Coleman Collins remembers Virginia Tech's tragedy

Former Virginia Tech and D-League player Coleman Collins plays professional basketball in Germany, has a blog, and contributes semi-regularly to TrueHoop. Today he writes about the tragedy that shaped his college days, three years ago. (I must apologize for the way this meanders and detours and jumps around. That's the way it came out on paper. I must also apologize for the way it is centered around me, and my experiences. I don't wish to diminish anyone else's, least of all the victims, but it is the only story I know well enough to tell. Solah-rex, solah-rah. Polytech Vir-gin-ia.) When I first visited Virginia Tech in the fall of 2002 I was a 16-year-old boy with no swagger and stains on my teeth from where my braces had been. I'd just gotten them off and was brushing extra hard to get the colors to blend, the slight yellow rings and the blinding white that had been protected by the brackets. I got to campus and walked around, and that first night with some help ...