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Inside Hokie Sports
We seek new beginnings in our lives in
many ways. Often this pursuit takes a subtle
form, but sometimes our ambition alters
virtually everything. It may be a new exercise
regimen, a job change, or even a geographic
relocation.
Justin Fuente has experienced a significant
new beginning in the past year and is now
on the cusp of leading the Hokies’ football
program into a new era. I imagine it is
equal parts daunting and exhilarating. As
that beginning approached, I found myself
reflecting on my encounters with Fuente over
the past few months—encounters that have
brought me to a place of great excitement in
terms of the direction of the football program,
the Virginia Tech IMG Sports Network, and in
one significant case, my personal health.
My biggest pet peeve always has been a
reluctance to explore new ideas. It isn’t that
places I have been, or the people whom I have
succeeded, haven’t had great success. But I
shudder when I hear someone say, “that is the
way it has always been done” without taking
the time to explore whether there might be
avenues that would lead to improvement.
Virginia Tech football is a prime example
of that. There is absolutely no disputing the
heights to which Frank Beamer elevated the
program, the university, and in countless
ways, the region as a whole. The same is true
of my predecessor, Bill Roth, who is among
the greatest voices that collegiate athletics has
ever known.
So there is a tremendous baseline of success
that both Fuente and I have followed and that
demands the acknowledgement of the traditions
and structure that such success was built upon.
However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t
ways inwhich things can be examined, modified,
and in some cases, improved.
In my first year, I arrived too late to look
too much into the way we formatted our
broadcasts. There were definitely directions I
felt we could go to advance our broadcast, but
there simply wasn’t time and so we essentially
worked off the format that had been used
successfully for years.
Fuente’s hiring presented an opportunity
to innovate. The only issue would be his
willingness to allow us that freedom. There
are many reasons why I know that Tech hired
the right man and this would soon prove to be
one of them.
Fuente and I sat down in May to discuss
broadcast formats and what I felt we needed
from not only him, but the other members of
his program as well. I quickly realized that we
were kindred spirits. I bashfully requested
that we do a separate television interview with
him following games rather than simulcast the
radio interview, as has been done in the past.
It would require an additional 10 minutes of
his postgame time, which may not seem like a
big deal, but in the fast-paced world in which
he operates, is. He nodded his approval. I
asked about moving our scheduled pregame
interview back a couple of days, so it would
be timelier in relation to that week’s game.
Having gotten the reaction I sought, I pressed
my luck and inquired about a few shoot-for-
the-moon ideas in terms of access. At one
point, he stopped me and said, “Jon, I’m all in.
I get what you’re trying to do and we will do
everything we can to help you do it.”
Well, now we were rolling! We continued
to discuss the many facets of our operation,
and at one point, I said, “Well, in the past…”
Really? I was the one to say that? Then he
said something that I have remembered since.
Privately, I had been hoping this was his
mindset, but he left no doubt.
“There’s really not going to be a better time
to do things the way we want to do them than
now,” he said.
I’m pretty sure he noticed the wide grin I
sported after hearing that. He was absolutely
right.
I left that meeting buoyed, inspired to
implement many of the facets of the broadcast
that I felt would better it. To that aim, we will
be taking the first hour of our pregame show to
the fans in Hokie Village. I can’t honestly take
credit for this, as it was already in the works,
but I really wanted to push it to the finish line
and we did.
with
Jon
Laaser
New Beginnings