Christmas, Yevoli are lacrosse leaders
By John Galinsky / Daily Progress staff writer
February 21, 2004

John and Joe. Joe and John.

For anyone familiar with Virginia lacrosse, the reference is clear. Last names aren’t necessary.

In just two seasons together, UVa attackmen John Christmas and Joe Yevoli have become one of the most recognizable and prolific tandems in college lacrosse. They have combined for 128 goals and 63 assists. They have earned all sorts of individual honors. They have helped the Cavaliers win 26 of 32 games, including the 2003 national championship.

So what’s next? What more can they accomplish?

Just wait.

“I’ve always felt like your junior year is really when you come into your own,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia, whose team opens the 2004 season at Drexel today at 11 a.m. “I think you’ll see that with John and Joe this year. I think they’ll raise their games to another level.”

If UVa is going to repeat as NCAA champion, they may have to.

The Cavaliers welcome back many of the key members of last year’s team, including All-American goalie Tillman Johnson, defenseman Brett Hughes and faceoff specialist Jack deVilliers. But they lost their top three midfielders, including Chris Rotelli, the National Player of the Year, and they have just four seniors on the roster.

Because of that, Christmas and Yevoli know they will have to assume larger leadership roles on offense, both on and off the field.

“Freshman year we were young pups playing with Conor [Gill]. Last year everyone talked about the seniors and their leadership,” Christmas said. “This year it is our team. A lot of people are saying, ‘We don’t know if they can do it. They don’t have the midfield, they don’t have the senior leadership.’ I thing that’s why me and Joe and a bunch of other people have something to prove, that we can handle the pressure and lead this team. We’re looking forward to it. I think we’re ready for it.”

Christmas and Yevoli certainly have credibility with their teammates. Both have been starters since the opening game of their freshman season. Each has put up big numbers and shown the ability to perform in pressure-packed situations.

“I think they’re going to have great seasons again,” said Johnson, who will lead the defense along with Hughes. “Those guys, it’s their turn to take control of the offense. This is an opportunity for them to really become leaders.”

So far, both players have had successful careers by any reasonable standard. Yevoli burst onto the scene with 40 goals in 2002, setting a UVa freshman record, and was named ACC Rookie of the Year. He showed his versatility in a feeder role last season, delivering a team-high 26 assists along with 23 goals.

This season, Yevoli said with a smile, “I’d like to be a complete demon on both sides, have 20 [goals] and 20 [assists] again, maybe 30-30. 40-40 would be great.”

Christmas, meanwhile, has established himself as one of the premier dodgers and finishers in college lacrosse. He has 65 goals, including a team-high 36 last season, and he gives defensemen fits with his quickness and creativity.

Still, some believe Christmas has not lived up to the hype that surrounded his arrival at UVa two years ago. Heralded as a player who could revolutionize the game with his athletic ability, Christmas has been dominant at times and ordinary at others. Of course, as Starsia points out, some of the outside expectations for Christmas probably bordered on the unreasonable.

“I don’t think John gets enough credit for what he’s accomplished. People say he’s a great athlete, but they don’t recognize his deft touch and his lacrosse sense,” Starsia said. “John had 36 goals as a sophomore and he got them the hard way. For anyone who thinks he’s not as good as he should be, I tell you what: I dare you to put your second-best guy on him.”

Pressure? Christmas says he puts so much on himself that he doesn’t worry about what others expect. He shrugs and smiles when asked if he has been happy with his career to date.

“When you win the national championship and you’re the leading scorer on the team, you have to say it’s been pretty good,” he said. “There are a few goals that I haven’t accomplished yet that I want to accomplish. I really want to be the leading scorer in the country. I want to do everything individually to push myself up to the next level. I want to improve everything about my game.

“On the other hand, I know that having all those stats means nothing if you don’t win the national championship. That’s why I want to do everything I can for my team. I want to be a leader on my team. I want to play all over the field. I want to play attack, I want to play midfield. I want to do everything the team needs me to do to win.”

Starsia says Christmas may end up playing as a midfielder at times, though that depends on how the young corps of middies develops. Offensively, the Cavaliers have several budding sophomore stars in attackman Matt Ward, who had 26 goals and 20 assists last season, and midfielder Kyle Dixon.

“I don’t think anyone needs to feel like they have to carry the team on their shoulders. No matter what your abilities are, at this level it’s a team sport,” Starsia said. “There are plenty of people capable of helping you. There’s no reason they should have to do more than they’re capable of.”

Both Yevoli and Christmas are confident that the Cavaliers are capable of winning a second consecutive national championship. To that end, they say they will be happy to carry the offensive load - or simply do the small things, if that is what’s required.

“Now that the leadership role is in our hands, a lot of things are going to go through us,” Yevoli said. “I think we’ll handle the ball a lot more. Sometimes we’ll go to goal, but sometimes we’ll just settle it down, just work it around and make sure the offense is running smoothly. I think we’ll both be better players than we were the last two years in every way. We’ve worked hard for it. It’s awesome.”
 

Last-place ACC teams to battle
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
February 21, 2004

An observer could say today’s game at Littlejohn Coliseum has little drama or interest factor. Of course, there is possibly something very much at stake today: The winner could very well get to wear their home whites in next month’s ACC play-in game.

Both Virginia and Clemson enter the game with 3-9 records in ACC play. With formidable games left for both teams - after today’s game, two of Virginia’s final three opponents are ranked - the prospects for either team advancing past the eighth and ninth seeds are unlikely.

So, today’s contest will determine who can avoid the ACC cellar for both the near and distant future.

Clemson would conceivably have the slight edge given Virginia has lost 18 of its last 19 ACC road contest and that the Tigers are coming off a victory over No. 13 N.C. State at Littlejohn on Wednesday.

In turn, Virginia is coming off a 76-57 loss at Florida State which may have erased any “good feelings” after an upset of then-No. 15 Georgia Tech last weekend.

“We may have lost the momentum. Basketball is a game of runs and we have to answer,” said junior center Elton Brown after Tuesday’s game.

Virginia’s woes have been discussed so frequently that trying to find the answers for it might be like trying to solve the riddle of the Sphinx.

One pattern, however, seems to occur more often than any other.

In this stretch of road futility, Virginia has only lost by less than 10 points on three occasions. Yet, rarely has Virginia not been competitive in those games. More often than not the Cavaliers find themselves in the position when they’re up slightly, the game is tied or they’re down by a small margin. That’s usually when things start going bad. It is when the Cavaliers wilt in the moment.

Case in point was the other night at Florida State. The game was tied at 27 at intermission but a FSU run to begin the second half gave the Seminoles control of the game. Even when the Cavaliers managed to crawl back into the contest, mental breakdowns halted their momentum and shifted control back to the Seminoles.

“It’s a mental thing and that may be our biggest problem right now. We get hurried, we rush and get a little flustered when things go bad. Good teams don’t do that,” Brown said.

When asked about his team’s second-half collapse Tuesday night, UVa coach Pete Gillen insinuated that his team’s youth may have been a factor.

“I think the game might have been a little too big for our younger players. We may have expected them to do too much,” Gillen said.

One of those struggling against the Seminoles was freshman point guard T.J. Bannister. Bannister, making his third straight start, was 1 for 6 from the field with seven points, no assists and four turnovers in 25 minutes.

“T.J. had been playing well for us. He was doing some things for us but he didn’t have his best game,” Gillen said.
 

Virginia Tech, U.Va. see much to gain in mutual disdain
Associated Press
© February 20, 2004 | Last updated 10:55 AM Feb. 20

RICHMOND — The long-simmering rivalry between Virginia and Virginia Tech is being licensed.

Officials at both state schools have agreed to allow the sale of products that, within the bounds of good taste, disparage each other. Coming soon to a store near you: clothes, pennants, posters and key chains that give either a black eye to the Blacksburg school or a jolt to the jaw of Mr. Jefferson's University.

As one shirt soon to go on sale in Charlottesville puts it: "Friends don't let friends go to Virginia Tech."

As one soon to be on the shelves in Blacksburg replies: "Friends don't let friends go to U.Va."

The coming intercollegiate mockery coincides with Tech's preparations to bolt the Big East sports conference to join the Wahoos in the Atlantic Coast Conference, making their rivalry more real, and heated, than ever.

"We're definitely beholden to them for their help in getting us into the ACC," said Tech licensing director Locke White. "But now that we're in, the gloves are coming off and we're enemies again." And, White noted, "There's money in kicking mud on each other."

"Obviously, state universities need all the extra revenue they can get," said Steve Heon, U.Va.'s licensing director.

The schools' move to allow products that "poke fun" at each other is the result of a change of heart on Tech's part.

U.Va. has long allowed other schools, such as the University of North Carolina, to permit the sale of merchandise that puts down U.Va., and UNC has allowed U.Va. to do likewise with anti-UNC products. But U.Va. has never won permission from Tech to sell material that disparages the Hokies.

And White said Tech has allowed only one product to feature the schools' rivalry at all: a small figurine of a Hokie football player "smushing" his Wahoo counterpart into the ground.

White said he tried and failed several years ago to talk school administrators into using the bad blood between the schools as high-octane merchandising fuel.

"I think the university took the stance that we didn't want to play up the rivalry," White said. "It was kind of conservative."

White said he tried again recently after a local T-shirt shop came to him with a Tech-U.Va design. He told Heon of Tech's new willingness to allow the merchandise, and Heon readily agreed to tell the hundreds of licensees of U.Va.'s logo that they now have the go-ahead to open fire on Tech. Since both schools have to approve any design, slogan or insult that exploits the rivalry, it's safe to say the exchanges won't get too rough.

"I think the fans want this kind of thing," Heon said. "But Virginia's got to have an opportunity to say, 'Wait, that's a little over the top.'"

White said he anticipates Tech's roughly 500 merchandising licensees could bring in more than $1 million in royalties this year, and any merchandise exploiting the alumni's disregard for U.Va. "will be icing on the cake."

James Parker, university services coordinator for Collegiate Licensing Co. in Atlanta, which helps universities manage their product licensees, agreed there's good money to be made in the animosity of college students toward their rivals. He said the rhetoric on T-shirts and sweaters at the University of Florida and Florida State, for instance, "can get pretty heated."

Said Parker: "It's popular, definitely, to mock the other schools."
 

The silent treatment
Recruiting rivals on Spiders' list
By DOUG DOUGHTY
Exclusive to roanoke.com by 5 p.m. Fridays

More college sports, including Doug's College Notebook from The Roanoke Times

In the days following a recent column on Virginia men’s basketball coach Pete Gillen, more than a few people asked if Gillen was still speaking to me.

The column was published Saturday, so I don't know if Gillen had read it when the Cavaliers played Georgia Tech, but he took my questions that afternoon and again following Virginia’s loss Tuesday at Florida State.

At this stage in the season and his career, I’m not sure Gillen is devoting much time to his press clippings, but I would be surprised if he did cut me off completely. Over the course of 30 years, I've written a few scathing things -- some of which I may have regretted -- but very seldom have I received the silent treatment.

Two of the coaches who do not speak to me are former men’s basketball coaches at Virginia and Virginia Tech, Jeff Jones and Ricky Stokes, whom I had covered since their playing days at UVa in the 1980s.

Jones and I have not spoken since March 5, 1998, when No. 1-ranked Duke defeated UVa in the first round of the ACC Tournament. That was the last game of Jones' eight-year tenure as head coach.

I didn't cover Stokes' last game March 5, 2003, when the Hokies lost to Miami at Cassell Coliseum, and I’m not sure that I've spoken to him since Tech's 73-55 victory over Virginia on Jan. 21, 2003.

Surprisingly enough, Jones had no complaints about a column I wrote in February 1998, when I said he should resign because grumbling would only continue if he had another losing season in 1998-1999. Predictably enough, Gillen was hailed as a genius when the Cavs went 14-16.

Jones was upset because of something I had written in an Internet column, either Notebook Plus or the UVa Insider, in which I mentioned his children. I maintain to this day that the reference was not the least bit distasteful, but that's what ended our relationship.

We have mutual friends, most notably Boston University coach Dennis Wolff, who would like to get us back together, but it hasn't happened.

As for Stokes, I'm not sure what set him off, but I believe it was a column on the state of men's basketball in Virginia in which I said that neither Stokes nor Gillen was getting the job done. I'm sorry, but I'm not taking that back. Stokes was 45-70 in four years at Tech. He wasn't getting the job done.

Once, I was able to get Stokes on the phone while he was still living in Blacksburg. He said he would call me right back, but he never called. Then, when South Carolina coach Dave Odom hired Stokes as an assistant, he said he would have Stokes call me. That never happened, either.

I'VE HAD FEUDS go on longer than my current ones with Stokes and Jones. Former Virginia assistant football coach Tom Sherman stopped talking to me over something I wrote in the spring of 1984 and we haven't spoken since.

Sherman was recruiting Southwest Virginia at the time and, in an article on linemen Tim Goad from Patrick Country, Todd Grantham from Pulaski County and Eric Hairston from Drewry Mason, all three players said they had not been recruited to any great degree by UVa.

Sherman felt that he had explained UVa's recruiting strategy to me and that I had ignored his explanation. Another UVa assistant, Ken Mack, felt I had taken a shot at Sherman and he did not talk to me for several years.

Mack eventually started talking to me. Sherman later went into administration and our paths seldom cross, but, when they do, there is no eye contact. I will say that Sherman's son, Tim, was a class act with me and other reporters during his tenure as UVa's quarterback.

If Sherman had been talking to me, he might have stopped in the winter of 2001, when I questioned Al Groh's decision not to keep Danny Wilmer from the staff of predecessor George Welsh. I wrote that I had no problems with Sherman and another administrator, Gerry Capone, keeping their jobs, but that Wilmer was the first guy from the Welsh staff that I would have kept.

Capone hasn't spoken to me since. Another feud I can remember was with former Jones assistant Brian Ellerbe before he began his checkered head-coaching career, and then there was Ann Holland, who gave me the silent treatment as the result of a story about her husband, Terry, and his UVa men's basketball team.

I had written a story in the winter of 1979-80 about several UVa players and what they perceived as communication problems with Holland and I'll stick by that story. However, I've come to understand that most coaches reach a point in the season when their rotation shortens and, as minutes declines, players get their feelings hurt.

Holland closed his locker room at Maryland in the next game after the story, but got over it quickly, particularly because the Cavaliers won the NIT. I think Ann started talking to me 10 or 15 years later, but I still tread lightly when I'm around her.

OF THE VIRGINIA assistant football coaches who have taken other positions, none had as big a role in the Cavaliers' operation as Mike London, who was interviewed Thursday for the head-coaching vacancy at the University of Richmond, his alma mater.

London, 41, has been the Cavaliers’ defensive-line coach for three seasons and recruiting coordinator for the past two. In that latter capacity, he is UVa's primary liaison with the talent-rich Hampton-Newport News area.

London may not have entered the interview process as a favorite but he would stand out -- not just among minority candidates -- because of his youth, his association with the school, and his in-state recruiting ties. He also has done a good job with the Cavs' D-line.

Interestingly, London is a recruiting rival of one of Richmond’s other targets, Jim Cavanaugh, who is the recruiting coordinator at Virginia Tech and also has the Peninsula District among his recruiting areas. Cavanaugh is an alumnus of Richmond’s biggest rival, William and Mary, but nobody has more in-state recruiting connections.

ODDS 'N' ENDS: Monticello High School coach Brud Bicknell reports that quarterback Joe Sanford, chosen second-team All-Group AA by the media, has met NCAA academic guidelines but will spend a year at Fork Union or Hargrave in hopes of gaining a Division I scholarship.

Sanford, son of Covenant School head football coach and former UVa fullback Mark Sanford, was rated the No. 64 senior prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times. Bicknell reports that Monticello wide receiver Richard Turner, named first-team All-Group AA by the media and the coaches' association, is looking at junior colleges.

Jefferson Forest coach Terry Smith says that 74th-rated Quincy Freeman is likely to go the junior-college route and is looking at Butler (Kan.) Community College and Georgia Military College, another two-year program.
 

Virginia has hopes for another crown
Defending champions well stocked in some areas, less so in others
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 21, 2004
COLLEGE LACROSSE
VIRGINIA VS. DREXEL
TODAY:
11 a.m., at Haverford School in Pennsylvania

CHARLOTTESVILLE- The University of Virginia captured its third NCAA men's lacrosse championship last year. Could the Cavaliers win No. 4 in 2004?

"Absolutely," U.Va. coach Dom Starsia said. "I just think we may have some lumps early in the year while we figure some things out."

From a team that finished 15-2 after beating Johns Hopkins for the NCAA title in Baltimore, Virginia has back such marquee players as goalie Tillman Johnson, defenseman Brett Hughes and attackmen Joe Yevoli, John Christmas and Matt Ward.

A season ago, Johnson made the All-America first team. Hughes, Yevoli and Christmas were second-team selections. Ward started every game as a freshman in 2003.

Still, Starsia said, if "we're going to be a team that's competitive at the end, all these younger guys are going to have to step up and make plays," Starsia said. "We're confident that's going to happen, but we have to be patient."

U.Va. must replace several standouts, among them midfielders Chris Rotelli, Billy Glading and A.J. Shannon, long-stick middie Trey Whitty and defensemen Ned Bowen and David Burman. Rotelli was a first-team All-American in 2003 and won the Tewaaraton Trophy, college lacrosse's version of the Heisman.

"We've got an awful lot of new people in key roles," Starsia said.

The Cavaliers enter the season - their 12th under Starsia - with only two senior starters: Johnson and Hughes. The first midfield consists of sophomores Kyle Dixon, Matt Poskay and Foster Gilbert. Sophomores Steve Holmes and Michael Culver move into the rotation on defense, and freshman Ricky Smith may take over at long-stick middie.

Virginia opens the season today against Drexel at the Haverford School near Philadelphia. Then comes a trip to Colorado for games against Air Force and Denver.

The Cavaliers' home opener is March 6, against Final Four fixture Syracuse. Two other perennial powers, Princeton and Syracuse, will visit Klockner Stadium later next month.

"The fun part of this team is I feel we could be a much better team in the second part of the year," Starsia said. "We've just got to get there."

For the first time during Starsia's tenure, U.Va. will play host to an NCAA quarterfinal doubleheader. If Virginia can advance to the quarterfinals, it will play May 22 at Scott Stadium.

"It's a wonderful nugget for our program and for the [local] lacrosse community," Starsia said.

NOTE: WINA (1070) in Charlottesville will broadcast six regular-season games (Syracuse, Towson, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, North Carolina and Duke) and the Cavaliers' ACC tournament semifinal. WINA also will carry the ACC final if U.Va. is invovlved and any of the team's NCAA tournament games. Any games WINA broadcasts can also be heard on the Internet at www.virginiasports.com.