The calendar has now, finally, flipped to August. T. S. Eliot had it wrong: August is the cruelest month. Aside from yet another month to endure of stifling heat and stupendous air conditioning bills, we are in that last, agonizing month before the start of another football season. One can easily imagine full stadiums [well, [...]
The A-Line is taking a break. It will return when it returns, unless it does not.
North Carolina snapped a three-game bowl losing streak by defeating Tennessee in double overtime in the Music City Bowl. As strange as the Tar Heels actually winning a bowl game was the bizarre manner in which the game’s regulation ended. As the clock ticked down and the Carolina sideline engaged in what long-time Butch-watchers immediately [...]
It has been an interesting couple of weeks. As Virginia Tech celebrates yet another ACC championship and Hokie fans scramble for reasonably-priced Orange Bowl tickets, i.e., those not for sale by Tech, things are once again jumping around the rest of the league. Alarms have been raised at Tech as the university prepares to eat [...]
It certainly was a very interesting Thanksgiving holiday. Four days worth of riding back and forth, up and down Christiansburg Hill between Roanoke and Blacksburg, interspersed with excellent ways of spending my time does make for one. My Thanksgiving got off to a rousing start. I was invited to take the holiday meal with four- [...]
It was an interesting Saturday. For the second time this year, the distances along I-95 to where Virginia Tech was judged to be just a bit far. For the second time this year, a Saturday afternoon was spent in my recliner observing two games on my Bravia. All in all, it was not a bad [...]
Last weekend was the occasion of Tech’s biannual visit to the University of North Carolina at the People’s Republic of Chapel Hill. Both teams, as well as the tailgate company, pitched in to ensure it was another good one. I relish all Hokie games in the Old North State, in large part because any of [...]
Well, it was Halloween. The ACC staged a fairly-eventful weekend of football, a zany few days of tricks played on most of the favorites and a rather large treat awarded to one team. The main beneficiary of the action was Virginia Tech. Through no fault of its own, the Hokies saw their Coastal Division lead [...]
Now comes the hard part. After spending from the middle of September through October pounding a succession of weak teams, with the only resistance coming in Raleigh, Virginia Tech now prepares for the November from the nether regions. Next up, a Thursday night visit from Georgia Tech. As we take a week off to ponder [...]
Before Tech, there was Tunstall. I am a graduate of Tunstall High School, a proud member of the Class of 1970. I attended back when Tunstall still numbered among its students a mix of rural and suburban. This was before development patterns caused in part by a general desire by many of the residents of [...]