Nick Brown

Again, we searched EVERY hotel within the 30-mile radius and they are ALL booked solid.

30-mile radius, we included Dublin.

It’s a town of Blacksburg problem. It is not a Virginia Tech, athletic department or University problem.

To what you said about the town of Blacksburg… I could go on a LOOOONG tangent about the many issues within the town.

I first want to give props to Sam Mostow and Carter Hill, as we spent nearly an entire day back in March sifting through the bookings of every single hotel within the NCAA's 30-mile radius. We quickly discovered that there were blatantly not enough hotel rooms available to host. Around the same time, we also heard rumblings of Virginia Tech possibily facing the problem of being unable to host due to this issue. We kept it quiet because there was nothing DEFEINITIVE to report. However, we did our due diligence through proper channels to receive confirmation. We eventually did not receive what we deemed as enough evidence to report on. I apologize for being vague/elusive on this board when the topic of hosting would arise. There was not enough HARD PROOF to straight up say that Virginia Tech was unable to host. Virginia Tech did its best, but at the end of the day, graduation is the biggest weekend of the year for Virginia Tech/surrounding area (yes, bigger than any football game), and it would have taken planning more than a year in advance to pull off a regional on the same weekend. (You may argue that this could have been done or not.) I am also not coming on here to blast Virginia Tech because I understand that it is a logistical NIGHTMARE to pull off a regional with commencement happening directly across the street at the same time. I have been PA announcing multiple Virginia Tech sports for the past five years, and I have built fantastic relationships with many people in marketing, Hokie Vision and game operations. Many of them have to work on graduation because of the sheer magnitude of the weekend. On top of that, almost ALL of the paid/unpaid interns in the athletic department will be gone for the summer after they take their final exams; therefore, the number of employees for sporting events shrinks quickly. Is it possible to host a regional with graduation happening at the same time? Yes, it certainly is, and could have been possible by preparing for this in the summer of last year. However, Virginia Tech did its best to make it happen, but ultimately the NCAA dug its heels in (for the first time) and stuck to its rules, which are there for a reason. At the end of the day, the NCAA deemed the Hokies as the 17th team in the bracket, and this didn't end up mattering. It's still SEC bias, and the Hokies have shown plenty of times this year that they are capable of not only beating SEC teams like LSU, but also crushing them in the process. ** Edited by Nick Brown at 5/11/2026, 10:20:47 AM

Carter Hill and I took the labor of looking at every ADEQUATE hotel within the 30 mile radius. Every half-decent hotel was fully booked through Saturday and almost all of them were fully booked through the entire weekend.

They only offer the air-conditioned rooms, and I highly doubt the NCAA would allow Tech to host teams, umpires, etc., in non-air-conditioned rooms. They also seem to have been sold out this year. ** Edited by Nick Brown at 5/6/2026, 12:37:39 PM

the English Field renovation and SAPC.

Now, a Tech Softball Park renovation is realistically way down on Virginia Tech athletics' list of priorities. It sucks, but I would expect a brand-new basketball arena or a major Cassell renovation, before a softball renovation, unless a big donor steps up specifically for softball.

My good friend from freshman year, Stratis Bohle, is conducting interviews for his video documentary on the Virginia Tech/VMI rivalry. Here is his message below on how to get involved. (He is also on the message boards quite a bit) Hello, My name is Stratis Bohle, and I’m conducting interviews as part of a research project that aims to document the end of the rivalry between VMI and Virginia Tech. We are looking for anything and everything you remember of your time in Blacksburg till the end of the 1980s, as even simple stories about student life allows us to contrast the time periods from the rivalry's heyday to its end. This project originated as a term paper for an undergraduate class and then evolved into an undergraduate research paper that was presented at Mississippi State University. Now, I am collaborating with Tech Sideline to publish it professionally in September. If you’re interested in participating, we’re looking to use your interviews for both the TSL article that will be published on their website and a video documentary that will be uploaded to their YouTube channel. Additionally, if you’d like, we’ll donate all the interviews to the Virginia Tech Special Collections at Newman Library. They’ve agreed to share the materials with the VMI museum, considering the shared history of this project. Some of our interviewees, listed alphabetically, include: - Frank Beamer - Buddy Blanton - David Braine - Wayne Brim - Homer Hickam - Robert Hume - David Lowe - Bill Mullins - Larry Root - Richard Roszak - Tom Verbeck We hope you’ll be interested in participating in this project. If you are, I'll be conducting interviews during the weekend (April 17-19) of the Spring Game and the week and weekend (May 13-18) of Commencement this May. My email for the project: [email protected]

This means that super regionals will be played the weekend of May 22-24 and regionals will be the weekend of May 15-17. Virginia Tech's spring commencement in Lane Stadium is scheduled for Friday, May 15 and the school specific graduations will not be finished until the 16th.... ** Edited by Nick Brown at 3/23/2026, 12:51:52 PM

** Edited by Nick Brown at 3/23/2026, 11:09:11 AM

enough with the event ending at 10:45 p.m. One of our interns, Cody Wagner, also works for the ACCN at Virginia Tech. He had to report to Cassell at 6 a.m. on Sunday. He did not leave Cassell until roughly 11:30 p.m. That is ridiculous. I also noticed how many kids were at Cassell on Sunday. There were way too many at the championship round on a school night. If you want to maximize attendance and viewership, have the championship round at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. The only other event going on that weekend is the ACC WBB Tournament which the semifinals on Saturday are broadcasted on ESPN2 and the finals on Sunday are on ESPN. The ACCN is wide open for the wrestling tournament all weekend. Moving it to a two day event is also inconsequential because only the finals are broadcasted on linear (ACCN) with the rest only available on streaming.

will have no choice, but to weigh the conference tournament results.

the difference in attendance when UNC and NC State play. They PACK the coliseum.

If you have any questions for the head man please drop them below. ** Edited by Nick Brown at 2/25/2026, 11:54:49 AM

are terrible at calling games over the slightest slip-ups.

I know this board sometimes loves to rip into the student broadcasters at Virginia Tech, but please watch this video that I linked to show how blessed we truly are. Our students are fantastic and under appreciated at what they do.

largest margin of victory was last season's 36-3 win.

They sniffed that record twice in '22-'23 and 23'-24 when they beat Duke 45-0 in back-to-back seasons.

this opportunity at Tech.