Our crowd was up from the stalwart 11,000 who drove hours to see the first bowl edition Hokies in the Independence eight years ago. On New Year's Day, this game was nationally televised. The domino effect, the economic, social, and educational fallout, is astounding. Ironically, academics improve. Nearby colleges and universities can use the VT name to draw students to their schools.
All institutions can share programs and facilities and ideas.
This idea of sharing brings me to a Virginia Tech TV ad during one of the time-outs. This one showed VT's quest to connect Southwest Virginia with the rest of the world through satellite transmission. That's because the mountains surrounding VT act as barriers to transmission signals. The towers bounce the signals from mountaintop to mountaintop, but these signals find it difficult to penetrate narrow valleys. Miles of expensive cable have to be laid to reach the low valley areas.