BLACKSBURG – For the third straight fall, the Virginia Tech baseball program hosted a Military Appreciation Breakfast on the sixth floor of Lane Stadium, welcoming more than 50 veterans, corps of cadet members and their superiors for the morning event. Part of the team’s 19 Ways campaign, which challenges the team to find 19 ways to help give back to the community, the breakfast served as a thank you to the corps for the year-long relationship the Hokies continue to maintain with them.

This fall, again, saw the Hokies’ baseball team members participate in two grueling morning sessions with the military – working out on the ROTC obstacle course (click here for images; click here for video) and taking part in an Air Force Special Operations Preparation Team workout. Additionally, Colonel Dave Miller, Ph.D., Deputy Commandant for Leader Development and Director of the MG W. Thomas Rice Center for Leader Development, also met with the team several times in the fall to help them work on developing personal leadership skills.

“Once a week for about six weeks, Colonel Miller met with the team as a group, and it was more of a business-type setting than a team-building concept, but he helped us evaluate ourselves and challenged us to learn how to be more effective leaders and followers,” head baseball coach Patrick Mason said. “I truly appreciate him taking time out of his schedule to meet with us, and the team really responded to the meetings.

“For everything that the military does for us, here on campus, and for what they do out in the world, we cannot thank them enough. So, the breakfast we started a couple years ago is at least one way we can honor those who served and will serve in the future.”

The breakfast was event No. 13 of the 19 Ways campaign for the 2015-16 academic year. Event No. 14 will follow in two days, as the team will hold its second annual Video Game Tournament/Toy Drive. The date for this event is Saturday, Dec. 5 and entry into the tournament is a new or unopened toy that will be donated to the Montgomery Country Christmas Store. (Click here for more information).

Over the past month, since the team’s signature event – the Shave for the Brave – the team has also been helping out with the Special Olympics Taste of Inspiration event, assisting with a soccer clinic at Eastern Montgomery Elementary School and volunteering at the Special Olympics bowling league in Christiansburg.

For more information on the team’s 19 Ways campaign, please visit the Facebook page.

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