Chris Beatty is a workhorse recruiter and coach for West Virginia football.

Beatty was the running backs coach at Northern Illinois and was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Hampton University.

He was the head coach at Landstown High (Va. Beach) and compiled a 40-2 record there. Beatty led Landstown to three consecutive Virginia state championship games and won the 2004 title.

Beatty joined head coach Bill Stewart’s staff as the running backs coach this offseason and since his hire, he’s really gone to work.

His ties to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia are being seen in WVU’s latest verbally committed football players.

Three standout Virginia high school players had already given verbal commitments to join the Mountaineers in 2009: defensive tackle Dominik Davenport, quarterback Tajh Boyd and receiver Logan Heastie. Boyd and Davenport are teammates from Phoebus High School (Hampton, Va.).

Running back Shawne Alston, another prep player from Phoebus, decided to follow his teammates to Morgantown, and Monday he gave a verbal commitment to WVU.

Scout.com lists Alston at 6-foot, 222 pounds and reported he rushed for 1,694 yards and 27 touchdowns during his junior year.

Scout.com reported West Virginia, East Carolina, Illinois, Maryland and Penn State all offered Alston a football scholarship.

“Alston is a bruising high school tailback with great size and production,” reported Scouts, Inc. “More of a one-gear back lacking great burst and speed but will keep coming at a defense and wear it down by the 4th quarter.”

Scouts, Inc. reported Alston was a versatile, strong, downhill runner, and he could “bounce it outside with adequate lateral foot-quickness and hips. However, despite being a long-strider, he lacks good acceleration and top-end speed when he reaches the second level.”

Alston is listed as a three-star running back who has 4.5 forty speed, according to Rivals.com.

Scout.com ranked Alston as the No. 58 overall running back among high school players for the recruiting class of 2009.

With Alston’s verbal commitment, the Mountaineers now have nine players committed for the 2009 class. Four are from Virginia.

Beatty’s recruitment of the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, which is compromised of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Hampton, Chesapeake and Suffolk, was described by ESPN as the “Mountaineer Invasion.” This statement is referring to WVU opening up a recruiting pipeline in an area it seldom recruited in the past. Frank Beamer and Virginia Tech were known to have a stronghold on the standout prep players from that region. Among those Virginia Tech signees from the area were quarterbacks Michael and Marcus Vick (Newport News) and defensive back Deangelo Hall (Chesapeake). All three made appearances in the NFL at one point or another.

There were talks that Virginia Tech offered Beatty a job on two different occasions, after he took his position with WVU.

Apparently, Beatty turned down those offers and remains active on the staff at WVU.