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Like head football coach Frank Beamer before him, Mike Young grew up in this part of the state, absorbed the best from great mentors and was ready to step up when Virginia Tech came calling, earning ACC Coach of the Year in his second season with the Hokies.
Ryan Hunt Photography
Regardless of where his basketball coaching career was going to take him, Mike Young was never going to forget the New River Valley.
Surely, Young felt at home in his 30 years as a basketball coach at Wofford College the last 17 as head coach, but he was a natural for Virginia Tech when its head coaching position came open following the 2018-19 season.
One year later, he was recognized as the ACC coach of the year. That didn’t mean he had been eager to leave Wofford, located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where his wife, Margaret, was an audit partner with Price, Waterhouse, Coopers.
“My wife is the brains behind the operation,” Mike Young says as we talk at his Tech basketball office. “We built something very special. I was a small part of that with the young people that came, graduated and were great players.
“I met my wife there. My best friends in the world are still there. Wofford holds a special place in my heart and always will.”
So does Radford.
“I so often reflect on growing up in that little hamlet,” he says. “There’s an old saying [that] it takes a village. We had a great school system, with great Little League recreation programs. It was as idyllic as one could imagine. We had great mentors.”
His father, Bob, was the principal at Dalton Intermediate School. His uncle, Norman Lineburg, was a legendary football coach at Radford High School. Mike Young’s aunt is Norman Lineburg’s wife.
“It was an awesome upbringing,” says Mike Young, whose dad passed away in March 2020. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I took a lot from [Norman Lineburg]. Something was very pure about the whole thing. No job was too small.”
Mike Young played football until his sophomore year at Radford.
“I didn’t like getting hit,” he says. “That didn’t go over so well, but Uncle Norman was great about it.”
Not all of Young’s mentors were relatives.
A life-changing event occurred in 1980, when Young went to see a game between Radford University, a fledgling program at the time, and a Fork Union Military Academy team coached by Fletcher Arritt.
“He just had a way with young people,” says Young of Arritt. “He was a great communicator, stern but compassionate. He was a great basketball coach but a better leader of men.”
After a postgraduate year at Fork Union, Young enrolled at Emory and Henry, a Division III basketball program coached by another military figure, Bob Johnson, who was more of a firebrand than either Arritt or his protégé, Young.
“Two of the greatest influences in my life, Fletcher Arritt and Bob Johnson, are no longer here and I miss those guys,” Young says. “Fletcher just had a way with young people—stern but compassionate. He was a great basketball coach but a better leader of men.
“With Bob Johnson, as well, you trusted him as soon as you came in contact with him about the right stuff.”
The Radford Ties are Strong
Although several of Young’s mentors have passed away, his strong family ties remain. One of his closest friends is a relative, Radford University athletic director Robert Lineburg.
They’re so close that they recently headed to Wrigley Field in Chicago to take in a Bruce Springsteen concert, with another Springsteen show to follow on Broadway.
“We talk just about every day,” Lineburg says of Young. “The first quality that he brings is, he’s a really great person. Most everybody who’s encountered him will agree to that and I think that goes a long way in coaching.
“He’s not the slick guy who’s out there for recruiting. What you see is, he’s a good person first. What he did for Wofford was, he elevated that place in a manner that they never could have imagined.
“I thought he was a perfect hire for Virginia Tech at the time. He has a lot of Frank Beamer qualities and the connection to this part of the country is really important to that job.
“If they don’t name the court after him at Wofford or put a statue in front of Richardson Coliseum for him, they’ve lost their minds.”
At Wofford, Young was the Southern Conference coach of the year in 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2019.
Don’t look for a Virginia Tech and Radford to meet in basketball any time soon.
“I had some conversations with [Radford coach] Mike Jones,” Lineburg says, “and he said, ‘I’m not playing that guy. You’ll have to make me play that guy.’
“I guess that was the highest form of compliment.”
Former Coaches Sing Young’s Praises
Another member of the Hokies’ basketball family, Page Moir, quickly gave his stamp of approval. Moir was a walk-on when his father, Charlie Moir, was the head coach, and Page subsequently served on the Tech staff.
Without prodding, Page Moir points out the similarity in southwestern Virginia backgrounds among Young, Moir and retired Tech football coach Frank Beamer.
“I’d argue that probably the last fit this good of somebody who wanted to be at Tech and thought it was a fantastic place was my dad,” Page Moir says. “Tech was kind of his dream school, too.”
One of Young’s most pleasant endorsements came at a preseason ACC function in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was praised by Seth Greenberg, a former Hokies head coach turned TV analyst.
“I’ve had no interaction with Virginia [Tech] for seven years,” Greenberg said in the fall of 2019, “but I’m a Mike Young fan. I called him when he got the job and told him, if there was anything to do, I’d be glad to help him.”
When he was approached about the Virginia Tech opening earlier in the 2018-19 season, Young was fly-fishing on the Colorado River.
“I told Seth Greenberg I used to have to spell my school’s name,” Young said at the time in a reference to Wofford. “I have a lot more people that return my calls now.”
Greenberg took the high road as Young was being installed as Buzz Williams’ successor.
“He’s [Young] not a good coach,” Greenberg said at the time. “He’s a terrific coach. I give [athletic director] Whit Babcock credit for not getting seduced by trying to find someone who’s quote-unquote ‘hot’ to win a press conference.”
The story above is from our November/December 2021. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!