BLACKSBURG, Va. — Brent Pry went to high school in Lexington, Virginia and dreamed of playing football for Virginia Tech. He never made the grade to do that. However, over 30 years later he is the man leading Hokie Nation on the football field. Tech introduced Pry as their new head coach Thursday morning.
Early in his career, Pry was a graduate assistant under Frank Beamer and Bud Foster at Virginia Tech in the mid 90's. He spent his last six years as the defensive coordinator at Penn State.
Now at age 51, Pry gets his first head coaching job. This morning he said, "I wasn't sure I'd ever step out and do my own thing. It took this place to do it. It took what coach (Beamer) built and Bud and so many others to be the right place for me."
Pry has certainly learned under some great ones like coach Beamer and James Franklin at Penn State. It's actually someone else whom Pry says stands out the most, "No one's been bigger than my father, Jim Pry a journeyman coach, small college, played at Marshall, high school coach in West Virginia, college coach in West Virginia. He's my ultimate mentor."
Pry made clear his priorities, "It doesn't matter who it is in this facility or who it is out in town, we're going to treat people right and we're going to do things the right way."
When it comes to recruiting, there's a plan in place already, We're going to recruit everywhere, but our footprint is going to be our emphasis. There's been a sense of pride on this football team for a lot of years about the guys from the state of Virginia coming here and being successful."