Beck is back with Virginia Tech football

BLACKSBURG, Va. – Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry calls him “White Lightning” for his incredible speed. The Hokies football program is hoping that speed can be seen this season as Cole Beck returns to the gridiron.

“When I stopped playing football, I didn’t want to stop,” Beck said. But at the time I knew I had to just focus on my track career. It certainly wasn’t a bad decision.

In addition to being a stellar track athlete, the former Blacksburg High School standout has been a force in the backfield for the Bruins for years. Beck committed to Virginia Tech during the Justin Fuente era, but ultimately decided to focus on his college track career.

“I knew that if I just sat on it, I could do something really special,” says Beck. It really wasn’t a bad decision. Not only did he help lead the Hokies program to ACC titles, but he did so individually as well. In the 2021 outdoor season, Beck became Virginia Tech’s first ACC champion after setting a school record 10.10 to qualify for the NCAA Championships.

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In the 2022 indoor season, Beck took gold in the men’s 200 meters at the ACC Championships with a time of 20.95 seconds. He also earned the ACC Championship boys track MVP.

“We’ve had a few championships as a team over the last few years so I’ve had a lot of success with my teammates over there,” Beck said.

Beck said time was of the essence when it came to returning to football, but there was another process that took place before he agreed.

“He had to convince me, he had to convince us that he really wanted to do it,” Prie said. “It wasn’t just, ‘Yeah, man, boy I want to be on the team again,’ because it’s not going to be easy. Back to football, knocking off the rust, it’s going to be a tough way to learn the playbook. So getting involved was a lot of work and I wanted to make sure he was committed to it before we started messing with him. He confirmed this.

Part of the transition was a change of scenery from when he was playing football. Beck is working at the wide receiver position and said the entire team has been helpful — from the likes of Jaden Blue, Da’Wayne Lofton and Caleb Smith.