TAMPA, Fla. Long before he won a Super Bowl as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer, head coach Bruce Arians was a Virginia Tech Hokie.
Arians, 68, played for Virginia Tech in the early 1970s quarterback. He then became a coach in the team.
“It was very different, you know, we were not affiliated with a conference at the time, we were a Southern Independent,” Arians said during a pre-Super Bowl press conference.
Arians said the hockey teams were in a way like a crucible with teammates from cities like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and Atlanta. But like many college football programs at the time, the Hokies were not very racially oriented.
“We had very few minority players, black players,” Arians recalled. “One happened to be my roommate, James Barber.”
Barber’s sons Round and Tiki become soccer stars at the University of Virginia and in the NFL.
Just by sharing a room, Arians and Barber made their own history.
As Arians tells us in his autobiography, it was the first time a white and a black player had ever dated Virginia Tech. They even hung a sign on their door of the dormitory with the words, “Salt and pepper Incorporated.”
“Nobody really thought about race issues. We were all just soccer players,” said Dr. Charles Martin, the co-captain of the Virginia Tech team, said. ‘You would congratulate the Black Man just as much as the white guy. I did not even think about it. ‘
After Arians took his last turn, he switched from player to coach.
“I was an older man on that team anyway, and I was married for four years,” he said.
Jimmy Sharpe, head coach of Hokies, made coaching look easy.
“Jimmy taught me how to make players believe they’re going to win every game, even though they probably did not have a chance because we stunk,” he said.
Arians learned that mutual respect was the best way to coach players who used to be his teammates.
His night work also helped.
“I was also a bartender at their favorite bar, so I could watch them,” he said.
It’s been a long time since Arians left Blacksburg and became one of the NFL’s great coaches. But he said Virginia Tech is always close to his heart.
“I love the Hokies,” he said. ‘I will be a hockey player for life. I will be nothing else for the rest of my life, but I will be a Hokie for the rest of my life. I know that. ‘