During the course of this triumphant football season, Tech fans must feel pretty good about life in general. In what promises to be our best football season ever, I think its time to truly stop, look around, and remember what this time of year is about. The time of Thanksgiving, traditionally, is a time when family and friends gather, stuff themselves on our namesake, and watch as much football as humanly possible. Tuck in a Macy's parade, and the early arrival of St. Nick, and there you have it. Norman Rockwell would be proud.

However, the more this football season progresses, the sadder I get.

The reasons are all over the newspapers, sports radio talk shows, Internet, and television. The stories range from the unbelievably ridiculous to the truly heart wrenching and sublime.

Shameful:

Peter Warrick shows the cash cow that the NCAA has truly become. This truly talented young man committed, under Florida penal codes, a felony. While the lines of right and wrong may blur when you ask yourself the question of "Did he really steal those clothes? I mean, he did drop a twenty spot for the merchandise..."

The truth is the young man knew right from wrong. He took advantage of his status: a status that so many kids in this nation would truly love to have. He gets to play football every Saturday, cheered by tens of thousands of fans, normally on national TV, while he receives a quality education gratis of Florida State, and molds himself for a multimillion dollar contract for the NFL (many of you at this point say, but dear writer, the fact he will have to play for the Browns next year surely must be punishment enough). He should have sat out the rest of the football season. Maybe not for what he did...but because so many other kids, given the chance to do what he does, would not have made that mistake.

Ridiculous:

Dion Rayford, a 6-foot-3 senior defensive end from Kansas, was suspended for the game Saturday against Iowa State, the last game of his college career. Why, you ask, dear reader? Over a Chalupa.

Rayford, on what must have been a reprieve after a late night of studying, attacked a Taco Bell drive thru worker after he discovered he had been shorted a Chalupa in his drive thru order at around 2 a.m. last Wednesday morning. The 270 pound defensive end decided to get the taco himself, and preceded to enter the establishment, thru the drive thru window! You do the math...270 pound, 75 inch high object attempts to pass through opening 14 by 46 inches. Talk about the proverbial camel through the eye of the needle. And yes, alcohol was involved.

Rayford was charged with having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle, misdemeanor damage to property, and disorderly conduct of that towards a beef based food stuff wrapped in a tasty corn shell.

Sad and puzzling:

Clemson running back Javis Austin, had an eye removed following a suicide attempt. Austin, who was South Carolina's top high school running back in 1997 (2,389 yds. and 32 TD's), apparently tried to take his own life last Wednesday evening.

Austin saw little or no game time against Clemson's game against Tech this year, but he is a two time letterman for the Tigers. He started the first two games for Clemson this year, and had amassed 120 yds. on 36 carries in five games.

You never know what drives a person to this fragile mental state. I have seen it enough. Friends, acquaintances, family members of friends somehow get to the realization that whatever struggle is paramount in their lives is simply insurmountable. Or they are just scared...and alone...and tired of feeling that way.

No one should ever feel that alone.

Heartwrenching:

As you sit and read this, in the comfort of your home, with your coffee, dog and family around you...stop...bow your head...and give thanks. Be thankful you can do all of these things...because for twelve young people in Texas, the sweet music has stopped.

There is simply no better time of the year than football season. The air becomes crisp...at times so sharp that it stings the nose to breathe it in. The sound of dry leaves blowing on pavement sounds like the wind has feet, and is running to catch you. Football is in the air. The air is simply thick with nostalgia, hope, and glory. The sweetest days of my youth were spent on those fall mornings at Virginia Tech. Win or lose, I was with friends and I was young...I was going to live forever.

At Texas A&M last week, nostalgia, youth, and that immortal feeling we have all had, ended suddenly and sadly. Twelve students lost their lives when the traditional bonfire pyre they were helping build, collapsed. The weeks and months of preparation ended in seconds. Years of tradition teeter on extinction.

I can sit here, and type for hours on the loss, the sadness, the grief that their friends and families must feel. I constantly tear up trying to finish this article. If you know the joy of being on campus in fall, feeling the exuberance of youth, or savoring the team's upcoming game, you can weep all too easily for the lost youth in College Station. Instead, I ask a favor of you.

If you are truly thankful this year, forget the silly and the senselessness of life that can engulf us all at times. Remember the sad and heartwrenching fate that elude so many of us...and thank God for life he has given you and those close to you.

• Miranda Adams, sophomore in biomedical sciences, Santa Fe, Texas
• Christopher Breen, 1997 A&M graduate, Austin, Texas
• Michael Ebanks, freshman in aerospace engineering, Carrollton, Texas
• Jeremy Frampton, senior in psychology, Turlock, Calif.
• Christopher Lee Heard, freshman in pre-engineering, Houston
• Jamie Hand, freshman in environmental design, Henderson, Texas
• Lucas Kimmel, freshman in biomedical science, Corpus Christi, Texas
• Bryan McClain, freshman in agriculture, San Antonio
• Chad Powell, sophomore in computer engineering, Keller, Texas
• Jerry Self, sophomore in engineering technology, Arlington, Texas
• Nathan Scott West, sophomore in oceanography, Bellaire, Texas
• Tim Kerlee Jr., freshman, Bartlett, Tenn.

At the start of the next game you watch or attend, please, as the type of Virginia Tech fan we all claim to be, say a small prayer for these lost lives and the lives they touched.

On this day, it is a little harder to yell, "Go Hokies!"