Since I’ve been seeing Shane Beamer’s name brought up a bunch of late, here’s my take as it relates to him ever coaching in Blacksburg:
Imagine if you will, your Dad owned a big company and when you got out of school, you immediately went to work for him. In your youth, you may have done a few knucklehead things, maybe even played the Dad card a little too much, but eventually matured, left for another company and made a name for yourself.
Now imagine 20 years have gone by, you’re successfully running your own company, but when you come back home to see your Dad and you visit his old company, the older people there still remember you as a 22-year-old knucklehead, not the 45-year-old accomplished professional you’ve become.
I think this is some of what Shane Beamer would run into if he ever came back to the small-town atmosphere of Blacksburg. Some of those old-timers with long memories, in fact, probably still work at Merryman, and it’s not like you can just say “well, then he should fire them.” They are probably long-time friends with Frank, and it would be like coming home and firing your cousin or uncle.
I’m a big fan of Shane and would love to see him continue to grow the Beamer name in college football. But dealing with that, along with the risk of affecting his Dad’s legacy should he not be successful, would be reasons I think it might be best for Shane to not come back to the town he grew up in.
It’s a tired old phrase, but there’s a reason why people say “you can’t go home again.”
