In his career as head football coach at Virginia Tech, Frank Beamer has been busy transforming the program he once played for from little known to championship contender. Along the way, he’s developed such NFL-caliber players as Bruce Smith, DeAngelo Hall and Antonio Freeman. However, what has been constant through the years is the huge fan base known as the Hokie Nation.
It seems fitting that a movie about Tech football fans would premiere at the Lyric, a staple of Blacksburg, not unlike the crowds that flock to Lane Stadium on Saturdays. Being in Blacksburg on game day is an experience that is hard to describe to those who have never experienced it themselves.
But that’s exactly what former Tech alumni Sean Kotz (’89, ’91) and Chris Valluzzo (’98) set out to do when they spawned the idea for “Hokie Nation: A Team, A Town and the Best Darned Fans in College Football.”
The film is a documentary made to showcase the unity, passion and oftentimes craziness of Virginia Tech football fans. Using a local crew with the same passion for Hokie football as themselves, Kotz and Valluzzo, both producers and co-directors of the project, began filming their documentary in 2006.
“Hokie Nation,” which is officially licensed by the university, is a documentary less about the football team and more about the fans who have stuck by them through many milestones in the program’s history. The movie features interviews with alumni, fans, radio announcers, police officers, former players, coaches and even former governor Mark Warner and his successor, Tim Kaine. The movie is narrated by these voices, among many others, and their stories, opinions and overall reactions to Hokie football and its followers
The movie begins with a dedication to the victims of the April 16 tradgedy. Following the chilling reminder is the sound of the trademark “Let’s Go! Hokies!” cheer growing louder and louder over a blank screen, eventually fading into the title of the movie and shots of the mountains around Blacksburg. The movie, as the producers put it before the lights went down, isn’t about the team or any one season, but “about a culture.”
While the movie’s primary focus is Hokie fans themselves and not the team, it does lend itself to exploring the history of Tech football and how Beamer has changed the way football is played on Saturdays in Blacksburg.
The movie also explores the traditions inherent in Tech football, such as the question every Tech student has to answer at one point: “What’s a Hokie?” It can be said that, at its core, “Hokie Nation” sets out to answer that question in rather large detail.
The movie does a good job of showcasing many great aspects of Tech football, and its interviews range from the very serious to the very sincere to the hilarious. A highlight comes when a UVa fan proclaims that she loves coming to away football games at Lane Stadium even though they’ve never won. There are also quirky and often funny interviews with the hardcore tailgaters who dress up in the unimaginable and paint their RV’s or vans Chicago maroon and burnt orange.
What carries the movie along best is the pace of the editing between the interviews, never letting any one person talk too long and mixing up not only who is on screen but what is on screen.
Kotz and Valluzzo have managed to dig up footage from football games long ago and have captured much of their own from the modern day era. They showcase Lane Stadium beautifully and do their best to capture what it looks like to have 66,000 people cheering as loudly as they can.
What is best about the documentary, however, are the tiny tidbits of information revealed throughout that many don’t know. One of those being that the jumping during Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” originated from a band member trying to warm up on a cold Thursday night game.
Another tidbit is Shayne Graham’s description of what he was thinking during one of his game-winning kicks. It even explores Mark Warner’s involvement in getting the Hokies into the Atlantic Coast Conference.
While the charm of the movie is strong, it still possesses a certain hometown quality about itself, which may or may not be good for some. Its sound is sometimes inconsistent, lending the audience to sometimes be subjected to overly loud volumes or struggling to hear what someone says over the crackling of the quality.
These issues are few and far between, though, and rarely take anything important away from the movie. The film also runs a little long for a movie about football fans, although just when it began to feel too long it started to end.
“Hokie Nation” is a movie that every Virginia Tech student should be proud of; it focuses on how great our fans can be. The mood throughout is proud and light-hearted, and never once does the film lose sight of what it’s trying to prove: that Blacksburg is a town that comes alive on Saturdays and that the Hokie Nation is composed of the best fans in college football