Don Petersen / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Virginia Tech football fans cheer as the team arrives for its game against East Carolina on Saturday.

The game was preceded by a ceremony that thanked East Carolina for a $100,000 donation to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, included a tribute video, recognition of first responders, a moment of silence and a flyover by two F-15 fighter jets.

Fans were eager to see the ceremony, and then to get down to playing the brand of football that made the school and the Hokies known long before the killings.

“We’re going to go through the motions, and we’re going to cry,” Thompson’s wife, Sharon, said. “Then we’re going to jump up and down and go play football and we’re going to move on from here. We’ll never forget, but it’s time to move on.”

Zell, whose daughter Alexis decided to transfer to Virginia Tech before the massacre, wasn’t sure he was ready to come back yet, but decided not to put it off.

“I did. I did. This is a healing process, and the healing began shortly after it happened, but this is a healing process and this is part of it,” he said. “Everybody in still grieving. We’re moving on with our lives, but it’s still a grieving process.”

His tears, he said, were as much tears of thanks as they were of sadness.

“It’s just the absolute support of it all, the outpouring of all the people who never even knew Virginia Tech was on the map,” he said. “Coming down here, there were people just beeping and waving, just positive stuff. It was just so great to feel it.”

In the end, the Hokies hadn’t played great, but as the team gathered in front of the band to sing the alma mater, they did it knowing they had at least done their part.

“It’s a relief that we made the community proud,” said “Macho” Harris, whose interception TD gave them a 10-7 lead. “We got the victory, and that made them happy.”

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