On community
The toughest thing is the people who don’t understand.
Before it was rewritten under a night-shift editorial staff determined to further brutalize the situation, an insightful column by the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews described not just Virginia Tech’s up-and-coming public image, but the sense of unity there. As best I can recall, his original words mentioned that though the small-town location can occasionally be the subject of jokes around campus, the geographic isolation breeds a tight-knit community among those in Blacksburg, and nearly unmatched loyalty from those who have moved on (not to mention the fifty thousand who come back seven weekends every fall). Other schools have fans, sometimes an entire state full of them. We have the Hokie Nation — we are the Hokie Nation. And though that devotion may seem corny or even misplaced at times, my first thought at work when hearing the news was: who here is a Hokie? And when I realized there weren’t any around as the news got worse, it was time to leave.
SI.com’s Stewart Mandel came closest to that respectful tone in the Post’s stead, describing his own shock at seeing the campus he’s used to wandering in brief interludes during big game coverage appear so out of context. Blacksburg, to him, is a place you come for a vacation from the real world, and to some extent that’s been true.
But it’s even simpler than that for me. Blacksburg isn’t just a place I lived, or the dateline on my diploma, or a fall football destination, or where my brother goes to school, or even where I met my wife. It’s my home, and the people walking across campus in shock, or on the dais at a press conference trying to describe indescribable horrors, are my family.
And we hurt right now, but we’re still a family.
For news coverage with dignity, check:
image courtesy Rocky Top Talk