In light of yesterday's events at Virginia Tech, we're going to forego the next installment of the Getting to Know You series until tomorrow. Today, we review yesterday's rally of the college sports community around one of its own.
Sunday Morning Quarterback was the college sports blogosphere's point man yesterday, as he had continuous updates throughout the day and wrapped it all up in the evening. Orson tabled the comedy for the day and waxed philosophical, yet another thing at which he excels. Peter worked behind the scenes to get the mothballed SBN Virginia Tech blog, Blacksburg Beacon, flashing again, just in time for reader wmhokie1979 to post the outstanding That's Not My School in the diary section, which the ever-vigilant Peter promptly bumped to the front page. FanHouse Virginia Tech blogger Nick Dallamora gave us a first-hand account of the fear elicited by cryptic emails received during class from University administration. Several college football bloggers, and even some non-sports bloggers, observed a moment of silence.
And then there was Kyle, who, as college football's most-verbose blogger, doesn't do silence very well. And I say that with great affection and admiration, for Kyle, after utilizing Tom Wolfe's Hooking Up as a jumping off point to discuss the rampant localism generally permeating college football, eloquently said:
Nevertheless, time spent in the blogosphere can provide even to the most ardent localist newfound respect for other webloggers and other conferences, encouraging efforts to seek consensus and, amid the din of the clarion call identified by Wolfe ("Back to the blood!"), recognize fellow fans as blood brothers.Yes, as Mike first said and Kyle passionately seconded, we are all indeed Hokies today.Why do I find my thoughts turning to such mundane matters at the end of a day of national tragedy? Such notions began rattling around in the back of my brain after I read what Dave and Doug and Joel and Nestor and Orson and Peter and SMQ had to say about it and I kept coming back to what Mike wrote, because that's how I found out about it.
He wrote: "We're All Hokies Today." Had you given me a word-association test 24 hours ago, my response to "Virginia Tech" would have been "Peach Bowl," but today's events have put into perspective the notion of sports loyalties imbedded in our cultural D.N.A. and provided a chilling reminder that people may be bound by blood through catastrophe as well as through kinship.