2002 Schedule   W, 63-7 Arkansas State W, 26-8 LSU W, 47-21 Marshall W, 13-3 at Texas A&M W, 30-0 at Western Michigan W, 28-23 at Boston College * W, 35-14 Rutgers * W, 20-10 Temple * L, 21-28 Pittsburgh * L, 42-50 (3OT) at Syracuse * L, 18-21 West Virginia * W, 21-9 Virginia Dec. 7 at Miami * (1:00pm ABC) * - BIG EAST Conference Game     Frank Beamer   Head Coach Football     Personal   Born: October 18, 1946, Mt. Airy, N.C. Hometown: Hillsville, Va. Wife: former Cheryl Oakley Children: Shane, Casey     Education   High School: Hillsville (1965) College: Virginia Tech (1969) Postgraduate: Radford University (1972)     Playing Experience   Virginia Tech (1966-68)     Coaching Experience   1972 Graduate Assistant, Maryland 1973-76 Assistant Coach, The Citadel 1977-78 Defensive Coordinator, The Citadel 1979-80 Defensive Coordinator, Murray State 1981-86 Head Coach, Murray State   1981 (8-3)   1982 (4-7)   1983 (7-4)   1984 (9-2)   1985 (7-3-1)   1986 (7-4-1) Ohio Valley co-champion Record at Murray State: 42-23-2 1987- Head Coach, Virginia Tech   1987 (2-9)   1988 (3-8)   1989 (6-4-1)   1990 (6-5)   1991 (5-6)   1992 (2-8-1)   1993 (9-3) Independence Bowl champion   1994 (8-4) Gator Bowl   1995 (10-2) BIG EAST, Sugar Bowl champion   1996 (10-2) BIG EAST co-champion, Orange Bowl   1997 (7-5) Gator Bowl   1998 (9-3) Music City Bowl champion   1999 (11-1) BIG EAST champion, Sugar Bowl   2000 (11-1) Gator Bowl champion   2001 (8-4) Gator Bowl   2002 (9-3) Record at Virginia Tech: 116-68-2 Overall head coaching record: 158-91-4     Bowl Experience   Player    1966 Liberty (Virginia Tech vs. Miami)    1968 Liberty (Virginia Tech vs. Mississippi) Coach    1993 Independence (Virginia Tech vs. Indiana)    1994 Gator (Virginia Tech vs. Tennessee)    1995 Sugar (Virginia Tech vs. Texas)    1996 Orange (Virginia Tech vs. Nebraska)    1997 Gator (Virginia Tech vs. North Carolina)    1998 Music City (Virginia Tech vs. Alabama)    1999 Sugar (Virginia Tech vs. Florida State)    2000 Gator (Virginia Tech vs. Clemson)    2001 Gator (Virginia Tech vs. Florida State)

        During his 15+ seasons at the helm, Frank Beamer has guided the Virginia Tech football program to unprecedented success with nine straight bowl appearances, three BIG EAST Conference titles, a trip to the national championship game and an average of nine wins per year since the beginning of the 1993 season. The Hokies' 54-16 record over the past five-plus seasons makes them the nation's eighth winningest Division I-A football program during that span.

Winning has been just part of the success story for Beamer, one of the nation's most respected and popular collegiate football coaches. He and his staff have developed a wide-spread reputation for getting the most out of their players. That reputaton was never more warranted than in 2000 and 2001.

In 2000, Beamer and his staff directed Tech to an 11-1 record after opening the season with eight new starters on defense and an all new lineup in the kicking game. This past season, the Hokies posted an 8-4 record and appeared in the Top 20 every week despite having to fill four offensive line spots, the quarterback job vacated by sensational under-classman Michael Vick and the tailback spot left open when All-America running back Lee Suggs was lost for the season with an injury.

Under Beamer, Virginia Tech is one of just seven Division I-A teams to receive a bowl bid each of the last nine years. In 2000, the Hokies earned their first Toyota Gator Bowl championship with an impressive 41-20 victory over Clemson. A spot in the Nokia Sugar Bowl to play No. 1 Florida State for the national championship focused widespread attention on Virginia Tech and its football program following the 1999 season. And although the Hokies fell short in their bid for the national title, they proved that they belong among the top teams in the college ranks.

For his part in the Hokies' magical 1999 season, Beamer earned eight national coach of the year awards. He was named the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year, the GTE Coach of the Year, the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year, the Paul 'Bear' Bryant Coach of the Year, the Associated Press Coach of the Year, the Walter Camp Football Foundation/Street & Smith's Coach of the Year, the Maxwell Football Club Coach of the Year and the Woody Hayes Coach of the Year. He also was named the BIG EAST Conference Coach of the Year for the third time.

There have been plenty of other accolades for the Hokies' coach. In a survey of Division I-A football coaches conducted by Bloomburg News in the fall of 2000, Beamer was named the best coach a school could hire to run its football program. In January 2001, he was honored as the NCAA Coach of the Year by The Pigskin Club of Washington, D.C. In May of that year, an on-line newspaper named him the best coach currently in the college football ranks because of his ability to place Tech among the nation's elite year in and year out. He has been voted the Virginia Division I Coach of the Year by the state sports information directors four times in the past seven years, including last season.

Following consecutive 10-2 seasons in 1995 and 1996, Beamer was voted BIG EAST Conference Coach of the Year by the league coaches. He was one of five finalists in the voting for the 1995 National Coach of the Year. In 1996, The Sporting News queried writers from around the country and asked them to rate the coaches in various conferences. In the BIG EAST, those writers rated Frank Beamer the best coach on game day, the best in game preparation, the best as a motivator, the best as a teacher, the best in big games and the best overall. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked the nation's top coaches in terms of their ability to get the most out of their players. Beamer was picked No. 9 in Division I-A. This year marks the fourth time in five years, TSN has rated the Tech coach tops among BIG EAST head coaches. The publication has also ranked the Hokies' football coaching staff as the best in the conference four times during that span. Street & Smith's College Football 2002 rates Beamer as the top recruiter in the BIG EAST.

The rise of the Tech football program has made Beamer a man in demand. It has opened doors to places he may never have dreamed of as a youngster growing up in Southwest Virginia.

In September 2000, Beamer was invited to the White House where he joined a select group that stood in the Rose Garden behind then-President Bill Clinton as he made remarks on the Conservation and Reinvestment Act. Beamer was one of the keynote speakers at the American Football Coaches Association Convention in 2000, and in April 2001 he joined former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Lady Margaret Thatcher, as one of the featured speakers at SUCCESS 2001, one of the nation's most popular business seminars.

The Beamer success also has made him a much sought-after coach. In recent years, he has been pursued by numerous other schools and has drawn interest from professional football teams. But in the end, his loyalty has remained with the Hokies.

"Coach Beamer is a guy who any player would love to play for. He is a true player's coach. He gives everyone an equal opportunity to showcase their talents. Coach Beamer gave me an opportunity to play and I wouldn't be where I am today if he was not a fair coach." - John Burke, a former walk-on at Tech who went on to play in a Super Bowl

Beamer always has put Virginia Tech first - ever since he starred as a defensive back for the Hokies in his undergraduate days in the late 1960s, and surely throughout his 15 years as head coach of the Hokies. He has given the Tech program a sense of stability enjoyed by just a hand full of other Division I-A schools. Only three other active Division I-A head coaches have been at their current school as long as Beamer.

In 1990, Beamer received a new contract and a substantial pay raise. He refused the raise, however, until such time that all classified and faculty employees of the university could have the same opportunity for pay raises. Most state salaries had been frozen at the time.

Another indication of Beamer's love for the university came on the night he was inducted into The Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame in 1997. He called it the biggest honor of his entire career. With the induction, he became the first active coach at the university to be honored in that fashion.

Beamer's overall record at Tech now stands at 116-68-2. He became Tech's winningest football coach ever during the 1997 campaign. Counting six years as head coach at Murray State prior to joining the Hokies, Beamer's overall 21-year record is 158-91-4. That record ranks him sixth among active Division I-A coaches in wins.

The 55-year-old Beamer, first alumnus to guide the Hokies since the 1940s, took over the Tech reins from Bill Dooley in January 1987. He began work a few days after the Hokies had beaten North Carolina State in the Peach Bowl. It took a while for him to get the Hokies moving in the right direction because the football program was hit with NCAA sanctions at the time.

But everything came together in the 1990s. The Techmen finished 9-3 in 1993 after beating Indiana, 45-20, in a wild Independence Bowl game. Tech followed up with an 8-4 season in 1994, losing to Tennessee, 45-23, in the Gator Bowl.

The Tech teams in 1995 and 1996 were among the best in school history. The 1995 team swept the BIG EAST Conference championship outright and the 1996 club tied for the title with Syracuse and Miami.

The 1995 team was 9-2 during the regular season and then came up with a stirring 28-10 victory over Texas in the Sugar Bowl. The 1996 team went 10-1 during the regular season and lost to powerful Nebraska, 41-21, in the Orange Bowl after giving the Cornhuskers a fierce battle for three quarters.

The Hokies fell to 7-5 in 1997 and were beaten badly by North Carolina in the Gator Bowl, 42-3. But they came right back with a 9-3 mark in 1998 that included an impressive 38-7 victory over Alabama in the inaugural Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn.

The two winningest seasons in school history followed in 1999 and 2000 with the Hokies posting back-to-back 11-1 records. Tech registered its first-ever 11-0 regular-season record in '99 before losing its national championship battle with FSU.

In 2000, the Hokies' only blemish was a loss at Miami in the ninth game of the season. Both seasons, Tech climbed as high as No. 2 in The Associated Press poll, finishing No. 2 in '99 and No. 6 in 2000. The Hokies climbed as high as No. 5 in the 2001 AP poll and finished 18th.

Beamer's early Tech teams also registered many exciting victories. One of the most impressive came in 1990 when the Hokies capped the year with a 38-13 victory over arch-rival Virginia before a crowd of 54,157, which at the time was the largest ever to see a college football game in the Commonwealth of Virginia. During the 1989 season, Tech knocked off ninth-ranked West Virginia and star quarterback Major Harris, 12-10, in Morgantown.

During his undergraduate days at Tech, Beamer started three years as a cornerback and played on the Hokies' 1966 and 1968 Liberty Bowl teams. He received a B.S. in distributive education from Tech in 1969 and a master's in guidance from Radford in 1972. Then came the start of the Beamer coaching career.

He began as an assistant at Radford High School from 1969 through 1971. Then after one season as a graduate assistant at the University of Maryland, he went to The Citadel where he worked five seasons under Bobby Ross and one year under Art Baker. His last two years at The Citadel, Beamer was the defensive coordinator.

In 1979, Beamer went to Murray State as the defensive coordinator under Mike Gottfried. He was named head coach at Murray State in 1981 and went on to compile a six-year record of 42 wins, 23 losses and two ties.

The Tech coach was born in Mt. Airy, N.C., and grew up in Hillsville, Va. At Hillsville High, he earned 11 varsity letters as a three-sport athlete in football, basketball and baseball.

Beamer is married to the former Cheryl Oakley of Richmond, Va. They have two children, Shane, a former member of his dad's football team at Tech and now a graduate assistant at Tennessee; and daughter Casey, a senior at Virginia Tech.