Frank Beamer - Personal Life

Personal Life

Beamer is married to the former Cheryl Oakley and has two children, Shane and Casey. Shane played football at Virginia Tech and was a member of the 1999 team that advanced to Sugar Bowl to play for the national championship. He is currently the associate head coach and running backs coach alongside his father at Virginia Tech.

In July 2006, Beamer and his wife, Cheryl joined with Virginia publishers Mascot Books to publish their first children's book Yea, It's Hokie Game Day!

In 1954, when Beamer was seven years old, he used a push broom to help keep a pile of burning trash in place. When the job was done he returned the broom to the garage, not knowing that its bristles were still smoldering. A spark ignited a nearby can of gasoline, that exploded in front of him. His 11-year old brother, Barnett, saved him by rolling him around on the ground, but Frank was left with burns on the right side of his neck, chest and his shoulders. Over the next few years dozens of skin grafts left him with permanent scarring.

Beamer is also a direct descendant of Floyd Allen and the notorious Allen clan, the fierce mountain men who shot up the Carroll County, Va. courthouse in a spasm of violence in 1912 that left five people dead, including the judge, prosecutor and county sheriff. This bit of Beamer's family history helps explain why he was such a powerful voice in Blacksburg after the Virginia Tech massacre, after which he said the important thing was not to allow the act of violence to define the university. “We can’t let one person destroy what goes on here every day, the caring, the thoughtfulness. We can’t let one person destroy that.” ("Tempered Steel: How Frank Beamer Got That Way")