Shane beamer daughter skin#

They snickered, but after seven straight bowl appearances, he's the one laughing now. It became known as Beamer Ball, and soon other colleges were trying to imitate it.īeamer told reporters who showed up for his first news conference at Virginia Tech that he would be playing for a national title. He hired defensive whiz Phil Elmassian a half-dozen years ago and gave him the freedom to play an attacking style. He recruited the local kids that big programs overlooked and taught them to overachieve. Hoping he had many years ahead on the job.Īnd yet from the moment Beamer arrived in Blacksburg in 1987, his determination simmered just below the surface. A coach with a chance to validate his credentials by winning the biggest game of his career comes in with a reputation but turns out to be very different.Īll season, as Virginia Tech erased opponents and critics, the pictures relayed from the sidelines and post-game interviews in Blacksburg, Va., made Beamer look like the most regular of regular guys. This sort of thing happens every so often at the national championship. I see that determination in him now more than anything.'' ''If he tells you he's going to do something, whether it's golf or football or even cooking out, it will happen. He was determined to prove them wrong and he did,'' Shane said. ''The doctors said he might be able to walk, but that he definitely was through with sports. Those memories steeled him for nearly every challenge that followed. But every time he began to feel sorry for himself, Beamer's mother, an elementary school teacher, made him walk down the hall at the hospital.

Shane beamer daughter skin#

Over the next four years, Beamer underwent 30 operations, most of them skin grafts that didn't take.

He had the presence of mind to roll Frank in the dirt and extinguish the flames. It ignited a can of gasoline, causing an explosion that left him with severe burns on the right side of his neck, shoulder and chest.īeamer's older brother, Barnett, probably saved his life. One day, after helping his own father burn a pile of trash, Frank carried a smoldering broom back into the garage. ''He didn't like to talk about it,'' said Shane Beamer, who doubles as the long snapper for the Hokies, ''and I didn't want to ask.''įrank Beamer was an easygoing 7-year-old growing up on a farm in the tiny town of Fancy Gap, Va., the passageway between two Appalachian peaks. Yet somehow, it wasn't until the spotlight landed on him that his own son learned the details.

That was 1954, long before Virginia Tech's 53-year-old coach had any idea how he would make his living or that one day he would play for a national championship.Ī long scar running down the right side of Beamer's neck is a reminder of that episode.