Virginia Tech hired Frank Beamer in December 1986 to take over a football program rocked with scandal and on NCAA probation. After the 1992 season, many assumed the university administration would fire him when the Hokies finished the year with a 2-8-1 record. The ad-ministration was patient. Starting in 1993, the Virginia Tech football team set upon a path that would lead to the National Championship game of 1999 played on January 4, 2000, at the Sugar Bowl. This is the story of the games played between 1992 and that January night when, for a few minutes, Virginia Tech reached the pinnacle of the college football world. While Frank Beamer never won a national championship as coach, this book is about the teams that put Beamer and the Hokies in the stratosphere where dreams became goals, and the quest for those goals changed a university.

Did you know that the Virginia Tech Hokies have played at Lane Stadium since 1965? Lane Stadium is one of the loudest stadiums in college football. Learn more about this college team’s history, traditions, uniforms, team records, coaches, and legendary players in Virginia Tech Hokies, part of the Inside College Football series.

Gridiron football is the king of sports – it's the biggest game in the strongest and richest country in the world. In The King of Sports, Easterbrook tells the full story of how football became so deeply ingrained in American culture. Both good and bad, he examines its impact on American society. The King of Sports explores these and many other topics: * The real harm done by concussions (it's not to NFL players). * The real way in which college football players are exploited (it's not by not being paid). * The way football helps American colleges (it's not bowl revenue) and American cities (it's not Super Bowl wins). * What happens to players who are used up and thrown away (it's not pretty). * The hidden scandal of the NFL (it's worse than you think). Using his year-long exclusive insider access to the Virginia Tech football program, where Frank Beamer has compiled the most victories of any active NFL or major-college head coach while also graduating players, Easterbrook shows how one big university "does football right." Then he reports on what's wrong with football at the youth, high school, college and professional levels. Easterbrook holds up examples of coaches and programs who put the athletes first and still win; he presents solutions to these issues and many more, showing a clear path forward for the sport as a whole.

Virginia Tech’s Shayne Graham trots onto the field at West Virginia on November 6, 1999, with two thoughts in his mind. One is a missed field goal that would have beaten Miami a year earlier. The other is the 44-yard field goal he is about to try against the Mountaineers, a kick he must make if the Hokies are to stay unbeaten and on track for a national championship. Head down, he focuses on his mark as the ball is snapped. He steps forward, the dream of an entire team resting with his leg. Now, hear Graham’s memory of that kick in his own words, for the first time. Game of My Life: Virginia Tech Hokies, first published in 2006, celebrates the extraordinary football and basketball moments that have shaped the college’s rich athletic heritage. Through interviews with some of the school’s most prestigious athletes, Hokies fans can relive the big games that defined the school’s winning tradition. Carroll Dale, later a fixture with the Green Bay Packers, dove—arms outstretched—to haul in a crucial two-point conversion in a 1957 game against the University of Richmond. Les Henson shot from the baseline—the other baseline—as the clock neared zero against Florida State in 1980. Chris Smith went well beyond the "double-double" standard for points and rebounds. How about 30 and 31 against Marshall in 1959? Corey Moore made life miserable for Clemson quarterback Brandon Streeter one night in 1999. Bruce Smith did the same for Duke quarterback Ben Bennett in 1983. The Hokies’ Jim Pyne, meanwhile, made sure Syracuse’s Kevin Mitchell didn’t do the same to Tech quarterback Maurice DeShazo in 1993. Carlos Dixon, Mike Imoh, Andre Davis, Dell Curry, Bryan Still, Don Strock, Bryan Randall—all the Tech greats from the gridiron and hardwood—are in these pages, including coach Frank Beamer. Join thousands of Virginia Tech fans in remembering these cherished stories. For the athletes within, these truly were the games of their lives. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

The Orange Bowl has been played 88 times since 1935. Originating as the small Festival of Palms Bowl, meant to attract tourists to Miami, it has grown into a national football event watched by 16 million people. Beginning with Bucknell's first victory over Miami, this book covers each Bowl in detail, including the first game in Miami Orange Bowl stadium in 1938; Charles Bryant's breaking of the color barrier in 1955; the four national championship games of the 1980s; the move to what is now Hard Rock Stadium in the 1990s; and the new era of the Bowl as a semifinal game in the College Football Playoff.

What started with a bunch of gangly teens playing ball on a plowed wheat field has become one of the most exciting powerhouses in college football history. Fans of this raucous and indomitable team get to relive all the great moments with this revised edition of Tales from the Virginia Tech Sideline. Virginia Tech alum and former editor of the Hokie Huddler Chris Colston shares the school’s greatest football stories and anecdotes. From the days of Miles Stadium to Beamerball, fans will recapture all the excitement of the most well known games.

132 untold stories and 475 rare illustrations offer a completely new perspective on the Civil War.

A team of award-winning sports reporters takes down the Great Satan of college sports: the Bowl Championship Series. Every college sport picks its champion by a postseason tournament, except for one: Division I-A football. Instead of a tournament, fans are subjected to the Bowl Championship Series, an arcane mix of polling and mathematical rankings that results in just two teams playing for the championship. It is, without a doubt, the most hated institution in all of sports. A recent Sports Illustrated poll found that more than 90 percent of sports fans oppose the BCS, yet this system has remained in place for more than a decade. Built upon top-notch investigative reporting, Death to the BCS at last reveals the truth about this monstrous entity and offers a simple solution for fixing it. Death to the BCS includes findings from interviews with power players, as well as research into federal tax records, Congressional testimony, and private contracts, revealing: ?The truth behind the "Cartel"-the anonymous suits who run the BCS and who profit handsomely by protecting it ?The flawed math and corruption that determine which teams participate in the national championship ?How the system hurts competition by perpetuating "cupcake" schedules ?How "mid-major" teams are systematically denied a chance to play for the championship ?How a comprehensive sixteen-team playoff plan can solve the problem while enhancing profitability The first book to lay out the unseemly inner workings of the BCS in full detail, Death to the BCS is a rousing manifesto for bringing fairness back to one of our most beloved sports.