The Repairman

[PointGuard]

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Hokies Coach Killed in Auto Accident

Virginia Tech head basketball coach Jason Spencer was killed early this morning in a single car accident. Police say that Spencer’s car skidded off the road in northeast Greensboro at about 1 a.m. this morning. He was alone in the car at the time of the accident. After skidding off the road, the car appears to have spun with the driver’s side of the car impacting a concrete abutment. EMT’s arriving on scene attempted resuscitation and rushed him to the emergency room at Baptist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:49 this morning. Details about the accident are pending further investigation by the Greensboro Police Department.

Spencer’s team had just completed a thrilling comeback to win their first game in the ACC Tournament, beating Wake Forest 83-78.

When reached early this morning, Franklin Spencer, the coach’s brother and an assistant coach for the Hokies, said he had no idea where his brother had gone that time of night. His last discussion with his brother was on the team bus on the way from Greensboro Coliseum, the site of the ACC tournament, to the team hotel. Franklin Spencer said, “Jason was ecstatic by the way the team had come back in the final 10 minutes of the game. He seemed on cloud nine to me. But knowing Jason, I’m sure he planned to spend much of the night doing last minute planning for our next tournament game against Boston College. I’m in shock, my parents are devastated by this news.”
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[PointGuard]

The ACC Tournament’s games were delayed a day, but then continued.

The Hokies beat Boston College 76-73 and then played #1 Duke for the conference championship. Again trailing badly in the first half, the Hokies rallied early in the 2nd half to tie the game with 12:17 remaining. The lead bounced back and forth the remainder of the game, but the Hokies hit a jumper with 2 seconds left to win 68-67.

After the game, the players who had not made any public statements since Coach Spencer’s death, said they were overwhelmed with sadness after learning of their coach’s death, but came together to commit to winning this tournament and beating Duke, who most everyone thought was unbeatable.

In the NCAA Tournament, the Hokies won their first game easily, but then lost in the 2nd round when they committed 29 fouls.

[PointGuard]

The NCAA report on their investigation of alleged recruiting violations detailed that Virginia Tech had maximized efforts in all possible recruiting avenues toward individual recruits, but in doing so, there were no major violations.

It did identify a few minor issues related to not fully documenting each and every activity for two recruits, but these were merely administrative deficiencies.

It also recommended severing of some of the ties the college has with the boosters’ group as well as establishing stricter controls with regard to the boosters and alumni groups, but did not uncover any specific infraction on the part of the boosters or alumni.

There were no restrictions on future recruiting or past, present or future penalties for the basketball program.

While privately the Athletic Department of Virginia Tech was sure that the lead investigator would not let go until there was at least SOME thing he could indicate could have done better, the University publicly indicated that the minor documentation issues will be rectified but are probably something that could be uncovered in most any college athletic program. Behind closed doors the college administration and the Athletic Department are frothing at the mouth about this investigation. But to allow this investigation to finally be concluded and avoid the NCAA from possibly widening their inquiry to other athletic programs at Virginia Tech, they had to accept the report’s findings in their entirety.

And as to HOW all this investigation started in the first place…now that the investigation is over, a little birdie advised Franklin Spencer that Jason Spencer’s initial reference to this back at the end of November (“Is someone green with envy?”) was more accurate than imagined. A source close to the University of Miami (whose colors happen to be orange and GREEN), says that those within that basketball program became acutely suspicious of Virginia Tech’s quick recruiting success after Jason Spencer arrived and worried about the Hokies’ ascendency within the conference. They along with others in the conference, had previously appreciated having the Hokies as perennial conference doormats. The source said that while he isn’t absolutely SURE anyone associated with the Hurricane’s program surreptitiously raised the issue with the NCAA, he wouldn’t put it past them.

[PointGuard]

Franklin Spencer finished the year at Virginia Tech, but then resigned. He took a year off, traveling the world. The next year, he decided to return to basketball and was hired as head coach at Eastern Washington.

[PointGuard]

While saving this game a month ago (right after relished “The Comeback” game), I foolishly did some other things on my computer during the course of the save. I know that this can sometimes cause problems, but just didn’t think that day. The save didn’t complete, and I was unable to resurrect or reload this association. I finally sent the files to Gary asking if he could see if they could be fixed if he had the time. Gary replied that he was busy with the DDSPB3 update, but graciously said he would look at it after that was done. While waiting, I have dribbled out the game story lines that I had already written (in the can so to speak), but not yet posted. I also developed the NCAA investigation sideline story in the event the association could not be fixed. The DDSPB3 update took longer than expected and has raised a few new issues that should be a higher priority for Gary than my association. I finally decided on the final direction that this association has taken and will now move on to creating a new association.

The Repairman has been an unexpectedly fun ride. I hope you enjoyed the ride as well.

[Wayne23]

Very creative ending but what a shame you had to end it this way. I've had stability problems with associations in DDS:CB2 but none since 1.8, although I get a lot of error messages so far I can play through them. Gary is a creative genius but all three versions of this game have been less than perfectly stable. I'm probably in trouble for saying that but that's been my experience.

[PointGuard]

When I start a SAVE for DDSCB2, I typically don't do anything else on the computer until the save is complete...don't have problems that way. This time I wanted to do something else quickly on the computer (can't even remember now what that was) and I messed up the save...oh well. I think Gary might have been able to recover it, but I know he's snowed under and feel that it's better he work on PB3 and CB2 reported issues rather than spending time trying to recover my association.

I was sort of like a death occurring though.

[Wayne23]

Yeah, drive me crazy. I have two computers side by side, one for DDS:CB2, one for everything else- Windows +, I guess.

[CoachC]

The save in the backup folder wouln't load either? that's a shame.

[Wayne23]

I have never once successfully loaded a save from the backup folder.