Wake offers a big challenge for Virginia
At 6-9 and 280 pounds, Deacons' Eric Williams will make his presence felt
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 4, 2006
WAKE FOREST AT. U.VA.
TODAY: 1:30 p.m. ON THE AIR: TV - WTVR-6, 1:30 p.m.; radio -WRVA (1140), 1 p.m.

He spent 14 seasons as an assistant coach in the Big East, a league renowned for its rugged brand of basketball. The ACC would be different, Dave Leitao was advised.

About 2½ months into his first season as the University of Virginia's coach, Leitao has formed a different opinion.

"I was told it was a little more of a finesse league," Leitao said yesterday, "but I understand after being around a while that the physicality is there, just like it's there in every other league."

U.Va. already has faced such bruisers as Florida State's Alexander Johnson (6-10, 250 pounds), North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough (6-9, 235) and Duke's Shelden Williams (6-9, 250). Now comes Eric Williams, who'll be the biggest, strongest guy in University Hall this afternoon when U.Va. (4-4, 10-8) entertains Wake Forest (1-7, 12-9).

The 6-9 Williams relishes contact, and, considering he weighs 280 pounds, who can blame him? He averages 16 points and 8.8 rebounds and leads the ACC in field goal percentage (64.9).

The Cavaliers' post players - Jason Cain, Tunji Soroye and Laurynas Mikalauskas - weigh 212, 212 and 241 pounds, respectively. None of them can duplicate Williams' brute strength, which makes preparing for him difficult in practice.

Even so, Leitao said, "obviously you develop a scheme that tries to neutralize what [Williams and the ACC's other elite big men] have done to be effective."

Mikalauskas' aggressive defense helped keep Hansbrough from dominating inside Jan. 19, and the 6-8 freshman from Lithuania is likely to be matched against Williams today.

He struggled early in the defense with his post defense, often getting in foul trouble, but Mikalauskas has "done an admirable job in that learning process," Leitao said.

Had Chris Paul not left early for the NBA, Wake almost certainly would have been a fixture in the Top 25 this season. Even without Paul, though, the Demon Deacons aren't devoid of talent. In Williams and senior guard Justin Gray, Wake has two all-conference candidates, and senior forward Trent Strickland averages 13 points.

The Deacons look like "look anything but a last-place team," Leitao said.

Gray, who was sick last weekend and missed Wake's game with Virginia Tech, is averaging 22.9 points in conference game. Once he crosses midcourt, it seems, Gray is in his shooting range.

"Obviously you're not going to stop a guy like that," Leitao said. "The only thing you can do is make it a little tougher for him, make him off balance and uncomfortable as much as possible."

The Cavaliers haven't played at home since Jan. 24, when they crushed ACC foe Miami. Since then, U.Va. has lost at Duke and at N.C. State. With a trip to Maryland (4-3, 14-6) looming, Virginia knows today's game is critical.

"We've got to take care of our home court," junior guard J.R. Reynolds said. "We've just got to come out with a lot of energy and be aggressive from the start."

 

Virginia looks to bounce back against Wake
Slow starts have cost Cavaliers in past two games, team focused on improving 4-4 mark in conference play, ending losing streak
Adrian Vigil, Cavalier Daily Senior Associate Editor

To the outside observer, it would seem like the Virginia Cavaliers (10-8, 4-4 ACC) are entering a crucial stretch in conference play beginning with Saturday's game against Wake Forest (12-9, 1-7 ACC). The Cavaliers own a .500 conference record and could take advantage of upcoming games to improve their standing in the conference. But do not tell that to Virginia coach Dave Leitao, who is not interested in breaking down the ACC schedule.

"We've lost two in a row, and we have to figure out a way to get back on track," he said. "That means more than anything else. I don't have any thoughts about anything else: half-way point [of ACC play], three-quarters way through, last game, first game. I hate to be rude about it, but that's the way I am. We have to get back to practice and see if we can win our next game."

Virginia will get a chance to win that next ACC game on its home court, where the Cavaliers are 7-2 on the season and 3-1 against ACC opponents. Returning home should be something the Virginia players look forward to since their two most recent games, both losses, were on the road. A return to University Hall will mean playing in front of a friendly crowd -- a luxury the Cavaliers have not had in over a week.

A home game may also enable the young Virginia team to play well in the opening minutes of the game. Against Duke Jan. 28, the Cavaliers found themselves down 20-2 to begin the game. At N.C. State, the Wolfpack opened the game with a 14-2 run. Being able to open the game well is something that Leitao will have to stress this weekend.

"We have to get back and work harder," Leitao said. "Obviously, we played the two best teams, by record, in this league, and a lot of teams will get off to slow starts. But I think what we have to do is manage it better."

While beginning the game with intensity will surely be the focus of practices, one Virginia player believes he knows why the Cavaliers started slowly and how to fix the problem.

"It's me," forward Jason Cain said. "I didn't come out aggressive enough on offense. The guards gave me good opportunities to score, be aggressive and loosen up, but I didn't come out playing too well. I have got to come out focused."

While slow starts can account for some of Virginia's recent shortcomings, another explanation is poor three-point shooting. Against N.C. State, the Cavaliers shot 2-19 from beyond the arc for a percentage of .095 on the game. On the season, the Cavaliers are shooting .336 on three-point shots.

"We shot poorly [against N.C. State] because we executed poorly," Leitao said. "But we have too many things going against us and our margin of error is too thin to play a game that way. We have to be on point in everything we do on every single possession."

With eight of the remaining nine games being conference matchups, the importance of each is something that is known to all of the Cavalier players.

"Every game is important, so we better come out strong next game," Cain said. "You can't play like this, because once you get on a losing streak in this league, it can keep on going. Every game is critical."

 

Top guards clash when Virginia entertains Wake
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
February 4, 2006

Someday, Virginia's speedy Sean Singletary and Wake Forest's Justin Gray could be going head-to-head on an NBA court.
But now they're simply two guys trying to enjoy the college experience.

This afternoon, the guards will square off at University Hall. Each will be trying to help his team snap a losing streak.

Virginia (10-8, 4-4) is coming off road losses to N.C. State and Duke. Wake Forest (12-9, 1-7) is the midst of a four-game slide.

While Virginia - tied for sixth-place in the ACC - has already surpassed a lot of people's expectations for this season, Wake Forest - languishing in the league basement - has been a huge disappointment.

The Cavaliers were picked by the media to finish last in the ACC; the Demon Deacons were chosen third.

Fortunately for Wake Forest - which has made it to the NCAA Tournament the last five years - there is still half a season to go.

In the 2003-04 campaign, the Demon Deacons lost six of eight games in January and February, but rallied to finish 9-7 and make it to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16.

"If you look at the statistics, especially in conference, they're anything but a last-place team," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "They shoot the ball extremely well and are, by far, the best rebounding team in the league."

Wake Forest, whose lone ACC win came against Georgia Tech, has lost its league games by an average margin of 7.8 points.

"What that tells me is they've had a lot of close games but maybe haven't finished off the game the right way," Leitao said. "It doesn't say anything about their talent.

"What we're trying to do is prepare ourselves for not only a very good team, but a team at 1-7 that probably has added some desperation to [its] season, and that's a very, very dangerous thing. We have our work cut out for us and know we have a very difficult game staring us in the face."

Gray is averaging 19.6 points. In his last six games, he's shooting over 46 percent from 3-point range. The senior is in the top 10 in the ACC in six statistical categories.

"He does present a ton of issues for us," Leitao said, "because he can stretch the defense out and shoot a very high percentage from 3. You've got to guard behind the 3-point line very closely, but he can put the ball on the floor ... he can get to the rim and get to the foul line and shoots almost 90 percent.

"The only thing you can try and do is make it a little tougher for him and try and keep him off-balance and uncomfortable as much as you can."

Wake Forest's struggles have been particularly puzzling since it is far from a one-man show.

The Demon Deacons also feature senior Eric Williams, one of the top big men in the conference.

The 6-foot-9, 280-pounder is averaging 15 points and almost nine rebounds per game.

"With Shelden Williams, Tyler Hansbrough and Alexander Johnson, we've faced several guys who have given us some problems in our post defending," Leitao said, "so we'll attack Eric Williams in a somewhat similar fashion - in getting ready to evaluate what he does very well and any weaknesses we could hopefully take advantage of."

In its loss to N.C. State, Virginia showed resiliency by fighting back from an early deficit. The Cavaliers had a paucity of turnovers and won the battle of the boards.

Still, they didn't do a lot of the little things - like snatching up loose balls - according to Leitao.

Virginia also shot an abysmal 9.5 percent from 3-point range (2 for 21).

After committing six turnovers against Duke, Singletary only had one against the Wolfpack, but shot just 6 of 17 from the field. The Cavaliers obviously need more efficiency - and production - from their sophomore floor general.

Singletary is third in the league in scoring (18.4) behind Gray and Duke's J.J. Redick.

Last season against Wake Forest, he didn't back down against Chris Paul, who is now the leading candidate for NBA Rookie of the Year.

DUNKS: Cavs guard T.J. Bannister, who didn't play against N.C. State, is questionable for Wake Forest. Leitao said he hadn't received a full report from team doctors, but thought Bannister had most likely aggravated - for the second time this season - the sports hernia injury that kept him on the sidelines for 10 of the team's first 12 games. "We won't know until practice time [Friday] or later what [his] status will be," Leitao said. "I haven't had an assessment."...

Jason Cain has 17 blocks this season, including five in his last two games. In his preceding two seasons, the slender 6-foot-10 junior had a total of nine. "We've tried to make a point of attaching yourself to the play and being involved," Leitao said, "and he's done that a little more, which has put him in position to block shots. It's obviously been good because it's saved us some possessions."...

The Demon Deacons lead the all-time series 63-57.They won both meetings last season.

 

Gillen's active and refreshed as TV analyst
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
February 4, 2006

About this time last year, Pete Gillen's basketball team was reeling off three straight ACC wins, giving the Virginia coach hope that his Cavaliers could salvage the season and his job.
Always the eternal optimist, Gillen is the kind of guy who could fall out of a 20th story window and ask somebody to call him a cab on the way down. As we all know, last season didn't produce a happy ending for the veteran coach.

He hasn't sat idly. His Type A personality wouldn't allow him to become a couch potato.

A friend in Chicago helped Pete land an interview with an upstart network in New York, CSTV, College Sports Television, which broadcasts games nationally and is available on cable systems and via satellite on Direct TV (Channel 610 locally), on the Dish Network (Channel 152), and on Charlottesville's Adelphia's digital sports tier (Channel 176).

A healthy man

Before Gillen could blink, he was a sports television basketball analyst, doing two to three games a week and reunited with the sport he loves. Now, he feels and looks refreshed, which doesn't even resemble the embattled coach who couldn't disguise the stress and pain of back-to-back disappointments the past two years.

"The last couple of years were tough," Gillen acknowledged Friday, taking a break from his schedule. "I feel pretty good. In 30 years as a Division I coach there was a lot of stress, at Providence, Xavier, even Notre Dame, not just Virginia. Over time it beats you up and takes a lot out of you."

Close friends say it's the same old Pete from before the bad times. He chatted with energy and honesty, and, yes, the quick wit and one-liners were as apparent as ever.

"My interview [with CSTV] went well and they gave me about 25 games to do and a one-year contract," Gillen said. "I might be at Starbucks next year, selling bagels. But I told them that even though I didn't know anything about the [TV] business, that I would try and do my homework."

A successful restart

So far, Gillen, who still resides in Charlottesville, has been a hit.

"Across the board, everyone loves Pete's enthusiasm, his commitment, and his willingness to contribute wherever he can," said Tim Pernetti, senior vice president of programming and talent for CSTV. "He really hit the ground running for us. His relationships in college basketball and his keen insight from the coach's perspective have proved for high marks in his freshman year on the air.

"More importantly, Pete is a great person, and terrific to work with," Pernetti said. "A true team player in every sense, who's always looking for feedback and striving to get better."

For those who came to know Gillen during his seven-year stint as Virginia's basketball coach, Pernetti's words ring familiar. Everyone knew what a good man Pete Gillen was.

It's the same Pete who used to hang out in front of stores at Barracks Road and ring the Salvation Army bell at Christmas time. The same Pete who used to personally deliver pizza and donuts to UVa students camping out for tickets to big games in better times.

And when Craig Littlepage had to announce that the school would not retain Gillen as its coach, the Virginia athletic director's voice cracked more than once in an emotional farewell. He stated that Gillen was as good a man as he had ever known in the business.

The firing came swiftly, the day after the ACC Tournament concluded, leaving Gillen time to mull over his options. Siena (N.Y.) College came calling, but the timing wasn't right.

"They didn't offer, but I think they were," Gillen said. "I was drained physically and emotionally, so I didn't want to coach this year."

He took some time off and when basketball practice started up, he traveled around, visiting various programs to explore how other coaches organized practice, how they handled players, watching, learning. He observed different styles, difference philosophies.

Gillen spent time with Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, a longtime friend. He observed the New York Knicks for a few days and talked to Coach Larry Brown. He visited New Mexico's program, Navy's and others.

Doesn't sound like a guy bent on retirement. In fact, now that he's traveled around to those venues in addition to working as a TV game analyst, it has somewhat whetted his appetite to at least consider coaching once again.

"When you get fired, it's a tough blow," Gillen said. "I still have confidence in myself as a coach. We won 392 games, so I couldn't have been that dumb. It's players. Good players make good coaches. Unfortunately, we played against great players."

No truer words were ever spoken. Bear Bryant once told this columnist something about talent.

I can still hear that gravely voice mumble out, "Son, you ever seen a jackass win the Kentucky Derby?"

Nope, it takes true Thoroughbreds to get the job done. Best of the best. Same in sports most of the time.

"I still feel like I can coach for a lot of people," Gillen said. "You never say never. If the right thing came up I would consider it. But, if it doesn't, that's OK, too. I'm not going to pursue every coaching job that comes open. It has to be the right fit and the right people."

Meaning, it has to be Division I, which now includes something like 326 schools, but it doesn't have to be anything big ... his words, not mine.

"Hey, I have to keep working because my wife and daughter still keep shopping," Gillen deadpanned. "They're pathological spenders."

But in the meantime, the only basketball Gillen is concerned about is TV, where as Dick Vitale once said, "he's undefeated."

Pete is having fun again. In fact, preparing for games as an analyst is somewhat akin to what coaches go through. He watches a game film or two, goes to practice, talks to coaches. Then, he reviews his work when the home office sends him game tapes and he critiques his work.

"Am I speaking properly, am I using the same words too often? And I observe what I have to do better to improve as an analyst," he said. "It's not just putting on a suit and cologne."

He has producers in his ear, talking throughout the broadcast. He has to be alert to replays. He has to think what the Houston coach might do, and then play it off as to how the Texas El-Paso coach may respond.

All the while, there are three main things he's focusing on.

"I have to listen to the play-by-play guy, so that I'm in concert with him," Pete said. "It's like two guys sitting on a couch watching a game. And then there's words. They say, 'Don't say too much,' but that's tough for me because I like to talk. Then, I keep an eye on the monitor so that I know what people are watching on their screens."

He can't be talking about UTEP's free-throw shooting problems if the camera is focused on the Houston coach.

"I like to have fun, so I try to add that to the broadcasts," Gillen said. "People like to laugh and smile, so I try to add that to the journey."

As far as the journey goes, Gillen, a self-described "Joe Bag-o-Donuts," has come a long way from a one-time grade school teacher to Digger Phelps' right-hand man, to the giant-killing days of Xavier, the Final Eight at Providence, some great days and some not-so-great days at UVa.

The journey isn't over for Pete Gillen. His fast-talking "Brooklyn-ese" is good for TV, but better for basketball ... somewhere. The right fit. The optimist in him must believe it's out there.

 

Va. freshmen point guards learn from school of hard knocks
By ED MILLER, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 4, 2006

Jeff Jones drove in for a layup and paid for his audacity with a sprained knee and a concussion. Then there was the forearm to the left eye that resulted in seven stitches.

And that was just from his University of Virginia teammates, in practice.

Later, Jones’ stomach would churn at the prospect of having to face N.C. State’s Clyde “The Glide” Austin. Duke All-American Jim Spanarkel schooled him for four or five backdoor layups on his first trip to Durham.

No one ever said it was easy playing point guard as a freshman in the ACC. But Jones, now the coach at American University, adapted well enough to lead the conference in assists in 1979, the first freshman to do so.

The last was North Carolina’s Ed Cota in 1997. The next could be either North Carolina’s Bobby Frasor or Duke’s Greg Paulus, who are 1-2 heading into this weekend’s games.

Admittedly, it’s not a stellar year for playmakers in the conference. Frasor averages just 5.17 dimes a game, with Paulus a tick behind at 5.1. Last year, Raymond Felton averaged nearly seven per game.

Felton was part of arguably the largest exodus of point guard talent in league history. He and Wake Forest’s Chris Paul, Maryland’s John Gilchrist and Georgia Tech’s Jarrett Jack all left eligibility on the table and opted to turn pro. Duke’s Daniel Ewing completed his eligibility.

“The point guard level, the level of play the last couple of years, I think has been extraordinary,” TV analyst Dan Bonner said.

This year, it has not been as remarkable. The position’s top performer, Virginia’s Sean Singletary, has often found that his best offensive option on a limited team is to shoot it himself. Not that coach Dave Leitao is complaining. It’s in large part because of Singletary’s efforts that Virginia is a surprising 4-4 in the league.

With more talent around them, Frasor and Paulus haven’t been asked to score as much. And, not surprisingly, they’ve been subject to the usual freshmen point guard ups and downs. All freshmen are. The key is to have a short memory, said Wake Forest freshman Harvey Hale.

“You’re going to mess up,” he said. “This is the ACC, the best league in the country. Every freshman point guard, when they just keep playing, and don’t let anything bother them, that’s when they play the best.”

Paulus’ meltdown moment came in Duke’s only loss, to Georgetown, when he kept the ball too long as time ran down, finally losing it before he could get it to J.J. Redick for a potential game-tying shot. Paulus said he viewed it as a learning experience, one in a seemingly never-ending series.

There’s much to absorb. For many freshmen, their biggest decision is whether to pledge TKE or Sig Ep. A wet-behind-the-ears point guard, like a young quarterback, has to make sure everyone is on the same page on every play.

Paulus has been preparing for some time. He committed to Duke as a junior and talked to coach Mike Krzyzewski a few times a week, watching the Blue Devils on TV and then “bouncing ideas” off his future coach.

Frasor has been groomed for years as well. His dad won 398 games as an Illinois high school coach. After a three-game slump, in which he went 1 for 11, Frasor responded with a nine-assist, zero-turnover performance against Arizona. He also held Wildcats star Hassan Adams to 12 points, eight below his average.

Talk in Chapel Hill is that Frasor is merely keeping the spot warm for Tywon Lawson, an Oak Hill Academy senior who is considered the nation’s top point guard. That’s OK with Frasor, who considers himself a “guard,” not a point or shooting guard. He’s not big on the “freshman” label either, with all that implies.

“I always thought that excuse, 'He’s a freshman, he can make mistakes’, I’ve never agreed with that,” he told the News & Record of Greensboro. “You’re a basketball player.”

 

Copeland to retire as athletic director
by Austin Kilgore, Managing Editor, akilgore@smu.edu
February 03, 2006

After 11 years as athletic director, Jim Copeland will retire on May 31, according to university sources.
Calls to the athletic director’s office were not returned, and SMU President R. Gerald Turner was not available for comment, but Associate Vice President for Public Affairs Patricia LaSalle said in an e-mail that there would be a university announcement at a press conference this afternoon.

Copeland came to SMU in 1995 after spending eight years as the athletic director at his alma mater, University of Virginia. In addition, he has served on the board of directors of the College Football Association, the NCAA Committee for Restructuring of Division I, the NCAA Division I Management Council and the Western Athletic Conference Bowl Alliance Subcommittee. Copeland also served as president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics in 1996.

Head football coach Phil Bennett was in Houston for a Mustang Club event, but in a phone interview said Copeland discussed the possibility of his retirement with him last summer.

Bennett said Copeland, who is 60, had grown weary from the demands of the job, but credits him for many of the athletic department’s recent successes.

“In a few years, I think people will realize what a formative figure he’s been for SMU athletics,” Bennett said.

Copeland was responsible for firing two basketball coaches and two football coaches, as well as spearheading the effort to build the Gerald J. Ford Stadium.

Bennett said that in many ways Copeland has laid down the groundwork for his successor, and that would make the open position very appealing to many top candidates.

“There are challenges, obviously, but the big things are in place,” he said.

Bennett said he thought four months would be enough time to find a suitable candidate to replace Copeland.

“I believe in Dr. Turner’s leadership. He will make a decision that’s best for all of SMU,” Bennett said.

 

A Hamlet and Its Prince
Steelers' rookie tight end is royalty to grade schoolers, grandmas and all ages in between in Swords Creek, Va.
By Jerry Crowe
Times Staff Writer
February 3, 2006

SWORDS CREEK, Va. — There is a downside, apparently, to making it big in the NFL after growing up a local hero in a tiny town.

In Heath Miller's case, everybody for miles around seems to know exactly where your parents live and work, including some people they've never even met. They all buy souvenirs linking them vicariously to your success: Pittsburgh Steeler jerseys, T-shirts, caps and miniature helmets, footballs, rookie cards, you name it. And some drop them off at your mother's office, expecting to have them signed by you and returned by your folks after their next trip to Pittsburgh.

Miller, a rookie tight end, and his unfailingly polite and uncommonly accommodating parents, Earl and Denise, know all about it.

"When he was on the cover of the game-day program in Pittsburgh," his mother said last week, "people around here were ordering them by the boxful. And they would send them over to us to have them signed."

Finally, in December, the Millers decided enough was enough.

"Before Christmas there was a flood, just too much stuff," Denise said. "I basically had to leave work after half a day because it was just too much."

To say that Miller's success has created a stir in this little corner of the world — the unincorporated community of Swords Creek and the neighboring town of Honaker, map dots in the southwestern corner of Virginia, surrounded by coal fields and the Appalachian Mountains — would be a gross understatement.

"It gave it new life," Denise said of the communal effect.

Like everyone else in the family, she's not one for bragging. But the signs are literally everywhere, well wishers dotting the landscape with encouragement for Miller against the Seattle Seahawks in Sunday's Super Bowl at Detroit.

Outside an insurance office: "It's Miller Time in Detroit."

Outside Swords Creek Elementary School, where Miller first stood out as an athlete and student: "Go Steelers. Good Luck Heath."

Outside Honaker Elementary School, where students donned No. 83 Steeler jerseys every Friday this season and adopted Miller as a role model even though he never attended classes there: "Go Pittsburgh Steelers."

Outside another office: "Good Luck Heath and Steelers."

Outside Bucks & Bass, a sporting goods store: "Go Heath."

At Honaker High, where Miller was a three-sport star and graduated third in the Class of 2000, the former state player of the year in football and baseball was honored by no fewer than four displays.

One was titled "83 Reasons to Love Heath and the Steelers," the reasons having been solicited from students and including: "Gives HHS a sense of pride," "Couldn't happen to a better person" and "Pride and joy of our community."

Chris Musick, the pastor at Swords Creek Community Baptist, is no fan of Sunday sporting events, but at a Bible study last week he noted with a nod toward Miller's mother that a local boy would be involved in a large-scale event this Sunday and asked that the congregation remember him in its prayers.

"It's overwhelming how the community has come together to support him," said Miller's father, surveying the halls of Honaker High. "You see kids and grown-ups wearing those jerseys, it's unbelievable."

When Miller played at Virginia, where he was converted to tight end after having been recruited as a quarterback, scores of fans from among the 2,000 or so residents of Honaker and Swords Creek bought season tickets.

Traveling by bus, church groups from the area routinely made the 4 1/2 -hour trip to the Cavaliers' games at Charlottesville.

They'd make the 5 1/2 -hour trek to Pittsburgh too, the Millers suspect, if Steeler tickets weren't so hard to come by. Denise said that, judging by conversations with neighbors, orders for satellite TV service surely must have spiked in the area, the locals doing whatever they could to closely monitor the Steelers.

Why the adulation?

"We've never had another hero here, to make a long story short," said Betty Hall, who worships at the same church as the Millers.

Others believe that the reasons run deeper, that Swords Creek and Honaker, separated by about five miles of rolling hills and connected by a two-lane road, have rallied behind Miller, 23, because he embodies many of the old-fashioned values that the church-going, plain-spoken folks in this area hold dear.

Miller, hale and wholesome, came by those values naturally.

"It kind of made me the type of person that I am just growing up in that atmosphere," said Miller, whose immediate family, including younger sister Amanda, lived on the same land as his maternal grandmother, three aunts and an uncle, each of their homes separated by no more than about 100 yards. "Everybody knows everybody else and you don't really get away with a lot as a kid because everybody knows your parents and everybody knows you. You're aware of that growing up."

Unassuming and humble — some would say shy — the 6-foot-5, 256-pound Miller was named for Heath Barkley, a rawboned character portrayed by Lee Majors in the 1960s TV Western "The Big Valley," and in Honaker and Swords Creek is seen as sort of a towering role model for the area and a virtuous way of life.

"Heath would be popular even if he had never made it as a college or pro athlete," said Honaker Mayor C.H. Wallace, owner of the area's only hardware store and secretary-treasurer of the 30-person volunteer fire brigade. "It's just his demeanor. Even when he was a small-town quarterback he would take time to talk to the elementary school kids, go out and read to them.

"He's just a low-key, work-hard, get-it-done type of guy."

And nothing plays better in these parts, where the nearest movie theater is an hour away, "so sports is what everybody done," Miller's father said.

Around here, nobody ever did it better than Heath Miller.

"We knew at a young age that he was very talented," said his mother, recalling that as a fourth-grader her son scored 41 points in a basketball game against fifth- and sixth-graders.

"But even then he wasn't the selfish type," she added. "He would seek out a child on the team that hadn't scored and he would make sure to get him the ball. He just kept on giving it to him until that child scored and felt good about himself."

Miller, though, wasn't shy about wearing out opponents.

In baseball, he finished his four-year varsity career with a batting average of over .500, his coaches said, and struck out only three or four times. Changing into his uniform after class each day in a locker room built for no charge by his father, a contractor, he made only one error in three seasons as a first baseman, then switched to shortstop as a senior and was state player of the year.

Tom Harding, Honaker's varsity baseball coach for 34 years, said he had "no doubts whatsoever" that Miller could have played in the major leagues.

"He is the best high school baseball player I have ever seen, bar none," Harding said. "I'll make the argument with anybody who wants to argue with me: In high school, he was a better baseball player than he was a football player."

Said assistant coach Alex Zachwieja, unabashedly wearing a Miller jersey last Friday while teaching a world geography class: "His size, natural eye-hand coordination and work ethic were just ideal for baseball."

But football is king in the South and it was in football that Miller captured the people's imagination, drawing fans from miles around to the Tigers' games, paw prints painted right on the road leading them to the off-campus stadium.

"He could control a game," said his high school football coach, Doug Hubbard, a longtime family friend and former classmate of Miller's parents, who were high school sweethearts at Honaker. "He got the community excited about football."

Miller passed and ran for nearly 5,000 yards and 65 touchdowns during his final two seasons, carrying the Tigers to the state championship game as a senior and attracting scholarship offers from Virginia, Virginia Tech and Iowa.

At Virginia, he was moved to tight end and was no less a threat. A two-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection, he caught 144 passes for 1,703 yards and 20 touchdowns in three seasons, all conference records for a tight end.

He left after his junior year and was the 30th player taken in the draft last April, despite concerns about a hernia that limited his effectiveness in 2004.

Also a better-than-average blocker, he helped the Steelers to the Super Bowl by catching 39 passes for 459 yards and six touchdowns during the regular season and seven more passes for 107 yards and a touchdown in three playoff games.

And back home the buzz about him grew ever louder.

"These grannies that had never watched football would watch Heath at Virginia and now will watch the NFL," Hubbard said. "Elderly ladies in our church are sitting down watching football and know what's going on. That tells you something about the influence he's had. And a lot of that is because they've met him and they like him. That's got a lot to do with it."

Kathleen Taylor, an older Honaker resident and unofficial town historian, has not met Miller and said she knows little about football. But that didn't stop her from sitting down with three other women and a visitor last week at the Honaker Heritage Museum and talking about the area's most famous and favorite native son.

She said she was glad to hear Miller say recently that he enjoys milk because when her young nephew heard that, he started drinking milk too.

And, she added, "I liked it when they interviewed him after a game. He wasn't uppity. He let it be known that the whole team has to play together to win a game. And he not only helps his own teammates up, he holds out a hand to his opponents and helps them up too.

"Now what that means, I don't know, but I like it."
 

Ratings business an inexact science
Top 100 starts to shake out. See the full list
Doug Doughty

Leave it to man-about-town Gene McBurney to put this whole recruiting furor in its proper perspective.

“How many stars did Heath Miller get?” McBurney, a plain-spoken Ole Miss grad, asked at Friday’s SEC Roundtable.

Actually, it was more of a square table with defections from the likes of “coach” Jerry English and radio-show host Greg Roberts, who reported that he had cleaned up his appearance after last week’s dressing-down, only to learn that his wife wanted him to get a passport.

(Now that Roberts is up to eight hours a week, I can see why he needs a vacation. If we’re lucky, they won’t let him back in the country. As for the coach, now that he’s gotten the $65 I owed him, I suppose he no longer has any need for us.).

Most of the talk this week has centered around recruiting and, I swear, I’ve never heard so much yakking about four- and five-star recruits. There is a gentleman from Roanoke who calls almost every week to ask how many two- and three-star recruits Virginia has.

I never paid much attention to the stars until this year, but I can’t wash my hands of this recruiting craze. This may have been the 25th year that I’ve rated the top 25 prospects in Virginia, a list that has grown to 100 seniors and 25 juniors over the list.

I don’t know how many stars Miller, now preparing to start for Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl, got. I do know that he was rated the No. 15 prospect in Virginia as a senior – 10 spaces below Patrick Estes, bound for UVa as a tight end while Miller was still a Honaker High School quarterback.

Past listings are full of prospects who became much better – or worse – players than their Roanoke Times ratings would suggest. Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer alluded to several of them Wednesday, including All-America defensive back Jimmy Williams, who was 26th on The Roanoke Times list.

He also mentioned Tech offensive lineman Will Montgomery, who was 43rd (Beamer must have all the lists; I wish I could make the same claim). All I can say to that is, if Beamer knew Montgomery was going to be a first-team All-ACC player, why didn’t he offer him a scholarship?

IT WAS INTERESTING to call up virginiapreps.com today and see Zirkle Blakey’s list of the top 100 UNSIGNED players in the state. That can be a little risky because, the more players you rate, the more glaring the omissions are.

For instance, I didn’t see Isaac Cain on the virginiapreps.com list. Cain is a 6-foot-4, 300-pound offensive lineman from Hampton High School who took an unofficial visit to Virginia last weekend and, according to Crabbers’ coach Mike Smith, is likely to enroll at Virginia as a walk-on.

Cain, who has a 3.9 grade-point average, is a first-team All-Peninsula District selection and played on a state-championship team. How does a player like that fall through the cracks?

“He might be 6-5,” Smith said. “He’s got very good feet. He’s a puppy. He’s a project, but he’s got a chance, a pretty good one, I believe. Second year he ever played football. Used to be in the band.”

Smith said the Cavaliers were not involved with Cain until Mike London rejoined the staff as defensive coordinator. London, who spent one year as the Houston Texans’ defensive-line coach, previously served as UVa’s recruiting coordinator and was responsible for the Hampton-Newport News area.

“It comes down to getting a kid’s name out there, having one coach get after a kid and then other people start calling you about recruiting him,” Smith said. “One thing feeds off another.”

When I did get in touch with Blakey, to his credit, he was aware of Cain but said his sources indicated Cain is too raw to be viewed as a prospect at this point. I’ll take his word for it, but no school can have too many 3.9 students walking around, especially if there’s no price tag attached.

THANKS TO BLAKEY and his site, we can update some of the uncommitted players on The Roanoke Times’ list of the state’s top 100 players.

Still the state’s top uncommitted player is 6-2, 250-pound Patrick Henry-Ashland defensive end Marcus Anthony, who has said he intends to try prep school in order to his stock.

William and Mary recruits include two players from Northern Virginia, 68th-rated David Miller, a place-kicker from Westfield High School, and 85th-rated Thomas Humphreys, an offensive lineman from Centreville.

Central Michigan signed another Centreville offensive lineman, 6-3, 260-pound David Miller, and when you look at trends in Virginia recruiting, it’s hard to miss the number of Virginia prospects who signed with Mid-American Conference schools.

Akron signed two, Kent signed two and four schools -- Ohio U., Bowling Green, Temple and Central Michigan – signed one. That doesn’t include six post-graduate six players from Hargrave and Fork Union who went to MAC schools, including two Virginia High School League products, Ernie Hodge and Horace Hubbard, headed from Hargrave to Ohio.

It was interesting to see that new Temple head coach Al Golden, previously the defensive coordinator at Virginia, signed three players from Hargrave and one from Fork Union. UVa did not sign a single prep-school player, a trend that might be academically motivated.

One player who had committed to the previous Temple staff, Liberty-Bealeton nose tackle Aaron Hull, apparently did not qualify and is headed to Arizona Western Junior College. Another celebrated high-school prospect, Rontray Houchens from Lousia County, is headed to Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College.

The other UVa coordinator-turned-head coach, Ron Prince at Kansas State, signed running back Jamal Schulters off the Fork Union undergraduate team. Schulters was rated the No. 40 player in Virginia and it appears that K-State also is trying to place mammoth E.C. Glass offensive lineman Anthony Davis, who previously had expressed interest in UVa.

According to preliminary calculations, there are close to 50 in-state players (not counting postgraduate players) who have either signed or committed to Division I schools. That includes four players who did not make the Top 100 – Deep Creek Orlando Barrow (Bowling Green), Kempsville wide receiver Dante Barnes (Akron), Phoebus quarterback Arron Ward (Marshall) and Magna Vista lineman Erik Vint (Marshall).

I’m still not sure why I put Orange County’s 6-5, 350-pound Asa Chapman on the “waiting list” because that’s usually reserved for players who don’t sign. Chapman did sign with the Cavaliers but is not expected to enroll for at least another year.
 

Wake tries to find wherewithal, way out of cellar
By Bill Hass
Staff Writer

What happened to Wake Forest's wherewithal?

If the Deacons knew the answer, maybe they wouldn't be last in the ACC men's basketball standings.

"Wherewithal" is coach Skip Prosser's description of characteristics such as resilience, aggressiveness, toughness and the grit needed to close out a game when it's up for grabs.

His most recent use of the word came after Tuesday's loss at Miami, when he said the Deacons needed to answer a Miami run "and we didn't have the wherewithal to do that."

That's a familiar theme for this team.

"We've had too many games where, at what we like to refer to as 'winning time,' we've been found wanting," Prosser said. "We're unaccustomed to that, so we're working diligently every day to change that."

Wake, which plays at Virginia today, made the halfway turn in the ACC season at 1-7. That ties the most league losses in any of Prosser's four prior seasons as the Deacs' coach.

"I think it's important to note those are standings at the midpoint of the season," Prosser said. "To my knowledge these aren't the final standings yet."

The Deacons weren't expected to match last season's records of 13-3 in the ACC and 27-6 overall. After all, they lost Chris Paul to the NBA and three key seniors departed.

But with All-ACC caliber players in Justin Gray and Eric Williams returning, plus seniors Trent Strickland and Chris Ellis, Wake had enough respect to be picked third in the league's preseason poll.

Now it's a team fighting for its NCAA tournament life.

"Certainly we haven't dismissed that as a dream," Prosser said, "but it's up to us to make that more than a pipedream.

"It's not a case of us winning X number of games. We're not to that point. We have to win one game. Until we do that, and then win another, it's really foolhardy for us to talk about so many out of so many."

A multitude of things has gone wrong for Wake, and it shows up in ACC statistics. The Deacons are being outshot 46.3 percent to 42.8 percent overall and 43 percent to 38.1 percent from 3-point range. They have committed 124 turnovers and forced 94. They have 46 steals, while their opponents have 75. Their scoring has dropped from 87.3 points per game last season to 75.8.

Yet they still earn the respect of the opposition.

"I look at their stats in the conference and they look like anything but a 1-7 team," said Virginia coach Dave Leitao. "They're getting beat by five or six points, not 12 or 14 points that 1-7 teams usually do.

"They've played a lot of close games and maybe they haven't finished them in the right way. As opposed to us trying to figure out why, we're preparing ourselves for a very good team, one that has added some desperation. And that makes them very dangerous."

The Deacons clearly haven't been able to replace the things Paul did for them.

"Live-ball" turnovers -- not offensive fouls or violations, but takeaways by the other team -- have been a season-long woe. Gray, Harvey Hale and Shamaine Dukes have taken turns playing point guard, but without consistency.

Defensively, Paul was excellent at pressuring the ball, enabling Wake to extend its defense. None of the current guards does that well, so the Deacons try a little of everything on defense, from man-to-man to a 1-3-1 trap to a straight 2-3 zone to a box-and-one. So far, nothing has struck fear in the hearts of ACC opponents.

The result is Wake gives up too many easy baskets and can't create enough for itself. Each possession has become a grind.

The Deacons haven't been able to work their excellent rebounding to any advantage. They have 47 more offensive rebounds than their ACC opponents. But they're not converting their second shots or they're wasting extra possessions in their half-court sets.

There's also a question of leadership. In Prosser's first four seasons, he had Josh Howard for two followed by Paul for two. They were powerful, charismatic leaders able to lift the team on their shoulders with their ability, their voices and their will to win.

Everyone on this season's roster has always been a follower. Even the four seniors have never been in a position to lead. They're trying, but so far without positive results.

So, given the current makeup of the Wake roster, are there solutions in sight?

"I don't think there's any panacea to our ills right now," Prosser said. "It's collective. The hardest thing to discern has been the inconsistency. We do lack aggressiveness, certainly on the defensive end. We're not possessed with overall outstanding team quickness.

"Sometimes a lack of confidence breeds hesitancy. We're not selling out defensively like we need to be. Those are all things we're cognizant of and we're trying to change."

Gray and Williams are playing well, but may need to ratchet up their games. Strickland must shake off the up-and-down tendencies he's shown in ACC play.

And somebody -- ideally two or three -- from among Hale, Ellis, Michael Drum, Kyle Visser, Kevin Swinton, Cameron Stanley and Dukes must seize the opportunity to be a dependable contributor.

"I guess you can say we've hit rock bottom," Strickland said after the Deacons lost to Virginia Tech on Jan. 28. "My parents always told me it only rains so many days before the sun shines again. I just think pretty soon it's going to start back shining on us."

But only if the Deacons rediscover their wherewithal.