This sort of thing happens every so often at the national championship. I see that determination in him now more than anything.'' ''If he tells you he's going to do something, whether it's golf or football or even cooking out, it will happen. He was determined to prove them wrong and he did,'' Shane said. ''The doctors said he might be able to walk, but that he definitely was through with sports. Those memories steeled him for nearly every challenge that followed. 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. Over the next four years, Beamer underwent 30 operations, most of them skin grafts that didn't take. He had the presence of mind to roll Frank in the dirt and extinguish the flames. 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.īeamer's older brother, Barnett, probably saved his life. One day, after helping his own father burn a pile of trash, Frank carried a smoldering broom back into the garage. ''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.''įrank 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. Yet somehow, it wasn't until the spotlight landed on him that his own son learned the details. 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.Ī long scar running down the right side of Beamer's neck is a reminder of that episode.
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