Sam DeLuke

It’s hard to explain a small border town between Virginia and West Virginia. The more I talk, the further from it I get. Then Enter Sandman starts in Lane, and there it is.People will tell you the Hokie entrance is one of the best things in sports. Here’s the secret. It isn’t the song. It isn’t the team. Other schools have borrowed Metallica. It never hits the same. A 3-9 team still had Enter Sandman. People still came. “The team was ass. Not that bad,” Lawal said. Hokies knew what he meant. What you hear in that stadium is coal towns, little factories, farm country. From the Shenandoah Valley out toward the Gap and the Smokies. People who meant it when they said this is home. A lot of places want your money and then want you gone. Around here, if you showed up and worked, you were in. You built the place up, they picked you up when you stumbled. You could tell a stranger about your day and they’d listen. That kind of pride has thinned out, so have a lot of those towns. On Saturday nights in Lane, it still shows. So put the phones down while in Lane, it's on television and being recorded. Feel the electricity in the air! There used to be four notes when the cadets and the band stomped and yelled hooah. That’s what made the Hokie Quake. I only ever saw that kind of togetherness one other time, watching the opening of Beijing Olympics on a TV. They’re pouring money into this program again. Keep the part that already belonged to us. Let it run through the stands the way it used to.