As many of you know, VaAkita was diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer. His prospects were not good, and he passed away on Sep. 16th.

His name was Carlton Gray. I received the following email today.

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Hi Will,

I hope this email finds you well. I'm the son of VaAkita from Tech Sideline. It is my sad duty to share with you the news of the passing of my father. We found out in June he had advanced stage pancreatic cancer. While the outlook was grim one of his goals was to live long enough to see the start of Hokie football this season. He made it to start of the season to watch the BC game with me at his bedside, then managed to hang in there long enough to see the next two wins before passing peacefully on Sept 16th. He always loved the community on Tech Sideline and was always excited to update me on what was going on. As the disease progressed he'd have me sit by his bead and read posts and sports articles to him. For the home games he wanted me to make it back home (I live in Blacksburg) for game day even though he no longer could so we adjusted our schedule around that. We've had season tickets together for ages.

He asked me to let you know after he passed and include this picture of him "in happier times" as he put it. He loved any excuse to visit Blacksburg and loved Hokie football. He was always the first one in the car when it was time to head for campus on game day and it was hard to keep up with him as we made our way to the stadium. Often he'd race on ahead and not bother waiting for the rest of us to catch up. While he isn't here with us anymore he'll always be here in spirit as we cheer on the Hokies. I also included a photo of his beautiful Virginia Tech inspired casket.

Thanks for everything you've done with Tech Sideline and the community that brought dad so much joy.

-Carl