Ed Wang, a former Virginia Tech offensive tackle who now plays for the Buffalo Bills, attended a State Department luncheon in honor of Hu Jintao, the president of China, on Jan. 19 in the Ben Franklin Room at the State Department main office in Washington, D.C. Wang took his parents, Robert and Nancy, who are natives of China and were members of the Chinese Olympic team that competed in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
“It was cool,” Wang said. “There were a lot of people there that I didn’t know would be there, like Yo-Yo Ma [a famous cellist] and Vera Wang [fashion designer]. It was cool to meet all those people.”
Those at the luncheon included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder. More importantly, Wang got to meet Jintao. He presented Jintao with an autographed football and spoke briefly to the leader of the world’s most populated country. Wang speaks Mandarin fluently.
“I just asked him how he was doing,” Wang said. “I told him it was nice to meet him, and my parents got to meet him, too. It was just a great honor to meet him.”
Wang also got to engage in one-on-one conversations with Clinton and Biden. He thanked Clinton for making reference to him in a speech in China back in May and talked football with Biden.
“He’s a funny guy,” Wang said. “He told me he’d have been an All-American [at Delaware] if he had had me blocking in front of him.”
Wang became the NFL’s first player of full-blooded Chinese descent when the Bills took him in the fifth round of last year’s NFL Draft. He has been to China a couple of times and plans on heading back there on Feb. 21 to visit family in Beijing and Shanghai. He’s been working with the NFL and Under Armour on a couple of projects related to China.
Wang played in six games for the Bills this past season. A sprained ankle and a torn ligament in his thumb limited his opportunities.
Three enroll in January
The Virginia Tech football program added three new members for the spring semester – defensive end Justin Taylor from Norwood, N.C; offensive lineman Caleb Farris from Fairfield, Va.; and defensive back Adeboye Aromire from Washington, D.C. Taylor and Farris signed with the Hokies last February, with Taylor attending Hargrave Military Academy to take care of some class work and Farris deciding to defer enrollment.
Aromire decided to graduate from high school and enroll at Tech early. He was rated the No. 3 prospect in Washington, D.C., and the No. 32 cornerback prospect in the nation by Rivals.
Olympic sports viewing
The Virginia Tech athletics department will be live streaming various Olympic sporting games over the hokiesports.com Web site this spring. For those interested in watching select baseball, softball, lacrosse, track and field, men’s and women’s tennis, and wrestling, please subscribe to Hokies All-Access (www.hokiesports.com/allaccess/). Here’s a list of events slated to be live streamed:
Baseball:
March 16 - vs. Hartford
March 18 - vs. North Carolina
March 19 - vs. North Carolina
March 20 - vs. North Carolina
March 29 - vs. Radford
April 3 - vs. Virginia
April 17 - vs. Florida State
Softball:
March 23 - vs. Cornell (both games of DH)
April 10 - vs. Georgia Tech
April 30 - vs. Maryland (both games of DH)
Lacrosse:
March 2 - vs. James Madison
March 5 - vs. George Washington
March 26 - vs. Old Dominion
Track & Field:
Feb. 25 - ACC Indoor Championships
Feb. 26 - ACC Indoor Championships
Men's Tennis:
Feb. 20 - vs. Penn State
Women's Tennis:
Feb. 19 - vs. Maryland
Feb. 20 - vs. UMBC
Wrestling:
Feb. 12 - vs. NC State
Feb. 12 - vs. Duke
