Frank Paul Loria. I hope the name still resonates through the halls and annals of Virginia Tech football. I am sure it does. Frankie, as he was known in my current part of the world (as I will explain later), was a 2-time All-American safety at Tech in the mid-1960’s – he played during the autumns of 1965, 1966, and 1967 to be precise. He was also an academic All-American.  Freshmen were not eligible for varsity sports during this time so Frankie’s career as a Gobbler (that’s what they were primarily called then) began the last year in old Miles Stadium in a few freshman games and included the first 3 seasons at Lane Stadium. 

Frankie, as the Hokie’s first consensus All-American, was featured on posters all around the area before his senior season, alongside  Christianburg’s own Tim Collins, an All-American golfer at Tech at the same time, who later had several years on the PGA Tour.  Significantly to me, personally, Tim and his father Clyde were my coaches in Kiwanis basketball in 6^th and 7^th grade.

This may seem a strange column for a died in the wool Wahoo to write. I bleed orange and blue, have for many years, but at one time I had some maroon mixed in. I was junior high age during Frank’s years at Tech, and, like most boys my age in western Virginia at the time, I worshipped him. I wanted to be like him, a hard-nosed tackler, returning punts for critical touchdowns, making big interceptions, playing middle linebacker on goal line stands. That was Frankie. That was his legacy at Tech.

When Lane Stadium opened in 1965, my parents bought the “family plan season ticket package”. Brace yourself – it was $4 for the father, $3 for the mother, and $2 for kids 12 and over, $1 for under 12. No seating fee extorted either. I think getting these tickets was a concession by my Dad, who had not an ounce of maroon in his blood – something to do about being treated badly by Tech students when he was a “townie” growing up poor in Christiansburg. In fact, he preferred playing golf on beautiful fall afternoons while my Mom would take me and one of my friends to the games. He often said it was his favorite time to play since all of the Hokie fans were at the game. The course was clear and the “blanks” weren’t there.  The bottom line is, however, that I am relatively certain that I my own self saw every game Frankie played at Lane Stadium, when all the games were played on Saturday’s with one thirty kickoffs and where the turf turned brown in late October. Just the way God meant college football to be. No lights, no Thursday nights. 

These memories are very special to me, even though, as I mentioned earlier, I learned later that my Dad did not share my feelings for the Hokies (nor for the New York Yankees, another rooting interest of mine which he was also eventually successful in exorcising from my being). My change in latitude and change in attitude, however, has not erased the memories of the autumns of my childhood watching Frankie doing great things on the gridiron in Blacksburg – and ironically, or at least interestingly, the embers of those smoldering memories have been kept alive over the years because I have lived most of my adult life in Frankie‘s hometown, Clarksburg, West Virginia. 

My normal run/walk takes me through Holy Cross cemetery, past the Loria family marker. I occasionally stop my run and walk over to see Frankie’s gravestone – it simply and starkly says “Frank Paul Loria1947-1970”. It is poignant – it brings both wonderful and sad memories.

Frankie was a victim of the terrible tragedy that was the Marshall University football team plane crash in November, 1970. The day after my last high school football game my senior year at Christiansburg High. Some symbolism there for me. It was his third year out of Tech and he was defensive backfield coach for the Thundering Herd.

Living where I do, I have many reminders of Frankie around me. The Loria family burial plot .44 miles from my house on my run. His high school – Notre Dame High, where he was a legendary 3 sport star – .62 miles away when I go the other direction, where the wife of one of my law partners has served as principal for the last 20 years. Loria Field about a mile and half from my house, where high school and American Legion baseball games have been played for years and years. The neighborhood Frankie grew up in, Arbutus Park, less than a mile from mine. The annual awarding by the local Columbian Club of the Frank Loria Trophy to the best high school football player in our county. Most poignantly, the rusty sign on the edge of town announcing “Home of Frank Loria, All-American, 1966-67”.

I have had many personal connections as well. For many years I hung out at PJ Kelly’s Bar with a gang of Frankie’s contemporaries – guys who were at Notre Dame High with him, some teammates, others who remember watching his exploits for our local version of the Fighting Irish, who liked to discuss how he was disrespected by West Virginia University (30 miles down the road) because he was too small, some saying that the Mountaineers shunned Italian kids from Clarksburg. My wife was a cheerleader at Notre Dame’s rival school, Victory, when Frankie was playing, and her brother was a star quarterback there a few years earlier.

I have other connections. Frankie’s sister was married to a local oil and gas operator  whom I knew well. Another PJ Kelly regular. I met Frankie’s widow Phyllis about 30 years ago when she returned to Clarksburg for a while. Again at Kelly’s Bar (do you see a pattern emerging here?). She was impressed that I remembered so many of Frankie’s teammates – George Foussekis, Don Thacker, Clarence Culpepper, Jimmy Richards, Dickie Longerbeam , Gene Fisher. I was pleased to learn that she still heard from many of them. 

Two of Frankie’s cousins are prominent local lawyers, one of whom was on the Marshall team and only missed the plane crash because of an injury which kept him from the travel squad. Most tragically, one of my firm’s lawyers lost both of her parents in the crash. Her dad was the team doctor. Patricia was 7 years old. She now teaches at Marshall.

Frankie helped start the transformation of Virginia Tech football from an obscure Southern Conference member to a perennial Top 20 team. He was a teammate of “Moses”, i.e., Frank Beamer, who led the Hokies out of the wilderness of the Coffee-Sharp years. In fact, I read somewhere that Coach Beamer says that but for the plane cash, the “other Frank” might have been the coach at Tech the last 30 years. I suspect they both would have been successful head coaches. Such is the sadness and uncertainty of a life cut way too short that we didn’t get the chance to find out.

My best friend from Christiansburg days visited me last year. He was one of the kids who shared my family’s tickets years ago. He is a proud Hokie. I took him by the grave site on a run. I told him that I feel Frankie deserves more recognition than a small grass covered plaque on a hillside in Clarksburg. I think the marker needs an orange and maroon adornment of some sort. But I told him he’ll have to supply the maroon part. I don’t have anything that color in my house.

This past Saturday – November 14, 2020 – was the 50th anniversary of the horrific Marshall plane crash which took 75 lives and left an indelible scar but fierce character on the school and the community. I did my run through Holy Cross and stopped at the Loria family marker and had a short prayer for Frankie and all of the others whose lives were so tragically lost. RIP.