Tech Talk Live Notes for 2/21/11

Tech Talk Live (football and basketball season)

When: Every Monday from 7:00-9:00 during football season, 7:00-8:00 during basketball season.

Where: Click here for a list of radio stations, and to find the link for listening to the show on the Internet (look to the right on the hokiesports.com page that loads when you click the link). You can see the show in person Bull & Bones Brewhaus & Grill in Blacksburg.

• The softball team is off to a 6-2 start and they’ve won both tournaments
  they’ve played in. They are a healthy team, and the season has gone well so
  far.
• The pitching has been solid. Kenzie Roark was the MVP of the first
  tournament, and Jasmin Harrell was MVP of the second tournament.
• Tech has good pitching. They don’t have an Angela Tincher. Fortunately no
  one else does either.
• In the preseason, Tech was picked 7th in the ACC, but Thomas feels like
  they have a chance to finish in the top half. They have potential and plenty
  of room to improve. It’s a very even league.
• If the Hokies finish in the top half of the league, they should make the
  NCAA Tournament.
• Thomas is the only coach the softball program has ever had. He joked that
  he didn’t have to clean up anyone’s mess, he could create his own problems.
  He got a great opportunity when the program was started. It’s all about
  getting the right people in the program.
• The Hokies play at Radford on Wednesday at 4pm. Radford won the Big South
  last year, so it should be a good game.

• It’s going to be an exciting week. It’s very important for the Hokies to
  come out and play with energy and attention to detail against Wake Forest.
• Tech got cut against UVA, and they went to the corner and the cut doctor.
  Now they’re ready to fight again.
• Wake Forest can score. They’ve got some confident players. Defensively
  they played 40 minutes of zone against UNC, and they’ll also play 40 minutes
  of man-to-man.
• Wake has a lot of players that Tech tried to recruit. Gary Clark can
  really shoot the ball. J.T. Terrell shoots it well in transition and he’s an
  aggressive offensive player. Ari Stewart can score in bunches. C.J. Harris
  would have made a great backcourt with Erick Green. Travis McKie has had a
  very good freshman year.
• It won’t be the same as the first meeting . Human nature says that Wake
  will be ready to go, and they’ll want to play well.
• The Hokies did film work on Sunday, and traveled to Winston-Salem on
  Monday after practice. They had a shoot around at Lawrence Joel, and they
  had another film session last night. Tuesday will be film and a one hour
  practice.
• Tech fans can really make an impact this weekend. ESPN chose Virginia Tech
  to be the face of college basketball this weekend. It’s a big recruiting
  opportunity. Tech needs their fans to show up to GameDay and do an
  unbelievable job. ESPN only selects places they think will make a great
  show. It will basically be a two hour infomercial for Virginia Tech.
• Duke is #1, but this isn’t about Duke. This is about Virginia Tech. This
  is about Tech fans getting behind the Hokies.

• Beamer had gotten a couple of calls about potential jobs, and he mentioned
  it to his dad. Frank mentioned there might be a couple of things going on at
  Virginia Tech. When Frank sat down with Billy Hite and discussed the
  situation, that’s when things started heating up.
• When Shane first finished up school, he couldn’t wait to get back to
  Virginia Tech. The more time went on, the more he realized he had great jobs
  in the SEC. He always knew that if it was the right situation, he would come
  back, but it had to be the right opportunity.
• Shane didn’t want to come back unless it was fine with Billy Hite. Shane
  has known Hite since 1987. He’s been a great friend. If Hite wasn’t 100%
  okay with the move, then Shane wasn’t coming. It made it a lot easier having
  Hite and Bryan Stinespring in his corner.
• Shane is proud of his last name, and he doesn’t want to hide from it. He
  never wants to get a job because of his last name. He’s proud of the fact
  that he never relied on his dad to pick up the phone and get him a job at
  Mississippi State and South Carolina.
• Steve Spurrier was very supportive of the move. His son is the recruiting
  coach at South Carolina, and his other son is a graduate assistant. Spurrier
  had always mentioned to Shane how great it was to coach with his sons. He
  thought it was great for Shane.
• Recruiting is something you have to work at. It’s a year round thing, 365
  days. It’s all about details and finding the people close to the prospect
  who are the real decision makers. You have to be persistent.
• There isn’t a huge difference between the players in the ACC and the SEC,
  except for the lines. The staff was watching some UNC film on Monday, and
  Bryan Stinespring commented about how good UNC’s defensive line was. Beamer
  noted that the UNC defensive line is the same type of line you see every
  week in the SEC.
• New media such as Twitter and Facebook are very important to recruiting. A
  recruit will respond to a Facebook message before he’ll respond to an email.
  Texting was big a few years ago. In a staff meeting on Monday, getting Frank
  Beamer a Facebook page was discussed. Just three years ago, Shane had to
  show Frank how to check his voice mail on his cell phone.
• Shane thinks David Wilson is a very talented back. He’s already watched
  film on him, and can’t wait to work with him.
• Shane coached running backs at Mississippi State for a year, and he worked
  with the offense at Georgia Tech. He feels comfortable coaching offense.
  From being a defensive coach, he also has a good idea about how defenses
  like to attack offenses.
• Over the next couple of weeks, the staff will get Cornell Brown caught up
  on what they are trying to do defensively. Offensively, they’ll do the same
  thing. They’ll go back and watch every play from last season. On Monday they
  talked about visiting other colleges or pro teams.
• Shane hasn’t met all of his running backs yet, but he’s talked to them all
  on the phone, and he looks forward to meeting with all of them this week.
• The last running backs coach at Virginia Tech before Billy Hite was Nelson
  Stokley, the father of Brandon Stokely. Both of those guys have had great
  coaching careers.
• Shane can beat his dad in golf sometimes. He beat Frank a couple of
  summers ago, and made a mistake by going home and bragging to his mom and
  his wife. He went another year before he could beat Frank again.
• Frank is extremely competitive, and it’s the little things. Friday night
  they were in Roanoke for a Darius Rucker/Brad Paisley concert. Frank and
  Shane made a bet on exactly what time Rucker would be on stage. Frank won
  the bet, and the next morning he demanded payment.

Monday was Day 2,277 of Virginia Tech’s continuous possession of the Commonwealth Cup.