My sympathies to all my VT friends!

Yesterday was one of the most tragic days in American history. We saw first hand what unfettered access to guns and someone with no regard for human life can do. 32 people who woke up thinking it was going to just be another dreary Monday are now gone forever, lives taken by a South Korean English major who did this for reasons we may never fully understand. What is so hard for me to believe is this happened at a university with which I am fairly familiar. Growing up in Southern Virginia, most of your friends from high school go off to become Hokies. Most cars back home have Hokie stickers and most houses fly the Hokie flag. Some of us go off to other schools...me to the University of Virginia and spend the next four years arguing with your Hokie friends about why UVA is so much better than VT. Or you spend every single Monday after Thanksgiving weekend bragging about beating or hiding because you lost to VT again in football. It's classic in state rivalry that no one seems to understand unless you're a Hokie or a Cavalier. No matter how competitive we are with each other, we feel for each other in times like this. Yesterday, whether you're a Cavalier from UVA, a Duke from JMU, a Patriot from Mason or hell even a whatever William & Mary students are called from down there in Williamsburg, you remember all your friends who are Hokies knowing that no matter where they are, this is an even sadder day for them than for the rest of America.

I might be a Wahoo, but today my thoughts and my sympathies are for all my Hokie friends and family.