Here is a story I just filed for tomorrow about incoming freshman safety Antone Exum, a Deep Run High graduate, and his experiences so far at Tech. Also, at the bottom of this piece are a couple more details about Tech’s game next season against Boise State at FedEx Field, plus Tech’s preseason all-ACC selections ...

BY DARRYL SLATER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

BLACKSBURG – Most of Antone Exum’s friends are spending the summer going on vacation, working part-time jobs or saying their final goodbyes before heading off to college. Exum, meanwhile, is waking up at 8 a.m. every weekday – except Friday, when he rises at 6. Four days a week, he sits in study halls for four hours. Much of the rest of his time is filled with weight lifting and conditioning.

Exum, a Deep Run High graduate, enrolled at Virginia Tech for the second session of summer school, along with 16 other incoming freshmen who received full scholarships to play football for the Hokies. The session began July 7, but Exum arrived in Blacksburg five days later because he played in the Virginia High School Coaches Association all-star game.

While their high school classmates enjoyed the leisure of July, Exum and his fellow freshmen experienced a scaled-down version of a college football player’s hectic schedule: two-hour study halls at 9 a.m. and 3:15 p.m., lifting and running shoehorned from 1 to 3, informal drills on the practice field after that and a couple classes somewhere in there to complete the day. Exum is usually so tired from the routine that he falls asleep by 11:30. Not much time for a social life.

“I’m not really here for anything else besides education and football,” Exum said. “The other stuff, that’ll fall in when I have time for it.”

In the month before preseason practice begins on Aug. 6, these freshmen are getting a crash course in the challenges of balancing student and athlete – an act Exum seems capable of mastering.

The son of a doctor and a dentist, he said his high school grade-point average was about 3.5. At Tech, he plans to study business finance, an uncommon academic path for a football player. He hopes to start the fall with a 4.0 foundation by acing his two summer classes: personal health and tourism management. (He is taking them online because the all-star game forced him to miss the session’s first week.)

Exum played quarterback and defensive back at Deep Run, and was considered one of the state’s top 20 recruits. The Hokies signed him as a quarterback, but he will begin his career as a free safety.

“I think his maturity, his intelligence, his athletic ability give him a chance to be a good safety, along with some other things,” said Tech coach Frank Beamer, adding that “other things” could possibly involve playing quarterback, but not until later in Exum’s career.

Exum hopes he won’t redshirt and wants to play on special teams. He was a first-team all-state kick returner as a senior, when he ran back six for touchdowns.

So far, he has been able to keep up in the weight room, even if the workouts begin at 6 a.m. on Fridays, when the players don’t have study halls. Strength and conditioning coach Mike Gentry hustles the players from station to station, allowing “no real room for slacking,” Exum said. “So far it hasn’t really been difficult.”

He said he felt prepared for the workout regimen because, since the end of basketball season, he had worked out four or five times a week at Elkin Sports Performance in Richmond. “They do a lot of the same stuff that coach Gentry does,” Exum said.

His daily life might differ from that of most college freshmen, but this summer he learned that he and those kids do share one major adjustment to college. “All the walking we have to do,” Exum said. “We walk all across campus. I’m not used to all of that.”

NOTES: Tech placed four players on the media’s preseason all-ACC team announced yesterday: senior tight end Greg Boone, senior free safety Kam Chancellor, senior left guard Sergio Render and junior defensive end Jason Worilds. Virginia placed one player on the team: junior cornerback Ras-I Dowling. The preseason all-ACC quarterback is North Carolina State sophomore Russell Wilson, a Collegiate School graduate. … Tech Athletic Director Jim Weaver said the Hokies will receive $2.35 million from the Washington Redskins for playing Boise State next season at the Redskins’ FedEx Field. Boise State will get $1.25 million from the Redskins. Neither school will pay the other any money, Weaver said.

Antone Exum from Deep Run talks about coming to school early, plus a couple additional details on the Boise State game and Tech’s preseason all-ACC selections: Greg Boone, Kam Chancellor, Sergio Render and Jason Worilds.