just wrapped it up and I sent the final proofs the other day.

That was five months, but you’re talking 12 hours every day — never taking a day off. That sounds grueling, but I’m telling you, this is not just a line. I loved writing about Tech football and doing this so much, I never got burnt out. You think about the 10 to 12 hours every day, driving down to Blacksburg.

Just to produce a single article, you’ve got to know your subject. You’ve got to do your background before you interview them, come up with your questions, interview them and then you’ve got to transcribe it. And then you’ve got to put it together and write it coherently, so the writing alone was a tremendous job and with the business end on top of it, you really had to multi-task.

Meeting with designers, researching and comparing prices on printers, forming a company — all these things that you don’t realize you have to do until you have to do it.

CT: Going from writing for a newspa-

An excerpt from ‘The Hokie Annual’...

Virginia Tech has had many strong rivals through the years: George Welsh-era Virginia, BC, Matt Ryan, and of course, Miami.

Now, however, Georgia Tech has taken that mantle.

There’s that whole battle-of-engineering-programs thing, the big city vs. college town thing.

But it’s also the Yellow Jackets’ newfound arrogance under Paul Johnson and their success on the field.

Let’s face it: They’re a threat.

They also irk us. When GT clinched the ACC Coastal last year, I rooted for them out of ACC pride. The Ramblin’ Wreck then lost at home to the worst Georgia team of the decade and Iowa crushed them in the Orange. This came one year after a 38-3 Chik-fil-A Bowl loss vs. LSU. If you’re going to represent the ACC, then do it right.

Here are five good reasons to get stoked for this year’s game: 5. Adding a little UVa to the recipe — After Hokie fans chanted “Keep Al Groh” at the humiliating conclusion to his tenure at Virginia, the Yellow Jackets kept him in the ACC as their new defensive coordinator.

4. You said Nov. 4 at 7:30? — Thursday night at Lane Stadium in prime time, baby. per to writing a book, how different was your approach?

COLSTON: You know, there are so many diverse sections to the book.

When I was interviewing Bryan (Stinespring) and Coach (Frank) Beamer, I was very much by-the-book and professional. When I was doing the lead-ins to the position-by-position breakdowns, it was very reportorial and very information-driven. When I was doing player profiles, it was very much information-driven but with a light

3. Josh Nesbitt — What annoys me about Nesbitt is the audacity with which he carries the football as a QB, coupled with the fact that last time out for the Hokies, no one could seem to get a clean lick on him.

2. Chop Block Dangerous — When you chop block John Graves from behind, you chop block all of Hokie Nation from behind. (see pp. 66-7) On top of that, Virginia Tech lost Graves for the following loss to North Carolina, where he was sorely missed.

1. Paul “Flippant” Johnson — Oh-ho-ho, you’ve made a huge mistake, Paul Johnson. Those in Blacksburg don’t take too kindly to messin’ with Beamer (see p. 67). Your dismissive, condescending tone in regards to U-Boating the Hokie defense won’t make Lane Stadium happy come November. Then there’s the comment he made to reporters before the Orange Bowl. When asked what team on the schedule would compare to Iowa’s vaunted defense, he said: “North Carolina had a really good defense. Clemson was pretty good on defense. Probably Virginia Tech.

Maybe one of those three defenses.”

Probably Virginia Tech? Go ahead, keep feeding the furnace. thomas emerick, former sports editor

touch, and I would take my shots. If I saw an opening to be light-hearted and a little entertaining, I would take it, but it wasn’t a pervasive thing.

People aren’t reading this to see how clever Chris Colston is. They are reading this to get information on Virginia Tech football. So every time I tried to do something, it was in that vein. I tried to take a blog-approach to some of this, which is different from print… I tried to take the conversational approach.

If you and I went out for a beer and we were talking Hokie football — that was the overall tone I was trying to capture.

CT: How was the transition from one day interviewing professional basketball players at the NBA Finals to the next, coming back to Blacksburg to interview student athletes?

COLSTON: I mean… it is so different.

The people at Virginia Tech are so great. After dealing with this highpriced athletes, and listen — they are all really quality people. All of the people, when I was covering Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, everybody was really wonderful to work with. But, there are a lot of games you have to play, there’s a lot of waiting, there’s a lot of this and a lot of that.

At Tech, everybody’s just so relaxed and I think Frank Beamer fosters that feeling, that family feeling. I kind of had a little bit of trepidation going back there, and wondering how I would be accepted after being gone for so long.

And everybody just welcomed me right back like I had never been gone.

That meant a lot to me.

They were very supportive and went out of their way to help me out. And the players, guys like John Graves, who is just a first class human being. They would answer any questions that you had. The coaches were fabulous, all really good, open and honest.

It was just a really wonderful experience and I’ll tell you what — I think going off and playing that national

stage for so long helped me. It made me really appreciate what’s going on in Blacksburg. If I had never gone out and seen how it is everywhere else, I probably would have just taken it for granted.

But to go out and see it, see how special that thing is they got going on down in Blacksburg — that was great.

CT: When the book was finally finished, how did it feel?

COLSTON: After you’ve spent so much time on something, you get a little postpartum depression. You always worry when you’re producing something that you’ve missed a typo or there’s something in there that’s going to be inflammatory. You just worry about it, it’s part of the business.

So people say, “How much of a relief was it to be finally finished?” Yeah, it is. But there is also, and maybe it’s just my personality, but there’s a little bit of dread. You say, “It’s going, it’s done now — right or wrong.”

Bruce Springsteen used to always talk about that. He never wanted to release “Born to Run.” He kept saying, “It’s not perfect. There’s something that’s still not right,” over and over again. But finally, Steve Van Zandt said, “You’ve got to just let this go.” And he did, and it turned out well — of course, one of the greatest rock albums of all-time.

Now, I’m not saying that about the Annual, but I can understand what it means when there’s a lot riding on it. A lot is riding on this thing. If this thing sucks, then I’m going to have to pursue something else.

There’s a lot riding on this thing too, so I wanted to make sure it was as good as it could possibly be. I hope that comes through. It’s something that I hope people can feel the passion in, the hard work. They’re getting something that wasn’t slapped together.

It’s the absolute best effort that I could do and if people don’t like it, there’s nothing that I can do. It was a labor of love.

page 11

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SPORTS

12

Tech men’s basketball staff receives makeover ALEX JACKSON sports editor Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Seth Greenberg enters the 2010 college hoops season with a situation unlike those of most head coaches around the nation.

While Greenberg’s entire starting lineup returning with the Hokies projects a top-25 team early in the offseason,

he enters the coming season with an almost all-new staff around him.

After losing assistant coaches Bill Courtney and Ryan Odom in April, Greenberg and the Hokies have spent the past two months completely restructuring their staff.

In May, Tech began the process by naming two new assistant coaches and promoting Adrian Autry, former director of men’s basketball operations to

an assistant role. Tech also added John Richardson to the bench. Autry and Richardson fill the roles left by Courtney, who was hired after the season as the new head coach at Cornell University, and Odom, who unexpectedly left Tech to join the University of North Carolina Wilmington staff in April.

Last week, Greenberg and Co. finished the process by hiring former Boston University head coach Dennis Wolff to

fill the final vacancy in the program left

by Autry.

Wolff, who many believe is almost overqualified for the position, comes to Blacksburg with a warm welcome.

“I am excited to have Dennis Wolff join our basketball staff,” Greenberg said in a statement released by the Tech athletics department. “He has a wealth of experience and knowledge and will no doubt be an asset to our basketball program.”

The former BU head coach was 247197 in 15 years in Massachusetts, earning America East Coach of the Year honors three times in his tenure there.

Though he arrives from a conference with competition much different from that of the Atlantic Coast Conference, he’s familiar with its kind.

Prior to joining the Terriers, Wolff served as an assistant coach for four years with the University of Virginia and before that, spent four years as an assistant coach at Wake Forest from 1985-89. “(Wolff) is a proven teacher, coach and mentor. He has experience in every facet of our business. With the change in the NCAA rules, I will use Dennis as a sounding board to gain feedback on what we are doing and how we are doing it.”

“I hope to contribute however I can to the nationally-respected program that Coach Greenberg has built (here),” Wolff said.

After Tech closed out its season in a disappointing fashion in March, its biggest concern was whether or not star guard Malcolm Delaney, who declared for the NBA Draft in April, would leave the team or not.

But after the departure of Courtney to Cornell and Odom’s unexpected departure for a job of equal or lesser value in Charlotte, the Hokies’ focus shifted elsewhere.

On May 5, the team announced the promotion of Autry, who joined the

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program in September of 2008.

While Autry’s coaching history is brief, his history playing the game is not.

The former All-Big East selection was a four-year starter at point guard under coach Jim Boeheim and a team captain as a senior at Syracuse University. Out of the Bronx, N.Y., he was a McDonald’s All-American in 1990 and at St. Nicholas of Tolentine High School, won the New York City and State Championship in 1988.

He joins Tech after spending two years as an assistant coach at Paul Vi High School in Fairfax, a position he held after an 11-year professional basketball career overseas. “(Adrian) genuinely cares about their development and success, both on and off the court,” Greenberg said. “He will be an outstanding role model for our players and a great representative of our basketball program.”

Three days after Tech announced Autry’s promotion, the Hokies received great news when Delaney withdrew his name from the NBA Draft, settling any doubts the team had with its roster.

Three weeks later, the Hokies shored up the last coaching vacancy on the bench, hiring Richardson.

“John Richardson is a coach’s coach,” Greenberg said in his statement. “He has coached and had success at every level.”

“He is not only a great teacher, but he will be an outstanding mentor to our players,” Greenberg said.

At Old Dominion, Richardson served three seasons as the program’s director of basketball operations and in the last two years, served as an assistant coach.

Before his time at the collegiate level, he was busy making his name known with the younger crowd, earning Virginia High School Coaches Association AAA State Coach of the Year honors after winning back-to-back AAA state titles in 2004 and 2005. In 2004, he was also honored as the Associated Press AAA Coach of the Year.

“It is an honor to be a part of the Virginia Tech basketball family,” Richardson said. “I look forward to the challenges and rigor of the ACC. I really appreciate Coach Greenberg and his staff for embracing me and my family and I am ready to get to work.”

Autry’s promotion, along with the program’s hiring of Wolff and Richardson, fill out a staff that has rarely stayed the same from year-to-year under Greenberg.

Last season, the Hokies were forced to replace former assistant coach Stacey Palmore with Courtney, formerly of UVa. However, Tech’s players will have one familiar face on the bench with them at the start of the season in November as assistant James Johnson returns for his fourth season with the team.

Hokie fans hope that change, as it may be for their perpetually bubble-bursted team this year with the expansion of the NCAA Tournament, will be a good thing this season in regards to the X’s and O’s, as well.