Found an article about it
The most revealing story about Frank Beamer has nothing to do with football. Not at the beginning, anyway.
That was 1954, long before Virginia Tech's 53-year-old coach had any idea how he would make his living or that one day he would play for a national championship.
A long scar running down the right side of Beamer's neck is a reminder of that episode. Yet somehow, it wasn't until the spotlight landed on him that his own son learned the details.
''He didn't like to talk about it,'' said Shane Beamer, who doubles as the long snapper for the Hokies, ''and I didn't want to ask.''
It isn't hard to understand why.
Frank Beamer was an easygoing 7-year-old growing up on a farm in the tiny town of Fancy Gap, Va., the passageway between two Appalachian peaks. One day, after helping his own father burn a pile of trash, Frank carried a smoldering broom back into the garage. It ignited a can of gasoline, causing an explosion that left him with severe burns on the right side of his neck, shoulder and chest.
Beamer's older brother, Barnett, probably saved his life. He had the presence of mind to roll Frank in the dirt and extinguish the flames. But the suffering was only beginning.
Over the next four years, Beamer underwent 30 operations, most of them skin grafts that didn't take. But every time he began to feel sorry for himself, Beamer's mother, an elementary school teacher, made him walk down the hall at the hospital. He always found someone in worse shape. Those memories steeled him for nearly every challenge that followed.
''The doctors said he might be able to walk, but that he definitely was through with sports. He was determined to prove them wrong and he did,'' Shane said. ''If he tells you he's going to do something, whether it's golf or football or even cooking out, it will happen. I see that determination in him now more than anything.''
This sort of thing happens every so often at the national championship. A coach with a chance to validate his credentials by winning the biggest game of his career comes in with a reputation but turns out to be very different.
All season, as Virginia Tech erased opponents and critics, the pictures relayed from the sidelines and post-game interviews in Blacksburg, Va., made Beamer look like the most regular of regular guys. Quiet. Content with his good fortune. Hoping he had many years ahead on the job.
And yet from the moment Beamer arrived in Blacksburg in 1987, his determination simmered just below the surface.
He recruited the local kids that big programs overlooked and taught them to overachieve. He hired defensive whiz Phil Elmassian a half-dozen years ago and gave him the freedom to play an attacking style. It became known as Beamer Ball, and soon other colleges were trying to imitate it.
Beamer told reporters who showed up for his first news conference at Virginia Tech that he would be playing for a national title. They snickered, but after seven straight bowl appearances, he's the one laughing now.
''I may be from a small town,'' Beamer said not long after his arrival in the Big Easy, ''but I don't think I've ever thought small.''
After that day in 1954, he could hardly afford to.
Beamer went on to play the games the doctors said he would not, and hasn't quit exceeding expectations since. He was a star quarterback in high school, a 5-foot-9, 170-pound starter at defensive back for Virginia Tech in the mid-1960s and the coach at Murray State. He then returned home to inherit a program the NCAA had just put on probation.
Beamer started in a rut and hit a handful of others on the way. He lost five of his first six games against rival Virginia. In his sixth year, he went 2-8-1 and learned that he wasn't the only one suffering the consequences.
Shane and daughter Casey caught flak from schoolmates and his wife, Cheryl, heard about her husband's shortcomings in the grocery aisles. When the phone started ringing at home, it bothered Beamer more than the losses.
''If they wanted to write him or call him, that's the way he wanted it to happen,'' Cheryl Beamer recalled. ''I was naive. I thought everybody was nice. So I had our number unlisted.'' Everybody knows where to find Beamer these days. He'll be the coach on the sideline at the Sugar Bowl looking calmer than he has a right to be.
The most revealing story about Frank Beamer has nothing to do with football. Not at the beginning, anyway.
That was 1954, long before Virginia Tech's 53-year-old coach had any idea how he would make his living or that one day he would play for a national championship.
A long scar running down the right side of Beamer's neck is a reminder of that episode. Yet somehow, it wasn't until the spotlight landed on him that his own son learned the details.
''He didn't like to talk about it,'' said Shane Beamer, who doubles as the long snapper for the Hokies, ''and I didn't want to ask.''
It isn't hard to understand why.
Frank Beamer was an easygoing 7-year-old growing up on a farm in the tiny town of Fancy Gap, Va., the passageway between two Appalachian peaks. One day, after helping his own father burn a pile of trash, Frank carried a smoldering broom back into the garage. It ignited a can of gasoline, causing an explosion that left him with severe burns on the right side of his neck, shoulder and chest.
Beamer's older brother, Barnett, probably saved his life. He had the presence of mind to roll Frank in the dirt and extinguish the flames. But the suffering was only beginning.
Over the next four years, Beamer underwent 30 operations, most of them skin grafts that didn't take. But every time he began to feel sorry for himself, Beamer's mother, an elementary school teacher, made him walk down the hall at the hospital. He always found someone in worse shape. Those memories steeled him for nearly every challenge that followed.
''The doctors said he might be able to walk, but that he definitely was through with sports. He was determined to prove them wrong and he did,'' Shane said. ''If he tells you he's going to do something, whether it's golf or football or even cooking out, it will happen. I see that determination in him now more than anything.''
This sort of thing happens every so often at the national championship. A coach with a chance to validate his credentials by winning the biggest game of his career comes in with a reputation but turns out to be very different.
All season, as Virginia Tech erased opponents and critics, the pictures relayed from the sidelines and post-game interviews in Blacksburg, Va., made Beamer look like the most regular of regular guys. Quiet. Content with his good fortune. Hoping he had many years ahead on the job.
And yet from the moment Beamer arrived in Blacksburg in 1987, his determination simmered just below the surface.
He recruited the local kids that big programs overlooked and taught them to overachieve. He hired defensive whiz Phil Elmassian a half-dozen years ago and gave him the freedom to play an attacking style. It became known as Beamer Ball, and soon other colleges were trying to imitate it.
Beamer told reporters who showed up for his first news conference at Virginia Tech that he would be playing for a national title. They snickered, but after seven straight bowl appearances, he's the one laughing now.
''I may be from a small town,'' Beamer said not long after his arrival in the Big Easy, ''but I don't think I've ever thought small.''
After that day in 1954, he could hardly afford to.
Beamer went on to play the games the doctors said he would not, and hasn't quit exceeding expectations since. He was a star quarterback in high school, a 5-foot-9, 170-pound starter at defensive back for Virginia Tech in the mid-1960s and the coach at Murray State. He then returned home to inherit a program the NCAA had just put on probation.
Beamer started in a rut and hit a handful of others on the way. He lost five of his first six games against rival Virginia. In his sixth year, he went 2-8-1 and learned that he wasn't the only one suffering the consequences.
Shane and daughter Casey caught flak from schoolmates and his wife, Cheryl, heard about her husband's shortcomings in the grocery aisles. When the phone started ringing at home, it bothered Beamer more than the losses.
''If they wanted to write him or call him, that's the way he wanted it to happen,'' Cheryl Beamer recalled. ''I was naive. I thought everybody was nice. So I had our number unlisted.'' Everybody knows where to find Beamer these days. He'll be the coach on the sideline at the Sugar Bowl looking calmer than he has a right to be.
I HAD LONG WONDERED WHAT HAPPENED TO FRANK BEAMERS FACE MYSELF. i thank you for the story. i respect that man even more than i did. what a horrible injury.i love terrys insight but he really did look like a bad cartoon character tonight. hes eatting very well at all the media partys.~RG
Nice story tenman,
30 operations, wow, hope that shuts up the jerks who make fun of him.
He actually saved a recruit who was burned in a fire and drove him to the hospital and the kid committed to Va. Tech. Wouldn't it be karma if that kid somehow made the play that gave the Hokies a national championship.
Vick's little brother is back in school and with 4 freshman WRs, the Hokies could be scary.
UVA will be scary good with a kid named Vic Hall they recruited at QB. Broke lots of Curry's records in Va.
30 operations, wow, hope that shuts up the jerks who make fun of him.
He actually saved a recruit who was burned in a fire and drove him to the hospital and the kid committed to Va. Tech. Wouldn't it be karma if that kid somehow made the play that gave the Hokies a national championship.
Vick's little brother is back in school and with 4 freshman WRs, the Hokies could be scary.
UVA will be scary good with a kid named Vic Hall they recruited at QB. Broke lots of Curry's records in Va.
