“The best blocking back we’ll ever face.” – Alabama Coach Paul Bear Bryant-

“I will always remember Fitzgerald running that trap up the middle. He killed everybody with it.” – Bobby Bowden Florida State-

The Incredible Hulk.

The Mick.

Fitz’.

This guy was a 6`2“ 255 lb. Chicago Maroon Brahma-bull that nobody managed to olé. A total beast wearing #88 stampeding anyone brave or perhaps insane enough to get in his way. Mickey Fitzgerald was a helluva a true old-school Fullback (Fb). But the man that is Mr. Fitzgerald and what he has done post-VT and football participation might just impress you all the more. (more…)

I was thinking the other day about a comedy piece that I ran the summer before Tech’s 1999 football season. I titled it “That Championship Season,” and while it was intended to be just a humorous piece, it unexpectedly foreshadowed VT’s run to the national championship game. I ran that column in the old HokieCentral.com Members Only section, which was the first ever pay content on TSL (known as HokieCentral.com at the time, from March of 1996 until November of 2000).

We do a great job of archiving old content here at TSL, but the Members Only archives slipped through the cracks … until now. This feature is s one of the better examples of the old Members Only content (not to be confused with the 1980s Members Only jackets that we all remember and, er, love so well).

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We were talking about the Sports Illustrated Vault — an amazing web site — on the TSL Pass Subscriber’s board, and I linked to one of my favorite all-time SI articles, a feature from 1982 called “Whatever Happened to the Sugar Land Express?” The article detailed the incredible high school career of Ken Hall from Sugar Land (TX) High School. The article detailed the many high school rushing records held by Hall (as of 1982), including the record for touchdowns in a season, with 57. That led to some questions on the board …

Namely, “Does that mean that [Tech running back] Darren Evans broke Hall’s record” with his 61 touchdowns rushing as a senior at Warren Central High School in Indianapolis, IN? Yes, it does … sort of. (more…)

Virginia Tech’s Malcolm Delaney has now nailed 25 of 26 free throws in his last two games and 36 of 38 in his last four games. His 87.1% average from the line is second in the ACC and one of the more impressive free throw averages in memory. It brings up the question: where does Delaney’s accuracy from the line place him all-time at Virginia Tech, and what records is he on pace to set?

87.1% is darned impressive, and it sent me to the Tech record books to see where it ranks. The short answer is that the last Hokie player to shoot better than 87.1% was Tech forward (and sometimes center) Bobby Beecher, way back in the 1982-83 season. Beecher made an incredible 73-of-80 free throws that season, good for 91.3%.

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Here’s an interesting item that made its way into our Inbox. It’s a letter from three former Hokies (Xavier Adibi, Duane Brown and Brandon Flowers) that simply says thanks to the VT community. It’s in PDF format and is about 3 MB in size, so it will take a while to load, but check it out — click here to take a look.

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I got a piece of history in my mailbox recently: the final issue of the Hokie Huddler, “The official newspaper of Virginia Tech athletics since 1984.” Fittingly, the weekly newspaper’s final issue came at the end of its 25th year of publication, and the fact that it passed quietly, without any mention on the TSL message boards, says a lot about how the world has changed and how far the Huddler has fallen in stature over the years.

To be honest, the “Hokie Huddler” died on July 24, 2000. That’s the date on the last issue that was called the “Hokie Huddler,” and it ended the17th volume (or year) of the publication of the Huddler. At that point in time, the publication changed its name to “hokiesports.com the newspaper,” still one of the most awkward names in the history of publishing, for the 2000-2001 academic year. Even after the name was “shortened” to just “hokiesports the newspaper” for 2002-03, it still remained cumbersome and awkward, and many of us old-schoolers still lament the loss of the charming Hokie Huddler name. (more…)

We interviewed Tommy Edwards for almost an hour in preparation for the article “For Tommy Edwards, Things Come Full Circle.” We included a lot of the material from the interview in the article, but we thought you might be interested in reading the entire interview. Questions are not included, but Tommy’s responses are, in the order in which he said things. (In the article, we rearranged some of the order of the comments for better editorial flow.)

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Virginia Tech basketball has achieved some great things in five years under Seth Greenberg, and last night, they added another notch to their belt: consecutive 20-win seasons, for the first time since 1994-95 and 1995-96. That’s not a big deal for many programs, but for the Hokies, it’s another step in the construction process that is underway.

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Branden Ore’s hanging by a thread with regards to the Virginia Tech football program, and he has been in and out of the doghouse over the years. Branden hasn’t applied himself at all times, has often struggled with the academic side of football, and has broken team rules. I’ve always thought that in general, Frank Beamer was too lenient with the players in his care, though I understand his viewpoint on things. That brings up the question: How would you handle discipline in a major college football program? (more…)

Dateline 13 September, 1986: how many of you were in Death Valley for this pic??? (more…)