Tragedy Redux

A tragic story, especially for the folks at Virginia Tech who had to deal with the killings of several students less than two years ago on April 16, 2007.

Anderson's name comes up in this story only as a reference, a sample of how the Country is getting more and more used to see Anderson Cooper as the norm or the connection for any event, however unrelated it might be.

Our thoughts and prayers go to the people at Virginia Tech and to the family of the victim.

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A time for Hokies to prevail again
The Roth Report
January 22, 2009

By Bill Roth
Ordinarily, it’s not good practice for a broadcaster to have his or her cell phone turned on during a broadcast. No need for distraction or any outside stimuli that could affect one’s concentration, right? As a viewer or listener, you don’t want to hear your local news anchor’s ring tone or watch him squirm if it vibrates in his pocket during a report.

Sitting at home, it might be comical to hear Anderson Cooper’s ring tone during a show. But for the professional announcer, it’s a ‘no-no.’

Well, for whatever reason, my cell phone was set to ‘vibrate’ during Wednesday’s Virginia Tech-Wake Forest basketball game in Winston-Salem. As you know by now, the Hokies beat the No. 1-ranked and previously unbeaten Demon Deacons 78-71 in an exciting, dramatic and memorable game.

At 8:09 p.m., the phone started vibrating. Three, four, five, six times within a couple of minutes. This was early in the second half; Tech led by 10 and the intensity on the court was remarkable. The coaches were screaming. The crowd was roaring. The level of play was remarkable.

Curiosity got the best of me, and so during a timeout, I reached for my phone and saw the text messages.

Subject: Campus Murder. VT police have confirmed a murder in the Graduate Life Center. A suspect is in custody.

As a subscriber to VT Alerts, the university’s urgent notification system, one can expect to get important news. But not this. Not again. We’ve lived through this at Virginia Tech before and we all know the pain this brings, not only to the affected families, but also to every student and alum we’ve got.

Instantly, the game seemed trivial. I shared my phone with our ISP Sports Network analyst Mike Burnop and Tom Gabbard, the associate AD for internal affairs, who both read the screen. All of our hearts dropped. Tom quickly was in touch with university officials.

We immediately decided not to discuss the situation on the air primarily because we didn’t have all the facts. If we needed to make some sort of announcement on the air, Tom would be the point man and let us know.

So back to the game we went where Jeff Allen and Dorenzo Hudson were making tough shots, answering Wake’s second-half run. We saw Hank Thorns connect on a huge 3-pointer from the wing, and later, Cheick Diakite drilled one from the baseline. We had hard fouls and amazing dunks on both sides.

The tension was mounting in one of the most exciting games in Virginia Tech history. Could Wake stay unbeaten or would the Hokies upset No. 1? Wake rallied and cut Tech’s 16-point lead to two. Lawrence Joel Coliseum was electric.

Yet for those of us who had read the text messages, we were distracted, we were concerned, we were experiencing that all-too-familiar taste of horror and rage that we tasted two years ago following the Norris Hall shootings. Was it someone we knew? What happened back home?

As we learned today, the victim was Xin Yang, a 22-year-old graduate student from Beijing who had arrived at Virginia Tech on January 8 to begin her studies in the Pamplin College of Business. She hadn’t been here two weeks.

Two weeks? That’s not enough time to learn your way around our campus, is it?

How unfair. How despicable. How tragic.

Yang was killed at the Au Bon Pain restaurant on the first floor of the Graduate Life Center on Wednesday evening. Police say she was decapitated.

Haiyang Zhu, a 25-year-old from Ningbo, China, was charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond at the Montgomery County jail. He was a Ph.D. graduate student majoring in agricultural and applied economics.

For the families involved, the horror and heartbreak is just beginning. For the other students who were witnesses and other members of the campus community, we should remember that Nikki Giovanni’s inspirational words still apply today – “We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness … We will prevail.”

Xin Yang did not deserve what happened to her. Nor did her mother, who got that horrific phone call from Tech officials just 13 days after sending her daughter away to Tech.

January 21, 2009 will be one of the most memorable nights in Virginia Tech basketball history and for good reason. We should always remember the grit and toughness the Hokies showed in beating the nation’s top-ranked team.

We should remember Malcolm Delaney’s on-court heroics and A.D. Vassallo’s cool outside shooting. When you beat No.1, it’s big. When you do it on the road, it’s even bigger, and so this night and this game should be cherished.

But we should also remember Xin Yang and her family. Yang might have only been a Hokie for 13 days, but she was still a Hokie.

And I’m selfishly wishing she could be here to see the rest of this season, and many more.

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