I
did something unusual during Saturday's basketball game against Boston College:
I turned the TV off. When BC's Jared Dudley hit a layup to put the Eagles up
28-14 with 8:18 to go in the first half, I figured I knew how this story ended,
and I hit the Power button and went to do something else. I didn't turn it back
on until there were six minutes left to go and things had been decided a long
time ago.
I never turn off VT football games. I've seen some real train wrecks,
including last year's 22-3 embarrassment at Boston College, but I never turn it
off early or leave early. I sat through UNC's 42-3 humiliation of the Hokies in
the 1997 Gator Bowl, and I didn't leave before it was over, despite having the
most obnoxious Hokie "fan" I've ever seen in my life sitting behind
me. (I eventually asked him nicely to be quiet, and he apologized and turned
down the volume on his constant spewing of criticism.) I sat through the 27-7
Miami game in 2005. The last VT football game I left early was Virginia's 1991
whitewashing of the Hokies, a 38-0 debacle that had me exiting my seat mid-third
quarter. Getting trashed in Charlottesville is hard to take.