Gayle, Coleman lead charge at July camp

James Gayle and JC Coleman talk to campers at VT’s July 2013 camp

I always like going to recruiting camps at Virginia Tech.  Not necessarily to see high school prospects work out, but to see how Tech’s current players interact with them.  The Hokies are fortunate to have two great ambassadors of the program in James Gayle and J.C. Coleman .

Many current Tech players showed up at the camp today.  The list includes Augie Conte , Trey Edmunds , D.J. Coles , Brandon Facyson, Darius Redman , Bucky Hodges , and many others that would take too long to list.  However, nobody played as active a role in recruiting current high school athletes than James Gayle and J.C. Coleman .

Let’s start with Gayle.  This isn’t his first rodeo on the camp circuit.  Last summer he showed up at Tech’s June camp and never left Wyatt Teller ‘s side the entire time.  This time around he embraced the role of being the personal escort of 4-star defensive tackles Derrick Nnadi and Ricky Walker .

James Gayle hosts Derrick Nnadi and Ricky Walker

If the Hokies land both of those outstanding prospects, it will be due in no small measure to efforts of James Gayle .  Besides his excellent play on the field, he’s also doing all he can do to strengthen the program in future seasons by introducing highly-touted recruits into the Virginia Tech family atmosphere and culture.

J.C. Coleman is playing a big role in recruiting as well.  He hosted CJ Reavis in town on Friday night, and then was very active with prospects all day long on Saturday.  The Hokies are making a big push to get back into Oscar Smith High School, and Coleman is playing a big role.

At the end of the camp, Bryan Stinespring held a little Q&A session that allowed prospects to ask questions of Gayle and Coleman.  Both guys did a great job in basically what amounted to a public speaking role.  And leave it to James Gayle to take the opportunity to get in a subtle dig about our rivals to the northeast while speaking.  I couldn’t make out exactly what he said, but he said something about UVA, which led to a nice moment of laughter from all the camp attendees.  It was good stuff to witness, as a Tech fan.

Kudos to those guys for taking their time on a Blacksburg Saturday in the summer to help advance the program.

This camp wasn’t really about 2014 prospects.  Tech doesn’t have too many spots left this year, and they know who they want, so I didn’t spend a lot of time evaluating prospects.  That said, here are some notes to end this quick article.

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