July 13, 2006
By Bill Roth

Every day, Branden Ore would trudge off to work, wearing his winter coat, his hat, and his ear muffs.

It might've been 75 degrees and sunny in Chesapeake, Va., but for Ore, the cold reality meant cartons of eggs needed to be loaded onto trucks. And dozens of bottles of milk. No, make that thousands of bottles. Same for the juices. And the meats.

It's never sunny and warm inside a 7-Eleven warehouse. It's 40 degrees, baby. Ore can tell you.

In here, inside the high, cold metal walls, nobody cares if you rushed for 115 yards and a couple of touchdowns against UVa. There are 7,000 boxes of ice cream sandwiches that need to get on a truck.

Nobody here cares if the 20-year-old dude in the ski cap averaged 5.9 yards per carry - tops on his team - or that he ran for 146 yards against Marshall, or 109 against North Carolina. What matters here is that there are 5,500 frozen pizzas that need to get shipped by 5 p.m.

Officially, Ore missed the 2006 spring semester at Virginia Tech to rehabilitate his injured shoulder. That's what the press releases all said.

Some suggested there were academic issues. Not true, Ore maintains.

In reality, Ore took time away from his school, his team, and his coaches to find himself and to mature. Six months later, Ore claims he's a new man, much different from the sulking, enigmatic kid who at times looked like the next great Virginia Tech tailback, but at others, played the role of a lazy, immature 19-year-old.

"That time off, time away from school, gave me time to reflect on my life in general. Just thinking about what I wanted to do with my life," Ore said this past week after finishing up a session of summer school in Blacksburg.

On the field, Ore can be a tremendous talent. Nobody's questioned that.

But off the field: his class attendance, his attention to detail, and his attitude had his coaches concerned.

"I was getting my work done, but it was just enough to get by," Ore said. "I was doing just enough to stay eligible to play football. I wasn't living up to my potential. I knew I could do better in the classroom and my coaches knew it, too. I wasn't failing out of school, or anything like that, but I was just trying to get by so I could play. I was passing tests without even studying."

Ore redshirted in 2004 and then played behind seniors Cedric Humes and Mike Imoh in 2005. That's tough for a guy who wanted to play right away.

"My redshirt freshman year really hurt me," Ore said. "I didn't know much about how redshirting works. I just thought I was sorry. I thought I couldn't play college football."

His friends and teammates told him he could be a star, but he had to be patient.

"I took it a whole other way," he said. "I went against everyone on that one. It went down hill."

He skipped classes and sulked. Didn't listen to anyone who offered encouragement. He wanted to play football, not study. Not watch from the stands.

"I was a knucklehead," Ore said. "I was a young guy comin' in. I was an immature guy. Not listening to anyone. The guys on the football team would try to help me out, but I was just blowin' them off. They didn't know what they were talking about. Same with coaches. I was missing meetings."

Ore had a decent 2005 season for Tech. He finished second on the team in rushing with 647 yards and six touchdowns. But he re-injured his shoulder against UNC (an old high school injury) and had surgery the day after the Hokies' Gator Bowl win over Louisville.

He then decided to withdraw from school for the 2006 spring semester.

"That decision came down to me," Ore said. "Coach (Billy) Hite flew down to Chesapeake and left the decision on me. Be home and think about things. It was the best thing I could've done in my life."

Away from school and away from his teammates, Ore found himself in a cold food warehouse.

"Yeah, in a 7-Eleven warehouse," Ore said. "Not saying there's anything wrong with working there, but it gave me a taste of reality. 'Is this what I really want to do with my life or do I want to go to college? Get my degree, and hopefully make it to the NFL?'

"It was 9-to-5 every day. Working in a big freezer. 40 degrees. Pushing around crates and loading trucks. Everything you see at a 7-Eleven store, I had my hands on it, loading it on trucks. Going in there with big coats on and wearing ear muffs all day long. It was freezing.

"The time off changed me. The 7-Eleven warehouse gave me a reality check. It was my first job ever. It made me think about a whole lot of stuff. There were guys who it was their career, and their life. I didn't want to take that route."

Ore kept in touch with Hite, who had given explicit instructions to call Blacksburg once each week.

"I was missing it," Ore said. "I was supposed to call once every week, but I called more than that. I was on the internet every day, hokiesports.com, checking things out. I was callin' guys all the time. I was really missin' it."

Hite remembers a phone call he received from Ore in March.

"He called me right before the spring game and said he had finally realized what a great opportunity he had here at Virginia Tech and he was going to screw it up if he didn't change," Hite said.

Ore re-enrolled at Tech for the first summer session and Hite now sees a totally new young man compared to the one who left school in January.

"He's a totally different person," Hite said. "We, as coaches, check class every day and he hasn't missed one. He's been remarkable and he's doing well in school. He understands that he has to get his work done off the field to contribute on the field."

"I go to class. Hit the books. I'm on time for everything now. I'm happy to be here now," Ore said, eager to show everyone that he can be a terrific student. "It wasn't my grades. Everyone is talking about my grades, but that wasn't it. I wasn't playing, and it made me think 'What am I here for?'"

Thanks to the caring and fatherly 'tough love' which he got from people like Hite and Ore's high school coach, "Cadillac" Harris, Ore seems to have his life in order for the first time.

"He can be really special," Hite said. "He reminds me of Lee Suggs with the way he jump cuts into the holes. And he has great vision and the ability to find that crack or that seam. He's quiet like Lee, too."

Ore says his shoulder is "at about 98 percent right now and I've put on the 15 pounds I lost after surgery in January." He's 5-foot-10, 210 pounds as of now, which is fine for the rising sophomore.

But more than physically, Ore has changed mentally. He's recognized how close he came to blowing it.

"I can honestly say it. I was a knucklehead," he said. "I thought everybody was wrong. Only I knew the truth. It was just a learning process."

And with the critically important starting tailback position there for the taking, Ore is hungry to earn that spot for the 2006 Hokies.

His family, and Hokie fans everywhere are eager to see the 'new' Ore, a Tech athlete who learned the 'cold reality' of life this past spring.

---

Have a question for Bill? Submit it on-line

The Roth report appears weekly in hokiesports the newspaper and is posted for the general public on hokiesports.com.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Virginia Tech Athletics Department, hokiesports.com, or it's advertisers.