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Cary Wade

Football: Cary Wade Commits!

When we spoke to him for TSLMail last week, Cary Wade was very careful to make it sound as if his recruitment was wide open, but this week, on Wednesday night, he committed to the Hokies. We called Cary back for some comments, and he was very complimentary of Blacksburg and the Tech coaching staff, Frank Beamer in particular.

"I took the pros and cons of the schools that I was interested in (mainly Pitt, Syracuse, and VT), and it came down to Virginia Tech," he explained. "I really like the campus. It's only four hours away, and it's in a rural setting. They have an excellent football program and coaching staff. When I spoke with Coach Beamer at the end of camp, when I was down there July 15th through the 18th, I just thought Coach Beamer was a superior individual and created a family atmosphere for all of his players."

Wade wanted to go ahead and get his commitment out of the way. "At this point, I'm going to concentrate on school and make the most of my senior year."

When asked if he was going to take official visits to other schools, Wade said, "I probably will," but he noted that his commitment to Tech was, "Very solid. I'm very certain. I'm going to attend Virginia Tech next year."

Wade's early commitment caught TSL by surprise, and it even surprised his father, Clif, who said, "We told him we would support whatever decision he made, so I was not a factor in his decision. I pretty much left it up to him. The schools he was looking at were all good schools in terms of education, so it's just a matter of what he felt the most comfortable with. He's done a great job of keeping it to himself, because I really didn't even know (that he was going to commit) until yesterday. I had no idea. He told me he had made his decision, and that it was going to be a solid commitment."

The elder Wade echoed his son's sentiments about Coach Beamer. "I was very impressed with Coach Beamer when we were down at the football camp. He's just a real down to earth individual, and he just really, truly impressed me when we were down there. I think that has a huge impact on recruits that are coming through there. He's just a good, quality individual."

Click here to view Cary's TSL Recruiting database entry.

We also spoke with Deep Creek (Chesapeake, Virginia) Coach David Cox about his two Top 25'ers, Darryl Tapp (DE, 6-2, 225, 4.6 forty, ranked #24 in the state by Doug Doughty) and Josh Hyman (WR, 6-1, 180, 4.4, ranked #20 by Doughty). Virginia Tech has offered scholarships to both players.

Of Tapp, Cox said, "He plays rush end. He can do a little bit of everything. He can rush the quarterback or drop back in coverage. He's 225-230, lotta room to grow. He's got good speed and great feet. He's going to take all his visits. He's wide open. He's got a solid family that will help him make a good decision." Tapp has the GPA and SAT to qualify, he just needs to finish some more core courses this year. Tapp has scholarship offers from Tech and Florida. Click here to view Darryl Tapp's TSL Recruiting database entry.

Cox said about Hyman, "He had a couple real good games last year, caught 3 TD's in the second half of the state championship game. You'd be hard pressed to find a better practice player. He really goes after it in practice. If the ball is around, he'll catch it. He's got great speed. We probably haven't gotten the ball to him as much as we'd like (this year). A lot of everybody is recruiting him: UNC, NC State, Syracuse, the Florida coach (that offered Tapp) wants to take a look at him." Hyman has the necessary core GPA to qualify and will take the SAT this Saturday. Click here to view Josh Hyman's TSL Recruiting database entry.

We'll try to get in touch with Tapp and Hyman next week and get their thoughts.

Men's Basketball: Two More Verbals on Board

Allen Calloway, Coastal Christian Academy (via Tunstall HS, Dry Fork, VA)
Stats: 6-9 post player. No scoring stats available.
Notables: Thin, in need of bulking up, but with a great upside. Will probably contribute further down the road more so than immediately. Committed to VT as a senior in high school, but decided to prep for a year instead.

Harris and Calloway join 6-6 forward Winston Robinson (may be FUMA bound, but will sign with Tech in November), 6-8 post player Phillip McCandies, and 6-5 guard Markus Sailes to comprise the 5 recent commitments to Tech's recruiting class for this season. You can see that the Hokies are definitely getting bigger at guard, and with Sailes, who averaged 19.2 points a game as a high school junior, joining Harris, Tech has added a lot of scoring punch from the outside.

TSL Features This Week:
News and Notes -- 10/1/01; TSLMail launched; Hokies ranked #6 and #8; Hokie defense #1; Boston College game time set at 6:30.
Hokie Hotline Notes -- 10/2/01
An Amazing Streak -- by Tom Stecher, 10/3/01
Dialing Long Distance -- by Jim Alderson, 10/3/01
Going Home -- by Bill Glose, 10/4/01
Beerman's Picks -- by Ben Shapiro, 10/5/01

VT Polo-maroon, VT polo-white, sawtooth polo, VT windshirt (maroon), however no polar fleece/jackets/coats (the VT maroon windshirt is the only thing in the Outerwear section that is 3XL.

Most non-hooded sweatshirts -- look for Lee Crossgrain sweats.

T-shirts -- look for Hanes Beefy-T t-shirts (except for long sleeve and bowl T-shirts).

Polo shirts -- check out the maroon polo, the white polo, and the sawtooth polo.

Outer wear -- the one outerwear item that we carry in 3XL is our very snazzy VT windshirt, which is on sale this week (see above)!

For more information and to subscribe, check out our TSL Extra Promotional Page Be sure to download the free TSL Extra Sampler and see what you're missing!