Why did Virginia Tech Choose “Enter Sandman”? The Real Story Told by Those Who Made the Decision (Part I)

(This is a two-part series.  To read the supplemental article, click HERE)

If you have ever been to Blacksburg, Virginia for a football game, especially a night game, you know the scene.  The stadium gets loud.  Fans in the west stands scream, “Let’s go!” while patrons in the east respond with “Ho-kies!” After a few of those chants, the music starts.  “Enter Sandman.”

66,000 maroon and orange-clad maniacs start jumping in Lane Stadium.  As the music reaches its crescendo, the team runs out of the tunnel, fireworks pop, and the crowd goes wild.  The ground shakes, sometimes enough for a local seismometer to register a small earthquake.  

For twenty-five years, watching this scene has brought chills to Hokie Nation, especially now that Metallica finally made it to Blacksburg to perform a full concert at Lane Stadium.  

But why did Virginia Tech start using “Enter Sandman” for its entrance song in the first place?

Google searches will tell part of the story - that the school wanted an entrance song to go along with their new video board - and that “Sandman” was chosen over a few other options.  But that does not tell the full story.  

Other legends - such as an alleged arm-wrestling match to determine who chose the song - sound amazing but are untrue.  The real story is rooted in that age-old theme of ordinary people in an ordinary event that turned into something extraordinary.  

Now, for the first time in a quarter of a century, the public will know the truth of how and why Virginia Tech chose “Enter Sandman” as their entrance song.

This is that story, told by those involved in the decision.

Prior to the 2000 season, the Virginia Tech football team entrance was steeped in tradition.  After a pre-game performance, the Highty-Tighties, the Corps of Cadets' regimental band, formed a double line near the tunnel so the team could run through them as they played the fight song.   

However, with the success of the 1999 team, things changed drastically.  

Tim East, the Assistant Athletics Director for Marketing and Promotions at the time, recalled how Virginia Tech had entered into a marking agreement with ISP Sports in 1995, and ISP bought the school’s advertising rights.  The multimedia company was then looking for ways to parlay on the success of the ‘99 season.  (author’s note - ISP was eventually bought out by IMG, who then became Learfield, the school’s multimedia partner until the summer of 2024). 

According to East, as part of a negotiation to extend the multimedia contract, ISP offered to pay for a new video board for Lane Stadium.  At the time, not many schools had these large video boards, so this was new territory for East and his marketing and promotions team.  

East then contacted the University of Nebraska, as they were one of the only other schools with a large video board in their stadium.  Nebraska was the first college football team to feature a big screen and instant replay inside their venue.  With the beginning of Huskervision in 1994, Nebraska was at the leading edge of in-stadium television technology at the time.

The Huskers used their video board to display their team's Tunnel Walk and field entrance as “Sirius” by the Alan Parsons Project played throughout Memorial Stadium.   

East also turned to Roger Springfield, an independent video production guy whom East had previously hired to create television commercials for Virginia Tech football.  He told Springfield his ideas for a new entrance video, and the ball started rolling.

As Springfield made progress on the editing of his entrance montage, he asked East to provide the music for the video.  East was familiar with the Chicago Bulls’ iconic use of “Sirius,” but he was not sure that he wanted to duplicate what Michael Jordan and the Bulls - and also the Nebraska Cornhuskers - were already using successfully.

Admitting that the very popular ESPN “Jock Jams” and “Jock Rock” cd’s were the extent of his expertise in sports-anthem music, East turned to his immediate staff for help. “We need to come up with something,” he told them.  “Everybody give me your input.”

Enter Sarah Parsons (now Yarbrough), an intern in East’s sports marketing department.  She had been working with East since the previous year, and he recalled her as one of his “better interns.”  She was ecstatic to be involved in the new project.

Parsons Yarbrough was a go-getter.  And a big fan of music. “I loved putting music to things,” she admitted. “That’s my wheelhouse.”   After being asked to help choose the new entrance song, she walked out of Jamerson Athletic Center with an extra bounce.  “I remember boogying out of there…It was the best assignment ever!” 

Knowing that three heads are better than one, Parsons Yarbrough recruited some friends for help.  “I just got the coolest task,” she said to them. “Tim just asked me to sit down and brainstorm a new song for an entrance, who’s in?”

Two close friends joined her: Chip Runyon, a pitcher on the Virginia Tech baseball team and fellow business major, and her roommate Anne Dunnington (now Waters).

Runyon, a fan of rock and heavy metal music, was particularly helpful, and as Parsons Yarbrough put it, “He knew sports anthems.”  Just as helpful was his Napster account, where he had his library of songs and playlists that the group sampled for this project.

For those unfamiliar with Napster, it was a new file sharing program where people could copy and download songs through their computers.  Remember, this was the year 2000, and music was still produced mainly on compact disc.  iTunes was not yet launched and YouTube was still several years from existence.   

(author’s note: Napster was shut down the next year after a series of copyright infringement lawsuits, and ironically, Metallica was leading the charge against Napster!)

The trio gathered a few times where the girls lived at the Rutherford Apartments, 840 Patrick Henry Drive, and they proceeded to spend hours and hours listening to music, waiting for inspiration.  “I remember thinking, ’Wow, this is a big task’,” said Dunnington Waters.  “Where do you even start for something like that?”

“We went through song after song after song,” Parsons Yarbrough said of the painstakingly long process of brainstorming titles, downloading the mp3 files, then listening to them.

As songs were suggested, most were hit with immediate rejections: “Nope, not it,” they said, moving on to the next choice.  A few were met with lukewarm responses, and those were earmarked for later.  But Runyon recounted how Parsons Yarbrough was still indifferent, even to those that made the short list that they were required to generate. 

Among the earmarked songs were “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N Roses and “Hells Bells” by AC-DC.  But nothing really stood out about those tunes, especially because other teams were already using them.  Dunnington Waters remembered that her friends did not want to reproduce someone else’s entrance.  “They both felt strongly about that,” she said. 

Then Runyon did something that would change Virginia Tech football - and the university, and the town of Blacksburg - forever.  The baseball pitcher, who listened to a lot of Metallica in high school, said, “What about this?” and he cued up “Enter Sandman” on his Napster account.  He played the beginning of the song, not prepared for the response to come.

“That’s it!  That’s the one!” he remembered Parsons Yarbrough blurting out, her face lighting up.

“It was an immediate, full body yes,” the intern gushed, and then the friends jumped up and down together.  “We found it!” she beamed.  

The group made their short list because, as Dunnington Waters remembered, “Tim had asked for a few songs.”  She also noted that “the extra songs were just fillers, but there was a clear winner.”  

“Enter Sandman” was their choice.  “Sarah and Chip wanted something different. They both felt pretty strongly,” Dunnington Waters said of their desire to use the Metallica song.  “Their enthusiasm was next level.”

With an entrance song selected, the next step was to bring it back to Tim East for approval.  Almost immediately, Parsons Yarbrough grew concerned about their choice of a heavy metal song.  “Oh no, what if he (East) doesn’t like it?  What if it doesn’t go over well?” she worried. “This has to be the song!”

She waited for the right moment to reveal the news, and that brought about a little anxiety.  “I didn’t want to just email him, I didn’t want to just call him, and I also knew with Tim that I gotta catch him in the right mood.”

Keeping calm so as not to put East on guard, she found the right time to share her short list of recommendations for the new entrance song, with a strong push for “Enter Sandman.”

East’s initial reaction was favorable, but Parsons Yarbrough sensed reluctance.  “He seemed like he wanted to like it but was hesitant.”  She knew the pressures East faced in his job, and she knew that he would be concerned with how a song by Metallica would be perceived by the fanbase.

She was exactly right.

East admitted that he had a few holdups about the choice, particularly the worry about the fans.  East was responsible for ticket sales, and at the time, it was an older fan base.  “How is music from Metallica going to resonate with people from the Hokie Club?” he wondered. “Do we really want to go with it?”

A few weeks went by as East took time to mull over the options for the new entrance song.  Runyon and Parsons Yarbrough made sure to push their choice every chance they could.  Runyon specifically remembered running into East and his baseball coach Jay Phillips (East and Phillips were friends) and telling the men, “‘Enter Sandman,’ that’s the one!”

During that deliberation period, East’s marketing director Wendy McReynolds returned from a vacation in Southern California, and she didn’t just come back with a tan.  McReynolds told East about her experience at an Anaheim Angels baseball game where part of “Enter Sandman” was used.  

East then obtained a VHS cassette copy of the video from the Angels so he could see what the baseball team was doing with that song.

McReynolds liked the Angels’ use of “Enter Sandman.”  Parsons Yarbrough and Runyon were really pushing for the song.  And East himself was drawn to it.

It was time to trust his gut.  It was time to say yes to Sarah and Chip. Tim East needed to make the decision.  “I knew that this (‘Enter Sandman’) was the best that we had, there’s no question about it.” 

For East, the next step was obvious - run it by the football program.  “I didn’t do anything without going to the football team, to make sure they’re on board with it,” East remembered.  “It’s the right thing to do.”

He continued, “I always made sure football knew what was going on.  And when I say football, I mean John Ballein.” 

Ballein, who was then the Associate Athletic Director for Football Operations - and essentially head coach Frank Beamer’s right hand man - didn’t object.  He gave East his blessings to move forward with the song.  When asked about it recently, Ballein, who had much trust in East, said, “If he liked it, then it was good to go.”

After gaining approval from Ballein, East went to his own boss Dave Chambers, the Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Operations and Affairs.  Chambers’ reaction was non-committal, likely because of his belief in his marketing and promotions chief.  “He knew I was good at what I did,” East recalled.  “He was letting me do my job.”

And that was that.  “Enter Sandman” was ready to begin a new era at Virginia Tech.

With a new entrance video and song, the 2000 football season was about to change the football culture forever.  “Enter Sandman” was introduced for the season opener on August 27th, a home contest against Georgia Tech (unfortunately, the game was canceled just before kickoff because of lightning, but the “Sandman” entrance did make its debut).

Parsons Yarbrough remembers the feeling in the stadium that night.  “Oh yeah, here we go,” She thought as the new video started and “Enter Sandman” played for the very first time.  “Heck yeah, this is perfect!” 

“To have this cool song in conjunction with the screen was just like ‘Wow’!” Dunnington Waters reminisced. 

While the first year of “Sandman” was a success, the entrance wasn’t the spectacle that it is now, and after the season, Tim East still had to reflect and evaluate.  “So many times back then, you change your theme, you change the way you go about things,” he remembered. 

Tom Booth, who was hired in 2000 to create content for the new video board, was involved with the entrance video annually after that first season.  He recalled the deliberation each year.  “After a couple of years go by, you start to think, is it becoming stale?” he said.  “I know they had talks about do they switch it out and go somewhere else?” 

Plus, East still had reservations about using a track from Metallica, and he admitted,  “Every year I was nervous about using the song.”  

However, just as it was when he chose to go with “Enter Sandman” initially, East decided to stay with his gut, thankfully, and the rest is history.  

“Anybody who likes to talk about this, I tell them that going with it, that was really just the second best decision I made,” he laughed.  “The best decision I made about this whole thing was to keep using it year after year.”  

With a new entrance song and video and a nationally relevant team, Lane Stadium crowds became raucous.  However, the tradition evolved late in 2001 at a cold home game, when the band members started jumping to keep warm.  This caught on with the fans, starting a new tradition of the entire stadium jumping to the song.  

Later, fans began singing along, even when the music stopped and the fans continued “Sandman” a-capella.  Fireworks were added, and recently the cadets - and students - have started a rhythmic grunt as well!  The tradition keeps growing, and it is widely considered one of the best entrances in all of sports.

As the lore of this spectacle grew, so did the desire for Hokie Nation to see Metallica play “Enter Sandman” in their own stadium.  At first it was just conjecture, and for years it was rumored that they would play as the band caught on to the entrance and showed their support for it.  Fans began to dream of the “concert that could be.”

After 25 years - ironically the same beloved number 25 that Frank Beamer wore as a player at Virginia Tech - the fairy tale came true.  Metallica played a concert at Lane Stadium. And when the world famous band played “Enter Sandman” on stage in Blacksburg, time stood still.

“It’s certainly one of those iconic moments in the course of the tradition,” said East about the performance.

Parsons Yarbrough was awed by the band’s reaction to their reception in Lane, noting how “they were standing there playing their song in Lane Stadium, and they were so impacted by their own song because of the crowd.”

It was a full circle moment, not just for Hokie Nation, but for the band as well.  They have publicly admitted their awe of the entrance spectacle, and it was clear that they were moved by this show as well.

Ironically, because a few kids listened to their music on Napster!!

For a quarter of a century, Virginia Tech football’s “Enter Sandman” entrance has only grown in its national reputation as an event to experience.  Every college football fan knows about this now-iconic entrance, but why after 25 years does no one know the full story and the individual people behind the decision?

There are a lot of possible answers to this question, one of which can easily be pointed to the change in administration just over a decade ago.  When the school hired a new athletic director in 2014, there were personnel moves, and unfortunately for Tim East, he was not part of the new staff.  Eleven years of new faces in the Virginia Tech athletic department is a long time, and old stories are easily forgotten.

Another contributing factor could also be the lack of social media in the early days of Tech’s use of “Enter Sandman.”  Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube - and iPhones - were still half a decade away, so public video documentation of these events just didn’t happen.  Then by the time social media blew up, it was too late, people were more caught up in the spectacle of the entrance than they were concerned about how and why it started.

Runyon pointed to another aspect of media that also helped keep his and Sarah’s identity “secret,” and that was a lack of credible media sources to whom he could reveal his story.  Not knowing anyone personally in the media, he has felt helpless about telling the tale. “Is anyone really gonna believe this?” he said in discussing why he hasn’t come forward earlier.

(Author’s note - I can vouch for Runyon’s skepticism.  When he first told this story to me, my immediate reaction was incredulity, followed by the thought that I couldn’t possibly publish a story about a guy who claimed to have started “Enter Sandman.”  It wasn’t until Runyon shared other contact info that my doubt turned to excitement about writing this tale!)

Yet another likely barrier to public knowledge of this origin story is Tim East’s personality.  He is humble and he deflects credit, preferring to give it to the fans.  “I was just a small part of it,” he said about the renowned entrance.  “We sold out for fifteen straight years. A lot of those people, they had a lot to do with it.” 

Booth shared yet another perspective.  “I think it’s the simple fact that when history is occurring, you don’t know it,” he said.

Perhaps John Ballein put it best:  “There have been a lot of traditions that started at Virginia Tech, and no one knows why they began,” the longtime Tech administrator said.  “It’s just one of those things, it catches on, people like it.” 

This entrance caught fire, especially when the team was winning, like it did for the decade after the “Sandman” entrance started.  “No one is really concerned about the origins, they just like that it is part of the culture,” Ballein added.

And what about the “Enter Sandman” arm wrestling story?  The alleged contest between two guys in the Virginia Tech athletics video department with the winner earning the right to choose the new entrance song?

“It is simply not true, it did not happen,” Booth asserted.  “It was the byproduct of my former boss creating the story on his own, trying to add juice when it doesn’t need juice.”

When it came to the decision to use “Enter Sandman” as the new entrance song - and then to keep using it in those early years - the buck stopped with Tim East.  Chip Runyon suggested the song, Sarah Parsons Yarbrough loved it and recommended it, but in the end, East was responsible for the decision.

“It was his idea.  He brought it to us,” said Ballein.

“No question, he pulled the trigger,” added Phillips.

“He needs full credit, regardless of what he says,” affirmed Parsons Yarbrough.

Exit doubt, enter truth. 

Over time, the “Enter Sandman” lore grew, and it is now used at the start of other Virginia Tech sports.  When Caleb Henson won his wrestling national championship, it was played in the arena.  It is now aired at graduations.  It has become synonymous with Virginia Tech, not just the football team.

Had Runyon and Parsons Yarbrough suggested another song, would it still be that way today?  It is hard to imagine another song being so unique.

“It’s become such a representation of Virginia Tech athletics, and to think back to that day, it’s just astonishing” Runyon reflected about his part in the tradition.  “It’s super cool to think, wow, this has happened from that process.”

“There’s a little bit of insanity and craziness to it that this simple assignment has turned into this amazing, huge, special thing that people really cling to,” Dunnington Waters added.  “To see it evolve over the years and really intensify and see everyone fall in love with it and adopt it is pretty special to see.”

Yes, the mania has something to do with the actual song.  Yes, it is related to the pride and fanaticism that is wound into the fibers of Hokie Nation.  But the influence of Runyon and Parsons Yarbrough cannot be left out of this tale.

And obviously, neither can Tim East.  He had the foresight - and the guts - to make the decision to start using the song, and the legend was born.

“Music is a light, a beacon. It connects us,” Parsons Yarbrough said.  When it comes to “Enter Sandman” and Hokie Nation, that is a tremendous understatement.

(Author's note:  Meet the Trio in Part II of this story.  Click HERE to read more about Tim East, Sarah Parsons Yarbrough, and Chip Runyon.)