Mike Gentry, the head of Virginia Tech's strength and conditioning program, was promoted Tuesday to the position of Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Performance.

This move is widely applauded by Tech fans. Gentry is seen as perhaps the second-biggest driving force in the recent successes of Virginia Tech football, behind only head coach Frank Beamer. Arguments can be made that veteran coaches Ricky Hustle and Billy Hite are just as important to the program as Gentry, but it's impossible to overstate Gentry's impact on Virginia Tech athletics in general.

Tech AD Dave Braine knows what a valuable asset Mike Gentry is, and in recent years Braine has rewarded Gentry with one of the few, if not the only, multi-year long-term contracts handed out to an assistant football coach.

The magnitude of this promotion is this: Mike Gentry is no longer just an assistant football coach. He is now an assistant athletic director, which implies a commitment on the part of Virginia Tech to keep him employed with the Hokies for a long time. The position of assistant football coach, "long-term contract" aside, is not a position that implies job security. Promoting him to assistant athletic director, on the other hand, is a neon sign that flashes brightly: "WE LOVE YOU. PLEASE STAY."

("And while you're at it, Mike, here's a new Merryman Center to play with.")

Gentry has been the head of Virginia Tech's strength and conditioning program for 10 years. A Durham, North Carolina native, Gentry received a B.S. degree in physical education from Western Carolina University in 1979. He received his master's degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1981, where he worked for a year as an assistant strength coach. He then went to East Carolina as head strength coach in 1982, where he worked until he took the same position at Virginia Tech in 1987.

In 1995 and 1996, Gentry was recognized by the National Strength and Conditioning Association as a finalist for National Strength and Conditioning Professional of the Year.

Congratulations to Mike Gentry on his new promotion. And smile, Hokie fans, because the future of Tech athletics just got a little bit brighter!

Page updates in the coming weeks are probably going to be pretty minimal, since summer time is almost upon us. But rest assured, there is plenty going on behind the scenes here at Hokie Central.

In page-related matters, I'm currently learning how to use Microsoft's FrontPage 97. Once I've got that down, I'll be able to manage the Hokie Central web site more efficiently, which can only be a good thing. This should equate to more content and more of what you want to see. Plus, if the promises of FrontPage ring true, I'll be able to do more with the site in the way of providing more interactivity, such as forms for reader input on ... I don't know. Whatever. Suffice to say that I'll use the tool to my advantage, and yours, once I figure out everything it offers.

I'm also working on a new site design that I'll unveil before next football season. Those of you that have been reading Hokie Central for awhile know that I like to mix it up fairly often, and each revamp of the site leads to improved readability and navigation. The next generation of Hokie Central, produced with MS FrontPage 97, should be no different in that it, too, will be another step up. I'd like to come up with a good design that I can keep throughout next year's football and basketball seasons.

As an aside, the new site format will feature the long-awaited "Sights and Sounds" page, which will feature still photos, audio clips, and even a movie or two. Send me any audio or video clips you might have, as long as they're under 1 Meg in size, or tell me about places to go to retrieve some good stuff. And if you have a photo that you would like to see posted on Hokie Central, send it to me and I'll consider it.

On the membership benefits front, I'm about to begin the process of producing all of that merchandise that I promised to the members. I expect this to take all summer long, so hang tight, members. It will definitely be done before next fall, because getting it finished before football season hits is priority one.

So in the meantime, keep in touch on the message board, and watch for breaking news there. I'll check in with some News and Notes and maybe a Special Feature or two this summer. And have a good summer!

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