How my sports hating wife and the West Coast Pail single handily saved the Hokies in the Belk Bowl

We are all ecstatic now. The Hokies have won 3 Bowls in a row for the first time and reached double digits in the win column for the first time since 2011. We have smiles on our faces that won’t go away during the offseason. Even with the early entries to the NFL by 3 underclassmen (which is actually a good sign), fans are almost giddy at the prospects of our football future.

Without the Bowl win, we could all be experiencing the exact opposite feelings. Losing 2 in a row to finish the season. We’d be calling them “early defections” instead of early entries.

Because things did not start well on the Thursday of the Bowl game. I’m not talking about the football team, of course we all know that, but I’m talking about MY Thursday. And that is why our team came out of the gate lame. '

Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale… wait… that intro has been done before. THIS… is simply the tale of the pail.

My wife and I just relocated from Virginia back to Los Angeles this summer. We have been bouncing around, staying with friends, in Airbnb’s, House sitting until we got our own place on January 2nd.
Most of our stuff is still in storage, except a few Hokie shirts, car flags and the most important item of all: the Lunch Pail. Not THE Lunch Pail mind you… that one is safely being guarded by Woody Barren. Mine is pretty darn close though.

The one I found online and purchased for $5 on eBay 10 years ago is the exact model (if there is such a thing?) as the original Bud Foster Pail: a black Aladdin lunch pail. I bought orange model paint and did my best to match the VT, WIN and TEAM.

The Pail is the heart and soul of this story, well, this AND my sports hating wife, but let me back up and give you some context.

I grew up in Radford and have been going to games at Lane Stadium since the mid 70’s. I played tackle football as a tike behind the pine trees and scoreboard in the South end zone. I sold Cokes in that stadium as a teenager. I went to games all through the 80’s and 90’s before moving to Southern California in 1998.

Yup. Missed all of the 1999 season; well, in person anyway. I found one of the three Los Angeles VT alumni groups and actually did a 2 hour one way commute to watch games in Manhattan Beach during my first few years here.

Our gathering has moved to a total of 4 sports bars here in the South Bay and we have been in the same great location, Chelsea Pub & Underground in Hermosa Beach, for the last 10 years. I’m one of the “elder” statesmen, along with my good friend Don Hughes (class of ’65).

When I bought the Pail, I brought it to every game on Saturdays. Pretty soon, in addition to some VT banners and flags, it became a staple at our Saturday game watching gatherings, along with playing Enter Sandman, turkey calls and the Tech Triumph over the bars P.A. system.

My wife knows how much Hokie football means to me. Even though a California girl, she has lived in Blacksburg, and we both have spent extensive time on VT’s campus doing campus ministry work in the early 90’s. She “gets” Hokie love, but is just not a “sports girl.”

She spent her childhood in Long Island, NY and only has a soft spot for Hockey. She used to play street hockey (she was the only one on her block who could skate well) and after she moved to Los Angeles in 1980, she used to pay $12 to see “the Great One” play at the Forum. She even made a hockey fan out of me. That is the full extent of any sports affection she can muster.

She can’t stand basketball (one of my other favorite sports) because of the “squeaks” that the shoes make on the wood floors. She made a small allowance for it when we were the team chaplains for the RU women’s basketball team for 2 seasons.

She doesn’t understand my devotion to my sports teams, but she knows where I’ll be on almost every Saturday (and occasional Thursday nights) in the fall through the first of the year and gives me her blessing, even though at times she has posed the question, “If Hokies football and I were hanging off a cliff…”

Fast forward to the Thursday of the Belk Bowl. I’ve already set my Facebook cover photo and profile pic to VT themes and I’m super excited to drive from “the Valley” to Hermosa Beach to hang with my old and new Hokie friends to watch VT take on Arkansas.

Arkansas fans and writers have been trash talking all week about how they were disappointed to be playing the Hokies and wrote some really unflattering stuff about us:

https://www.seccountry.com/arkansas/10-things-hate-virginia-tech-u-bowl-primer

My wife and I were house sitting for a new friend at her place in Burbank. Almost all of our stuff is in a giant storage container a county away and the rest is piled high in our two vehicles. I usually take my Jeep Wrangler to the games, adorned with Hokie wind socks, Hokie flags and Hokie magnets (my VT tire cover wore out last year). The Pail usually rides shotgun with me.

But now I’m driving for Uber and I planned on doing some driving after the Bowl game, so I jumped into my newly bought Kia Optima Hybrid (soooo much more gas efficient for the traffic laden freeways here in SoCal!) and was on my way, at 1 pm on Thursday.

Here was my first faux pas: I was convinced that the game was being played at 5:30 p.m. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME. Usually my phone and all the websites I frequent make adjustments automatically for the fact that I’m on the West Coast.

So when I check schedules for events, such as TV shows, sporting events, Bowl Games, etc.it shows me the PST times… but not this week.

This is L.A. mind you. There is traffic at ANY time you are on the road. I’m thinking in my head, “I’ve got TONS of time to get down to the South Bay… run some errands, get a good parking spot WAY BEFORE the game starts. It’s now 1:30 pm PST and I check the ESPN Radio station to see if there is any pre-game chatter about our Bowl game.

There sure is: “The game gets under way in an hour.”
WHAT?!?!

A tiny bit of nervousness kicks in. I still think I can roll in just in time for kickoff, if I turn my Waze on and hit some side streets to avoid the freeway backups.

That’s when it hits me. I look over and realize that the PAIL is missing! All of my Hokie stuff is in the Jeep. I’m not in the Jeep. There is no turning back, because that would mean rolling into the game sometime in the 3rd Quarter. Whatever is between nervous and panic is where I am now.

Walking into the Pub without the Pail is like walking into a hungry lion’s den with no food. I know the ridicule that awaits. I missed the GT game this year because I was helping my wife with an estate sale that she was in charge of. We all know what happened there.
As traffic gets the best of me, I listen to the beginning of game on the radio and roll into the parking garage across the street as the Hokies are down 3-0. I run over to the Pub and try to walk in nonchalantly. It didn’t work.

My friend Tawab immediately notices that I am sans Pail. With eyes as big as saucers, he exclaims “Dude, where is the Pail?!”

Ummm… well… you see…

Death stares ensue. I had one job. ONE job!

Pail fail.

As the time rolls off the clock in the game and the points pile up for our opponents, I’m getting more and more sideways cutting looks from my normally buddy-buddy peeps. For every bad thing that happened in the first half, I get more icy looks and cold shoulders. Down 24-0 at the half, this one is starting to cut deep. How could I have blown it?

I went through various redemption scenarios during the entire first half. Call my wife and have her drive 2 hours in L.A. rush hour traffic to bring me the pail. Hahahaha…No. Call an Uber and have them drive me the pail at a cost of $100. Nope. I was beginning to lose hope and was drafting my pail guardian resignation speech in my head.

But as Macho Harris once exclaimed after the regular season loss to BC in 2007, “It’s a minor setback for a major comeback!” We all know what happened then… Lightning struck and it did at halftime of the Belk Bowl.

Faces are glum. Spirits are down. We are unusually quiet (and that does NOT happen at our watch gatherings!). Suddenly Tawab turns to me with an illuminated light bulb over his head.

“Dude, call your wife. Tell her to dig out the Pail, put it front of the game on TV, take a picture of it and send it to your phone.”
In my head, I’m laughing hysterically. Not at Tawab’s idea, but at the thought of calling my wife, who is probably a few hours into chick movies with her mom, and telling her to do such a thing.
But I’m desperate. WE are desperate! Desperate times require desperate measures.

But desperation only goes so far. I text my wife the request. And the reply comes back:

“Are you serious?”

Serious as a heart attack. Please.

She already knows that I forgot the Pail. She knows that the Hokies are down 24-0 at halftime.

That’s when my sports hating wife single handily saved the Hokies at the Belk Bowl.

The pic arrives on my phone. It’s still halftime, so the second half hasn’t even started yet. But that doesn’t matter. The Pail has arrived (in a manner of speaking).

The picture was even prophetic. It’s the bottom half of Coach Fuente’s shirt during his interview before the start of the second half, where it simply reads “Hokies.” Underneath that is the Pail, which simply reads “Win.”

There it is! Hokies. Win. It’s over Johnny.

Arkansas doesn’t realize it yet. They are coming out of their locker room with smug looks, and they have no idea that there is a Hokie truck barreling right at them at 100 miles per hour.

The picture makes its rounds to our gathering of Hokie faithful.

Third downs turn the bar into a cacophony of yelling and screaming and key shaking. With each turnover and touchdown, more and more euphoria erupts. Every first down leads to a cheer. “Let’s go! Hok-ies!” resounds with every positive play and Hokie score.

Fumble. Touchdown. Interception. Touchdown. 24-14.

Interception. Touchdown. Punt. Touchdown. Fumble. Touchdown.
35-24 Hokies.

35 unanswered points.

After each score, I text my wife to tell her of the progress and how her small act of kindness has saved the day. She knows that it meant something to me to fulfill this “crazy” request. I even think her “sports heart” may have even grown 3 sizes that day.

I don’t carry losses around for weeks at a time like I used to 10 years ago, but this one would have stung and lingered had the Hokies not pulled it out.

You may not be superstitious. I’m not. But the power of the pail is undeniable. I may even have to sleep with the Pail under my pillow from now on. Thanks Babe! You helped thousands of Hokie fans to have a great offseason. Well, you and the Pail.