Deke patiently waits for chance
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
April 27, 2005

When Heath Miller arrived at Virginia in 2001, it was as a quarterback.
After redshirting his first year with the program, he moved to tight end and never looked back.
When Scott Deke arrived at Virginia in August, it was as a quarterback.
After redshirting in the fall, Deke suddenly found himself running routes this month as a tight end in spring practice.
It is not a move that will last. Deke was merely filling in at the position to help the team, while rising sophomore Tom Santi recovered from a shoulder injury.
“I don’t think they are expecting me to be the next Heath Miller,” said Deke with a smile. “The guys that we have got - they will be. Jonathan Stupar and Tom Santi are going to be big names some day. We are excited about them.”
Deke, a 6-foot-3,
207-pounder, arrived at UVa as the only quarterback in coach Al Groh’s 2004 recruiting class.
As the signal-caller at Loyola High School in Palisades, Calif., Deke passed for a school record 2,150 yards and 22 touchdowns. Those numbers could have been better, but Deke did not get the starting nod at quarterback until midway through his junior season.
Deke knew the plan in his opening year at Virginia was to redshirt and elected to use the season as sponge - trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible.
“You have to take your time and sit and learn,” Deke said. “If you are not out there you have to sit in the classroom and learn - watch film and do whatever you can to get better.”
Deke will enter preseason practice in August at a crowded quarterback position.
Marques Hagans, who is entering his senior season, is the head of the class and rising junior Christian Olsen and rising sophomore Kevin McCabe have more experience than Deke. There will also be a pair of signees from the 2005 recruiting class - Vic Hall and Jameel Sewell - in the mix.
“If it is not your time right now, your time will come. It is a long five years,” Deke said. “Whenever they call my number, I am going to be ready. That is what the redshirt year is for. It helps a lot of players. It was a great experience for me.
“The redshirt year wasn’t that bad. Obviously, you are antsy to get out there but I am going to take my time and do the best I can and when it is my shot, hopefully things will go well.”
Things did go well for Deke in Virginia’s spring game on Saturday.
Although his playing time was limited, the right-handed throwing QB completed 5 of 6 passes for 32 yards. He also had his first pass - a 38-yard completion to Deyon Williams - called back for a holding penalty.
Deke did, however, throw the only interception of the spring game on a pass intended for wideout Emmanuel Byers. Tony Franklin made the interception.
Late in the scrimmage, Deke took several snaps from the shotgun and said after the scrimmage that he was comfortable under center and in the shotgun.
“I am not a Marques Hagans runner and I not as tall and big as Matt Schaub. I am kind of a mix between them both,” Deke said. “I will do whatever the coaches think is best.”

Signing on the dotted line. Seven Virginia players were drafted and four more have since signed as free agents.
Linebacker Dennis Haley signed with the New York Jets and Marques Weeks was inked to a deal by the Seattle Seahawks as a running back.
Jermaine Hardy and Isaiah Ekejuiba both agreed to terms with the Arizona Cardinals, the same team that drafted guard Elton Brown and outside linebacker Darryl Blackstock.
Hardy, a safety at UVa, is expects to be moved to cornerback. Ekejuiba, is listed as a linebacker, but his chance of making the team will depend on his play on special teams.

Happy in Hooville. A smiling face in the crowd on Saturday at Scott Stadium was that of Andrew Pearman, the brother of former Virginia tailback Alvin Pearman.
Andrew Pearman is expected to transfer to UVa in August, and after he sits out the 2005 season - which the NCAA mandates - he will be eligible to play three seasons as a Cavalier.
Alvin Pearman, who was drafted on Sunday by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the fourth round, said he was happy with his brother’s decision to transfer from Hawaii.
“I am extremely excited but even more so to see him so excited,” Alvin Pearman said. “Just to have him up here this weekend and to have him around the campus and around the guys, everything seemed as though he was fired up and ready to go. I could just see his energy.”

Mass exodus from the ACC playing into Leitao’s hands
By BOB MOLINARO, The Virginian-Pilot
© April 27, 2005

Timing is everything. About a week after he was hired as Virginia’s new basketball coach, Dave Leitao’s got a little better.

Not that he had anything to do with three more North Carolina undergraduates heading out the door for the NBA, but it doesn’t hurt Leitao’s first-year prospects that the ACC’s best team may have to scour the intramural leagues to fill out its roster.

That’s an exaggeration, of course; the Tar Heels have already plucked a few more high school All-Americans, if not future NBA lottery picks, to come in next season. But like some other ACC teams, North Carolina, which lost its top seven scorers, will have to replace proven veterans with talented newcomers.

One less ACC juggernaut can’t help but improve Leitao’s chances of turning around the Cavaliers. Make that two . Skip Prosser’s Wake Forest club faces major questions with the early departure of sophomore guard Chris Paul, the possible loss of junior center Eric Williams to the NBA, along with the emigration of seniors Jamaal Levy, Vytas Danelius and Taron Downey .

Center Shelden Williams just announced that he’ll stick around for his senior season at Duke to complement J.J. Redick’s outside gunning, so the Blue Devils appear to have avoided a major talent drain. Meanwhile, at Georgia Tech, they’re awaiting word on what point guard Jarrett Jack wants to do.

Even if Jack stays, the ACC won’t be nearly as strong as last season, a situation that should enhance Leitao’s honeymoon period.

Looking at the conference from this distance, a serious national title contender is hard to identify. Many even perceive ACC newcomer Boston College as a plausible preseason pick to win the ACC. The Eagles appear to have the league’s best mix of talent and experience.

Unlike last season, it will be hard to make the case that the ACC is the country’s toughest conference. Kentucky, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Washington and Villanova, in no particular order, are touted as the nation’s best. Some schools, perhaps even U.Va., are expected to take advantage of the ACC power vacuum to move up in the standings.

Clearly, U.Va. could use a break, even at the expense of the ACC’s reputation for depth and quality.

It is often amusing to hear the school talk so glowingly about its lofty basketball aspirations when, in fact, the Cavaliers have zero recent tradition on which to draw.

Many a basketball program has been turned around in almost no time, so it is not a great stretch envisioning Leitao leading the Cavaliers back to the NCAA tournament from a conference that often receives five or six bids. In the process, he needs to make U.Va. basketball relevant again on a national scale.

It really hasn’t been, you know, for the longest time. More than 20 years have passed since Ralph Sampson played his final game in a Cavaliers uniform. Since then, against ACC opposition, U.Va. is 50 games below .500.

U.Va. has been a second-division program for more years than anyone wants to admit.

So sure, there’s a lot of work to be done. But Leitao also benefits from the previous administration leaving him so much room for growth.

The easiest part will come at first, when Leitao is compared only to his predecessor. Then comes the difficult job of building a program that lasts.

For the time being, U.Va. loyalists might take some comfort from believing that next season may already be shaping up well for Leitao. Even if the Cavaliers’ talent isn’t especially imposing again, the rest of the ACC appears to be coming back to them.

Cowboys Have High Hopes For DE Canty Despite Injuries
By Nick Eatman
DallasCowboys.com Staff Writer
April 25, 2005, 6:07 PM (CDT)

IRVING, Texas - The goal heading into this past weekend's NFL Draft was simple for the Cowboys:

Get better on defense.

And to achieve that, they knew they had to address the team's inability to put consistent pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

So down the road, when we all look back to analyze this 2005 draft, the determining factor will be if the Cowboys indeed found themselves a pass-rushing defensive end - or three.

That's right, three.

While the Cowboys did spend two first-round picks on defensive ends, landing Troy's Demarcus Ware with the 11th pick and then getting LSU's Marcus Spears to fall in their lap with the 20th pick, the Cowboys are crossing their fingers and toes over the defensive end who could end up becoming the steal of the draft.

Virginia's Chris Canty, a player the Cowboys once had rated a mid-first round pick, could possibly turn out to become the best player the Cowboys selected Saturday or Sunday if he can overcome a pair of serious injuries.

Obviously the Cowboys think he can, or they wouldn't have made the trade with Philadelphia to move up from the fifth round into the end of the fourth (132nd overall) just to snag Canty before he potentially went to New England - a team the Cowboys projected to be deep enough to take Canty and basically stash him away on injured reserve all year.

"I actually had a problem not drafting him with the eighth pick (in the fourth round)," said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who instead selected Minnesota running back Marion Barber III with the 109th pick.

But while Canty is not 100 percent right now, the Cowboys think there is a good chance he will be ready to play by the start of training camp, although there is plenty of work to do between now and then.

For starters, Canty still is rehabbing from reconstructive knee surgery after tearing all three knee ligaments in the fifth game last October, an injury similar to the one former Cowboys tight end Mike Lucky suffered during training camp in 2000.

Canty was well on his way to a full recovery until suffering a serious eye injury at a nightclub in Scottsdale, Ariz., in late January. While Canty said he was nothing more than a bystander in an altercation, he evidently was hit with a glass bottle in left eye, forcing him to have immediate surgery to repair a detached retina.

More importantly, the injury and subsequent delicate surgery halted his ability to continue rehabbing his knee for all of February and March. In fact, doctors would not allow him to fly to Indianapolis for the combine, fearing the pressure in the cabin of the aircraft might damage his eye. So he was forced to take what became a three-day train ride to the combine.

So while the rest of the draft prospects were running 40's, bench pressing and doing shuttle drills for NFL scouts, all Canty could do was interview with clubs. However, Canty was able to visit the Cowboys here at Valley Ranch by himself about a month before the draft.

Not until early April was Canty medically cleared for a brief workout. Several Cowboys officials, including associate trainer Britt Brown, who specializes in rehabbing injured players, attended Canty's workout, which apparently went well, considering his recent injuries and lack of conditioning.

"We're satisfied, after visiting with some of the best experts in the country over the last 24 hours that he is progressively getting better," Jones said of Canty's eye. "We think he can come in and potentially be ready at training camp, or early into training camp. His knee, we're fine with his knee. The eye has kept him from doing some of the things (to rehab his knee). We can get him in here and make up any lost time with his knee."

So from here, the Cowboys are expecting Canty will have another eye surgery to remove scar tissue, a normal laser procedure that will likely keep the defensive end off of his feet for another 4-8 weeks. Assuming he has the surgery in early May, Canty won't be able to resume his knee rehab and regular workouts until early July - and quite possibly not until the Cowboys open training camp in late July in Oxnard, Calif.

After the eye surgery, Canty will wear a contact lens in his left eye and a protective shield on his face mask. After the season, Canty possibly will need another surgery to fully attach the retina.

As for the knee, Canty might not be as far along in his rehab as most people six months after reconstructive surgery because the eye injury has impeded his progress, and likely will once again following this next surgery. He once again will be prohibited from strenuous activity.

But the Cowboys still seem convinced the injury is healing at a normal rate and have not ruled out the possibility of Canty being ready for the start of the season.

At worst, the Virginia defensive end would start the season on physically unable to perform (PUP), meaning he would miss the first six games of the season. At that point, he would be eligible to return to practice for two more weeks before the Cowboys would have to either activate him or place him on injured reserve.

However, that would be a severe worst-case scenario since the Cowboys are currently holding out hope Canty will be ready to start practicing again during training camp.

From a medical standpoint, the Cowboys training staff, with Brown and head trainer Jim Maurer, certainly did their homework. But also know the Cowboys are fully aware what kind of person they're getting as well. Remember, Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells is still good friends with Virginia head coach Al Groh, who actually replaced Parcells as the Jets head coach back in 2000.

And it sounds as if Canty knows a thing or two about his team as well.

"I've had a few Coach Parcells moments and memories with Coach Groh," Canty said. "He seems like the kind of person I'd like to play for. He said he's a good coach, a disciplinarian and just a player's coach. I look forward to playing down there."

Canty will return to Valley Ranch on Thursday, along with about 20 other rookie draft choices and free agents, although he won't be practicing with the rest of the new players in this weekend's rookie mini-camp.

"I'm just excited to get started," Canty said. "I thought I would probably (get drafted on Saturday). But that's OK. I know I'm coming into a great situation where I have the opportunity to play for the Dallas Cowboys."

And if he gets to play sooner than later, the Cowboys know Canty has the opportunity to become the steal of the draft.

Star in the making
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By Joe Bendel
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, April 26, 2005

In 2004, a local eatery gave us the Roethlis-burger, a hearty sandwich affectionately named after Steelers first-round draft pick Ben Roethlisberger.

It was testimony to how ravenous sports fans -- and business owners -- are over the black and gold in this town. Some even dubbed the madness "Bendomonium."

With that in mind, the Steelers introduced Virginia tight end Heath Miller to the media at the team's South Side facility Monday. The big kid from Swords Creek, Va., was flanked by team chairman Dan Rooney and president Art Rooney II, sporting a gray suit and a sheepish smile.

He was succinct and humble in answering a battery of questions, yet it is too soon to determine if this small-town country boy is prepared for what could lie ahead.

Can he handle the Heath-burger? Or the Miller Melt?

The first-round pick might have no choice if he lives up to the standards that made him the top tight end in college football and a pass-catcher extraordinaire (111 catches for 1,376 yards the past two seasons) during a stellar career in Charlottesville.

"I realize that football is a big deal here and I'm going to enjoy that," said Miller, who was given the number 83 (his college number was 89) at yesterday's news conference. "I'm glad that I'm in a town that really follows football and is big fans of football, like the Steelers fans are. And I'm anxious to go out and perform and, hopefully, please you guys with my performance."

While the 6-foot-5, 256-pound Miller spoke, the Rooneys stood in the background with looks of approval on their faces. They had to be impressed with his ability to intelligently, yet concisely, address his inquisitors.

Miller scored a 39 on the Wonderlic Test, which is used at the NFL Combine to measure a player's ability to think on his feet, follow directions and make effective decisions under the pressure of a time clock. Only two players from this year's combine -- Texas A&M center Geoff Hangartner (47) and No. 1 overall draft pick Utah QB Alex Smith (40) -- scored higher than Miller, who is 12 credits shy of graduating with a degree in sociology.

The highest possible score is a 50, and former Cincinnati Bengals punter and Harvard grad Pat McInally is believed to be the only NFL player to reach perfection. The average score among the 330 players who took the test this year was 21.9.

The Wonderlic Test has been helping employers identify worthy job candidates since 1937 and more than 2.5 million candidates take it annually. The 50-question test starts out with simple queries, such as "what is the third month of the year?," then progresses to complex brain teasers. Candidates have 12 minutes to finish.

Miller's score on the Wonderlic puts him in the top one percent nationally among 118,000 people who tested this year.

"Attorneys have the highest scoring norm on the test, and the average score is right around 30," said Michael Callans, president of Wonderlic Consulting, located in Libertyville, Ill. "Heath scored significantly above the average. Research analysts score around 28. So, Heath is scoring among the top ranked people in the country. A 39 is hard to achieve."

But what does it all mean?

"It tells you how a person can potentially perform," Callans said. "Smarter people are resourceful and they don't make a lot of mistakes."

As Steelers linebacker and Virginia alum James Farrior can attest, Miller comes from a high-level academic institution. UVA was named No. 2 among public colleges this year (behind Michigan) in U.S. News & World Report and consistently ranks among the top 25 universities in the nation.

Rooney II even joked that, "We can't keep him too long," because Miller had to get back to Charlottesville for classes.

The Steelers president also reminisced about another highly regarded Steelers pass catcher who came to Pittsburgh on a dreary day like Monday after being drafted.

"I am always reluctant to compare players from one era to another, but waking up on a cold Pittsburgh morning here in April, I was thinking about John Stallworth's story about his first day in Pittsburgh. He said he was a young guy from a small southern town and he got here and it was cold in Pittsburgh. He did not know anybody and he started thinking and wondering if he was in the right place. But it got better from there."

Rooney II paused, ever so briefly, and turned to Miller.

"Heath, it will get better from here," he said.

All things considered, it wasn't a bad start.

Leitao should be wary of Doherty's path
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com

Dave Leitao is said to be a student of history. The chance to make some as the first African-American coach in any sport at Virginia was apparently part of the allure of that job.

Leitao is a good coach with a reasonable chance to succeed in Charlottesville. But the history he might want to peruse at this point is the career path of Matt Doherty.

Both were lead assistants to top-shelf coaches at premier programs – Leitao to Jim Calhoun at Connecticut, Doherty to Roy Williams at Kansas. Both left those positions for struggling midwestern Catholic programs with strong pasts – Leitao to DePaul, Doherty to Notre Dame. Both had begun the turnaround process when they were lured away by the siren song of the Atlantic Coast Conference – Leitao to Virginia, Doherty to North Carolina.

Here is where Leitao had better hope his path veers in a different direction.

Today, two years after being fired at Carolina, Doherty is finally back in the coaching business. He's freshly hired at Florida Atlantic – a long way down the food chain from coaching Sean May, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants in front of 21,000 fans in the Dean Dome. And understand this: Doherty walked into a better situation at Carolina than Leitao inherits at Virginia.

When the deal went down in 2001, you couldn't blame Doherty for leaving Notre Dame after one season for his alma mater, which also happened to be one of the game's flagship programs. But now that he's whiffed on a bunch of jobs and landed in the Atlantic Sun Conference, do you think Doherty ever wishes he'd stayed in South Bend?

And, by extension, could there come a day when Dave Leitao wishes he'd stayed longer than three years at DePaul?

In today's coaching climate, loyalty to your school lasts about as long as the average TV timeout. Every coach comes to his job pledging endless allegiance – while keeping an eye on what else is going to come open, and how much it might pay.

Commitment is something schools and players are expected to make to coaches, not the other way around. Coaches will spew righteous indignation if a player wants out of his letter-of-intent – but how many of them want out of their contract if another job comes along?

Jean Lenti Ponsetto is the athletic director at DePaul. She hired Leitao, and she watched him walk away from an improved program on the verge of a move to the Big East for an ACC also-ran. She's not thrilled to lose a coach who had won 20 games in back-to-back seasons, but she is a pragmatist. She knows how the game is currently played.

"I'm not angry, I'm not disappointed, I'm not frustrated, I'm not hurt," Ponsetto said. "I really understand that this is the nature of the business we're in. Candidly, we've created this in higher education. We've allowed for there to be bidding wars for coaches.

"But you have freedom of movement. That's one of the great things about living in America: You get to do what you want.

"There was a time when coaches like Ray [Meyer] and Al McGuire and Louie Carnesecca and John Thompson were almost like tenured faculty members at their institutions. I think those days are over. The younger generation of coaches perceives their stops to be shorter in tenure."

That certainly seems to be true. But ladder climbers should be forewarned: Your haste to upgrade to a bigger conference, bigger salary and bigger corner office could result in a bigger pratfall.

Ask Doherty. Or ask Buzz Peterson, who skipped out of Tulsa after one year for Tennessee. After he failed to earn an NCAA bid in four years, Tennessee fired him this spring. Now he's the head coach at Coastal Carolina.

A few other ambitious climbers are under pressure as well.

Tommy Amaker left bad feelings simmering when he fled Seton Hall after four years for Michigan. In Ann Arbor, he's failed to get the Wolverines to the NCAA Tournament. Probation hurt the program badly, but that excuse has expired. Northwestern is the only Big Ten school with a longer streak of missing the NCAAs than Michigan, which last went in 1998.

Stan Heath put in one season at Kent State before jumping to Arkansas, where he's yet to earn an NCAA berth in three seasons. Good recruiting could pay off in a breakthrough next season, but Heath should know that his boss, Frank Broyles, does not overflow with patience. He once fired his football coach after losing the season opener.

And even though Missouri's Quin Snyder has had only one head-coaching job, he batted his eyes at Washington three years ago before agreeing to stay in Columbia. Since then his program has neither followed the rules nor fulfilled its potential.

Of course, if any of those coaches is fired next year, he'll probably walk away with a handsome settlement. Contracts tend to be as one-sided as Fox News, in favor of the coaches.

Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith are both $2 million-a-year men at Louisville and Kentucky, respectively, and it could easily be argued that they're worth it. If they walk for another job, they don't owe their schools a dime. If either school decides to terminate its coach, it would have to pay a fairly scandalous sum in buyout money.

"Obviously, the contracts have typically been more favorable to the coaches than the universities," Ponsetto said. "But coaches want the security because we put too much emphasis on winning. That's cultural, that's societal, that's American. Somewhere along the way, between the 1940s and 2005, there's been a progression of change that's made winning a much higher priority.

"Coaches used to be considered to be much more part of the faculty and staff. Ray [Meyer] would go away for the summer to Three Rivers, Wis. He'd be gone for three months; you wouldn't see him. Now, it's a 12-month grind. That's another reason coaches are anxious to make money where they can."

It's often easier to make big money by moving around than settling down. But as Matt Doherty can tell Dave Leitao, sometimes the new job comes with a trapdoor beneath it.

U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Apr 26, 2005

THE BEAT GOES ON: University of Virginia teams captured a school-record six ACC titles in 2003-04, winning in men's soccer, men's swimming, women's swimming, women's rowing, men's tennis and women's lacrosse.

The Cavaliers have collected five ACC titles this school year - men's soccer, women's soccer, men's swimming, women's rowing and men's tennis - and may not be finished.

The ACC tournaments for men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse and baseball are still to come.

Virginia has won four ACC titles three times: in 1986-87, 1989-90 and 2002-03.

UPWARDLY MOBILE: By sweeping a three-game series from ACC power Georgia Tech, the Virginia baseball team moved back into contention for an NCAA tournament bid.

The Cavaliers (9-10, 29-13) completed the sweep Sunday at Davenport Field, beating the then-No. 4 Yellow Jackets 2-1. Georgia Tech entered the series having won 34 of its previous 38 ACC games.

In 2004, Brian O'Connor's first season as Virginia's coach, his club took three games from Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

Two huge series loom for the Cavaliers, who probably must finish around .500 in ACC play to earn serious consideration from the NCAA tournament selection committee. Virginia plays three games at Florida State this weekend and entertains Miami (Fla.) on May 13, 14 and 15.

Before Friday night's opener against Georgia Tech, U.Va.'s new men's basketball coach, Dave Leitao, threw out the first pitch.

IN FACT: U.Va. continues to raise money to pay for the $129.8 million John Paul Jones Arena, which is scheduled to be ready on May 31, 2006.

During the news conference at which Leitao was introduced as U.Va.'s coach, the university's president, John Casteen, was asked about the impact Leitao's hiring would have on fundraising.

"The financing of the arena is, contrary to what turns up in sports pages, on time and on track and ahead of track," Casteen said. "The difficulty is that the type of structure that's involved in financing something of that scale does not involve simply putting the money on the table one day and building the building the next day."

About $40 million still must be raised for the 15,000-seat arena, Athletic Director Craig Littlepage told The Times-Dispatch last week.

CHANGE OF SCENERY: Gene Cross is Midwest through and through. Born and raised in Chicago, he has degrees from Illinois, where he played basketball, and Ohio State, and he was an assistant at Illinois-Chicago for six seasons before joining Leitao's staff at DePaul in 2002.

Even so, Cross, 33, says, he had no reservations about following Leitao to Charlottesville.

"Throughout your career, you see programs that you admire from a distance," Cross said. "This just happens to be one of those programs, just because of the mystique that follows the University of Virginia."

Cross, who's active in the National Association of Basketball Coaches, spent the weekend in Texas recruiting for U.Va.

In addition to Cross, who was hired last week, Leitao is considering Jason Williford and Rob Lanier as potential assistants. Williford, 31, graduated from Richmond's John Marshall High and later was a standout forward for coach Jeff Jones at Virginia. He's now an assistant coach at Boston University.

Lanier, 36, was dismissed last month at Siena after four seasons as the Saints' head coach. He has worked as an assistant coach at Niagara; at St. Bonaventure, his alma mater; at Rutgers, and at Texas.

Siena recently released from their letters of intent two big men who had signed to play for Lanier: 6-11, 210-pound Darryl Harris, a junior college transfer, and 6-8, 235-pound Tarrance Garrison, a high school senior in Dallas.

SPRING FOOTBALL: As a redshirt freshman in 2004, Allen Billyk played only 21 snaps. In Saturday's spring game, however, the 6-4, 267-pound defensive end started, ahead of classmate Chris Johnson, who started the final four games last season.

"He's done nicely," U.Va. coach Al Groh said of Billyk, who's from New Castle, Pa. "He's a very diligent, disciplined player. Technique is his game, that's going to be his game, and he's done a good job with that here this spring."

Virginia was short-handed at defensive end this spring. Brennan Schmidt, a three-year starter, is recovering from shoulder surgery and didn't take part in spring drills.

REVOLVING DOOR: Seven players from U.Va. were taken in this past weekend's NFL draft, a school record. Replacing such stars as Heath Miller, Chris Canty and Alvin Pearman won't be easy, but that's part of college football.

"Guys cycle in and guys cycle out," Groh said. "Guys leave, and in December and January everybody's weeping and saying, 'Oh, how are you going to replace this guy?' But there's always a new crop that comes along, and that's one of the exciting things that you get to see in the spring." - Jeff White

Williford soon could make a return to U.Va.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Apr 27, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- In a 2003 interview with The Times-Dispatch, Jason Williford spoke of wanting to coach at his alma mater. The Richmond native's dream may become reality in the near future.

Williford, an assistant to Dennis Wolff at Boston University for the past five seasons, spent much of Monday meeting with Dave Leitao at the University of Virginia.

Leitao took over as U.Va.'s basketball coach about 10 days ago, and he's in the process of putting his staff together. His first hire was Gene Cross, who worked for Leitao at DePaul University. Leitao also has interviewed former Siena coach Rob Lanier and, now, Williford.

A 1991 graduate of John Marshall High in Richmond, Williford was the T-D's prep player of the year as a senior. At U.Va., he started 83 games for coach Jeff Jones and helped the Cavaliers advance to the NCAA tournament's fourth round as a senior. Williford's boss at BU, Wolff, is a former U.Va. assistant.

Williford, 31, graduated from U.Va. in 1995. His wife, the former Kwamina Thomas, is an attorney who earned her bachelor's at U.Va. in 1997. -- Jeff White

NFL success requires college grit
Virginia prepares ex-Cavaliers for both physical, mental rigors of life in professional football
James Wagner, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor

Last weekend, football fans witnessed the annual NFL Draft in which 255 players were selected in seven rounds. After Tagliabue reads the name of prospective players off the draft card, life in the NFL begins.

Playing in the National Football League is a business. Since draft choices are no assured contracts, drafted players must maintain the level of preparation and performance that merited their draft choice. For many players, hearing their name announced is the culmination of years of hard work.

"It has really been a dream ever since I started playing," former Virginia and current New York Giant tight end Chris Luzar said. "My dream -- my goal -- was to play in the NFL."

The 255 players drafted in 2005 is roughly above half of the number of players available. When broken down by position, out of the 24 quarterbacks available for selection, only 14 were chosen. In addition, of the 18 strong safeties in the draft, only eight were selected. Lastly, of the 49 wide receivers to be picked, only 31 of them left Sunday night actually reporting to a team. Though the breakdown by position varies, the overall percentage of drafted players proves that there is a steep amount of competition.

According to the NFL, seven of the eight Virginia players who were declared eligible for this year's NFL draft were selected. Such a high percentage is evidence that Virginia is producing quality players who not only possess physical attributes but also necessary mental characteristics to make it in the hard-nosed NFL.

Playing football at the University has prepared many future NFL players with the tools needed to succeed.

"I have heard from scouts and others that know about the professional football business remark about the ability players have to learn the game and to learn the higher level of sophistication, both offensively and defensively," Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage said. "The NFL presents a different language compared to college in many situations. I have heard that players that have come through our system have been able to pick up many of these different systems and schemes. [They have been able] to learn the language, to make the reads, to build their skills and [be] high quality in terms of their work ethics."

Mental qualities, such as work ethic and discipline, are defining characteristics for Virginia football players.

"One of the biggest things is the mental aspect," Luzar said. "Both [former Virginia] coach Welsh and [current Virginia] coach Groh run a pretty tight shift. I think that it correlates with the discipline. It has been really easy with that in the NFL. Some guys have a really relaxed college coach, but when they get to the NFL, they can't handle it mentally."

Several former Virginia football players agreed with Luzar's observation.

"As a player, you have to be mentally tough to face the challenges," former Virginia and current New Orleans Saints quarterback Aaron Brooks said. "You have to be tough to be as good as the next person but even better. Coach [Welsh] always expected mental toughness. You have to face the challenges and compete" in the NFL.

Former Virginia and current Broncos defensive tackle Monsanto Pope said discipline was the most important thing he learned at Virginia.

The challenges that Luzar, Brooks and Pope are referring to are the ones presented by the fact they face the best football athletes in the world every week during the season. A grueling 16-game regular season and playoffs, depending on the team's performance, can take a toll on the players' bodies and wear down their motivation.

The determination to succeed, planted in the psyche of current Virginia players in the NFL while they were in college, is the first step towards thriving on the bigger stage. This may help the adjustment to the professional game, but factors such as speed and the regularity of training still are differences between college and the NFL.

Jack-in-the-box: Senior dominates key face-offs
Entrusted with winning face-offs, midfielder deVilliers has starred in key role throughout his career by helping Cavalier offense gain, keep possession
Walker Freer, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor

Hidden behind goals, assists and points scored in the box score, face-offs won is a statistic that can easily be ignored. But as any lacrosse player or coach knows, it's one that should not be. Virginia midfielder Jack deVilliers has been winning face-offs for the past four seasons, but he has excelled at them long before arriving at the University. He traces his face-off roots back to high school.

"When I was a freshman in high school [at St. Paul's] I made the varsity team, and [facing off] was kind of a way to get on the field," he said.

It seems like deVilliers never comes off the field these days. He has taken 219 of Virginia's 242 face-offs this season, meaning he is the primary trustee of the job. And what an important job it is. With face-offs held at the start of each quarter and following every goal, the importance of winning the draw and maintaining possession is essential for victory.

"When you're winning [face-offs] early and you've established a little bit of pattern at the face-off X, I think it gives the whole team confidence," Virginia coach Dom Starsia said.

On the season, the senior from Lutherville, Md. has won 129 out of 219 face-offs, a .589 winning percentage. DeVilliers' influence, however, extends well beyond the face-off X. He leads the team in ground balls with 72, and his 6.55 grounds balls per game are tied for seventh best in Division I.

While the Cavaliers primarily use deVilliers, most teams use two, three or even four players to handle face-off duties. In Virginia's 9-7 loss against No. 1 John's Hopkins March 26, the Blue Jays used four different midfielders to counter deVilliers but still only managed a 10-9 advantage.

Consistently winning face-offs leads to a greater number of possessions which in turn generates more opportunities to score. Sometimes though, the numbers do not hold true. In Virginia's 17-2 loss at No. 2 Duke April 16, deVilliers had his best performance ever against a top five team, winning a mind-numbing 12 of 18 face-offs for a .667 winning percentage. As the Duke game attested, no matter how many face-offs an individual wins, it all goes for naught if the offense cannot work as a team to score goals.

For teams like Princeton that preach ball control and offensive sets, face-offs are even more crucial. While Virginia prefers a more high-octane style of play, face-offs are nevertheless important in fueling offensive runs which the team has had to rely on due to offensive inefficiencies early in games.

This meeting of two players face to face, both with even positioning, provides for a unique confrontation. In that one moment, instead of being a war between two teams, the face-off becomes a battle between two players – a battle of moves, strength versus quickness and desire.

While it is the two face-off men that make the initial contact, they also benefit from the play of their fellow midfielders on the wings. The wing middies are the only other players on the field released during the face-off until possession is controlled. Virginia uses senior Rob Bateman, a long stick midfielder, to add a defensive presence to the team's face-offs. Still, Starsia prefers deVilliers to do it alone.

"Good face-off guys really pick the ball up themselves," Starsia said. "We've been able to give Jack some help with our good wing players, but Jack's ability to win the draw and then pick up the ball -- that's the safest way to go with that exercise."

In a sport devoid of an indefensible shot –- such as a foul shot in basketball or a penalty shot in soccer -- the face-off in lacrosse serves as a neutralizer.

"It's in some ways a disproportionately important part of the game," Starsia said.

With deVilliers graduating in May, junior midfielder Charlie Glazer is being groomed to take over the starting face-off role in 2006. Seeing limited playing time this season, Glazer has gone 14-20 with a winning percentage of .700. While not too shabby for a back-up, the majority of Glazer's action has come late in games in which the outcome has long since been decided.

If any of Virginia's remaining opponents decides to ignore deVilliers as some ignore his trade, he'll be sure to quickly remind them he's there.