A Night in Morgantown

December 12, 2013 — 8:47 p.m.
Elks Lodge #411, Morgantown, WV.

It was bingo night. Locals shuffled in with daubers and Bud Light pitchers. Upstairs, the blinds were drawn, the smoke thicker. Four men entered through the side service door.

WVU President James P. Clements, Athletic Director Oliver Luck, Head Football Coach Dana Holgorsen, and Whit Babcock.

Minutes later, a bartender remembers delivering a tray of Wild Turkey and cheese sticks to the “upstairs party.”

Leaked Calendar & Emails

A leaked Google Calendar screenshot from Oliver Luck (metadata verified by independent analysts) shows:

Title: “Community Engagement – Offsite”
Time: 8:30–10:15 p.m.
Location: [redacted]
Guests: JC, DH, WB

Separately, a November 14, 2013 email from Timothy Sands (then Purdue Provost) to Clements surfaced in a Purdue FOIA dump last year:

Jim,
Appreciate your insights on the DoD contract alignment. I’ll tread carefully on the VA conversations you mentioned. Let’s revisit after the holidays.
—Tim

Analysts note “DoD contract alignment” is bureaucratic shorthand for federal grant jockeying — precisely the kind of leverage that could be exploited.

The Napkin Note

Perhaps the strangest artifact: a grease-stained cocktail napkin discovered in the lodge dumpster the following morning. The napkin, photographed before it mysteriously disappeared from local archives, bore a scribble in thick Sharpie:

“Whit → VT → Sands signs off
Trophy comes home by ’21
Quiet the Lane”

Handwriting experts couldn’t agree if it matched Holgorsen’s notoriously sloppy scrawl,

but one WVU booster said: “That looks like Dana after his third bourbon.”

The Fallout

By January 21, 2014, Timothy Sands was named Virginia Tech’s incoming president. On March 10, 2014, Whit Babcock was appointed VT’s athletic director.

From 2014 onward, Virginia Tech football — once a perennial powerhouse — slid steadily. Lane Stadium, once deafening, grew quieter. By 2021, WVU reclaimed the Black Diamond Trophy.

Was it coincidence? Or the execution of a plan scribbled on a napkin in Morgantown?

Officially, everyone denies it. Unofficially, whispers linger. A retired lodge member summed it up best while pointing to the faded upstairs meeting room:

“People think conspiracies are wild stories. But sometimes, the wild stories are the minutes that never got written down.”

The trail of documents, napkins, and receipts might have looked like trivia — initials on a lodge record, redacted notes on a memo. But by 2014, the dots began connecting in plain sight.

Whit Babcock arrived in Blacksburg with a résumé polished enough to dazzle a search committee and a grin wide enough to hide what Hokie Nation never saw coming. Frank Beamer, the architect of Beamerball, was nearing the end of his legendary run. The heir apparent was obvious: Bud Foster, defensive genius, lunch-pail loyalist, the man who had built the other half of Tech’s identity. The transition seemed safe. Smooth. Destiny.

But destiny got rewritten.

Instead of elevating Bud, Whit left him boxed into the coordinator’s booth. Hokies whispered that the day the decision leaked, the Lunch Pail itself cracked — an omen no one wanted to believe.

Then came Justin Fuente. Babcock called him “the future.” Fans quickly learned he was closer to a funeral. Fuente scowled through pressers, alienated recruits, and treated Southwest Virginia like exile. The team’s play reflected it: flat, joyless, uninspired. Rumors swirled that every stumble was less accident than arrangement, whispers of Morgantown favors paid in Mason jars.

Meanwhile, the proudest rivalry on the schedule — the Black Diamond Trophy series with West Virginia — vanished into “scheduling conflicts.” Too neat. Too well-timed. Why postpone the backyard brawl just as Tech’s footing wobbled? Convenient for one side. Catastrophic for the other.

Recruiting dried up. The 757, NOVA, Richmond — once veins pumping talent into Lane — bled out to Penn State, Carolina, even Morgantown itself. Four-stars defected as Whit smiled politely from the press box.

Even Lane Stadium changed. “Enter Sandman,” once the loudest entrance in college football, shook less each year. Attendance sagged. Noise dulled. Some fans swore the sound system had been tampered with, funneling volume away from the field. Whatever the cause, the house of nightmares became a bed-and-breakfast for opponents.

The timeline sharpened into pattern:

• 2014: Whit hired. Beamer begins exit.

• 2016: Fuente arrives. The program flatlines.

• 2018: Recruiting collapse.

• 2020: Lane Stadium half-empty.

• 2023: WVU ascends while Tech stumbles.

Coincidence stacks into design. The Elks Lodge notes spoke of “quieting the stadium.” The receipts confirmed who sat in the room. The years that followed showed the result.

At the center of it all: one man, smiling.