Giannone’s goal lifts UVa in OT
By Whitey Reid
Published: April 5, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - When Sean Burke scored to put North Carolina up by three goals with under four minutes to play, 2,136 rain-soaked fans at Fetzer Field began mentally preparing for Saturday night’s Final Four basketball game between UNC and Kansas.
And why not?
At that point, their Tar Heels’ lacrosse team led by three and looked like it was going to pick up its first ACC win in four years.
Meanwhile, Virginia looked well on its way to 0-2 in the ACC. The fourth-ranked Cavaliers had played inconsistently all afternoon and there wasn’t much reason to believe they could pull off a miracle comeback.
However, that’s exactly what they did.
Thanks to great play in net from Bud Petit and a goal by Steve Giannone with 1 minute and 1 second left in overtime, No. 4 UVa shocked No. 6 UNC, 12-11. It was the third overtime victory by the Cavaliers this season.
“We were ready to fight back in the fourth quarter and I think that says something about us,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia, whose team was embarrassed at Maryland last weekend. “We just haven’t played 60 minutes these last two weeks and we need to do that to get back to the team we want to be.
“But you beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill - that’s a good win under any set of circumstances. For us to come back like that, it was a dramatic win if nothing else.”
It was Giannone who started the Cavs’ comeback. After Burke’s goal gave UNC (7-3, 0-3 ACC) an 11-8 lead with 3:38 remaining, Giannone fired a low laser past Tar Heels goalie Grant Zimmerman to cut the lead to two.
Then, after freshman Garett Ince won the face-off from UNC senior Shane Walterhoefe, Ben Rubeor (team-high three goals) cranked in a goal from 15 yards out to beat Zimmerman and make it
11-10.
The Tar Heels’ Michael J. Burns beat Ince on the ensuing face-off, but took an unnecessary quick shot at the other end that was gobbled up by Petit with 2:32 to play.
The Cavaliers (10-1, 1-1) maintained possession until Danny Glading beat Zimmerman with an underhand blast from 15 yards to force overtime.
“I felt like I was a little bit out of my range,” Glading said. “I never really shoot the ball underhand, but I got my hands free to the side of my guy and thought maybe their goalie wouldn’t be able to see it as I let it go.
“I guess that’s what happened. I think he had a hard time reading it.”
In the extra session, Walterhoefe won the opening face-off from Ince, but when he couldn’t advance the ball into the Virginia zone fast enough, the Tar Heels were called for a violation.
A minute later, after a nice check by Mike Timms helped the Cavaliers regain possession, Giannone rebounded a Glading shot and fired it over Zimmerman’s shoulder from right in front of the crease.
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Giannone said. “The goalie was still reacting from Danny’s shot, so he didn’t have much time to react to mine.”
Virginia wouldn’t have been able to mount any comeback if not for the play of Petit. The senior - who got his first start of the season in place of freshman Adam Ghitelman - finished with 13 saves, many of which were of the spectacular variety.
“Bud led us all day,” said Glading, who had two goals and two assists. “He had a great game. I’m so happy for him. He’s worked so hard for so many years. He was easy to rally behind. He’s always been so selfless his whole career here. He stepped up and had a great game.”
Petit said he was always confident - even when Virginia trailed by three with under four minutes to go.
“I knew we had in us,” said the 6-foot-4 Midlothian native. “We’d been fighting all year, going to overtime with teams. I just knew we could pull it out.”
Starsia said nobody ever became discouraged.
“The body language in all the huddles was always very positive,” said Starsia, whose team hosts No. 2 Duke on Saturday. “Every time in the huddle in the fourth quarter I was telling everyone we were going to win.
“I don’t have to tell you whether I believed that, but this time we were able to get through it and pick up a really big win.”
Groundballs
Virginia outshot North Carolina, 56-33…UNC had the edge in groundballs, 45-40, and won 15 of 27 face-offs…The Tar Heels last ACC win came against UVa at Fetzer Field in 2004.


 

Cavaliers Rally to Stun North Carolina in OT
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 04/05/2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC—Steve Giannone scored on a rebound with 1:01 remaining in overtime to send Virginia past North Carolina 12-11 in the rain at Fetzer Field Saturday.

The overtime victory is Virginia’s third of the season and the second in a row over the Tar Heels.

The fourth-ranked Cavaliers got back on the winning track following last week’s disappointing loss to Maryland improve to 10-1 this season with their first ACC victory of the year. The sixth-ranked Tar Heels fall to 7-3 this season, including 0-3 in the ACC.

Giannone’s goal capped a remarkable rally by the Cavaliers, who trailed 11-8 with less than three-and-a-half minutes to play.

“I thought we let the game get away from us a little bit in the third quarter,” said Virginia head coach Dom Starsia. “Similar to what happened to us last week (against Maryland), I thought we got a little discouraged because we weren’t getting the ball by (goalie Grant) Zimmerman the way we wanted to.”

Virginia inched back in the final minutes with three consecutive goals to send the game to overtime. Giannone notched his first goal of the afternoon with 3:22 remaining in regulation.

The Cavaliers won the ensuing faceoff and pulled closer on Ben Rubeor’s third goal of the game with 2:43 to play.

The Tar Heels won the next faceoff, but Michael J. Burns took a risky shot that was saved easily by Bud Petit with 2:31 to play. The Cavaliers cleared the ball but Danny Glading’s shot to tie hit the pipe at the 1:51 mark. North Carolina gathered the loose ball but quickly turned it over when a long pass downfield was intercepted.

Virginia called timeout with 50 seconds left in regulation to set up a play. Brian Carroll misfired high with 24 seconds left. On the restart Danny Glading looped around from the left side and sent a low shot from 14 yards past Zimmerman to send the game to overtime with 17 seconds remaining.

“We got a little discouraged (in the third quarter), but then we were ready to fight back in the fourth quarter,” Starsia said.

Despite losing the overtime faceoff, the Cavaliers controlled the tempo in the extra session. Zimmerman saved a Rubeor shot with 2:17 to go, but an aggressive ride by Rubeor caused a Tar Heel turnover. Cavalier longstick Mike Timms scooped the loose ball at the restraining line to give his team its second possession of overtime.

Following a successful clear, Virginia patiently worked the ball around its offensive zone looking for a good opportunity. With the clock closing in on a minute, Glading again had good position on his man and fired a shot at Zimmerman. Zimmerman stopped the ball but it bounced directly to Giannone who found himself all alone on the crease. Giannone calmly snared the free ball and put it past Zimmerman for the winner.

Petit was outstanding in goal for the Cavaliers in his first start in three years. He recorded a career-high 13 saves, including the big save of Burns late in the game that gave Virginia its final possession of regulation.

“I thought Bud played very well—he gave us a chance to win,” Starsia said of his fifth-year player. “I don’t know what his stats look like, but they probably don’t reflect the impact he had on the game overall.”

The Cavaliers return to action at home at Klöckner Stadium against Duke. The game is set to face off at 6 pm and will be televised on ESPNU.

Virginia 3-0-3-5-1—12 record: 10-1/1-1 ACC
North Carolina 1-2-6-2-0—11 record: 7-3/0-3 ACC
att—2136

Scoring (G-A)— V: Ben Rubeor 3-0, Danny Glading 2-2, Garrett Billings 2-1, Steve Giannone 2-0, Brian Carroll 1-1, Will Barrow 1-0, Jack Riley 1-0. NC: Ben Hunt 3-0, Sean Delaney 2-0, Gavin Petracca 2-0, Nick Tintle 1-1, Sean Burke 1-0, Michael B. Burns 1-0, Kevin Federico 1-0, Bart Wagner 0-3, Billy Bitter 0-2, Brian Connors 0-1, Rob Driscoll 0-1.

Goalie Summary—V: Bud Petit 62:59 mins., 13 saves, 11 goals allowed. NC: Grant Zimmerman 62:59 mins., 14 saves, 12 goals allowed.

Shots: V—56, NC—33
Ground Balls: V—40, NC—45
Clearing: V—21x26, NC—18x27
Faceoffs: V—12, NC—15
Penalties: V—5-4:30, NC—6-6:00
EMO: V—1x4, NC—2x4

 

Cavaliers Earn Bye in ACC Tournament With Win Over Eagles
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 04/05/2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - The Virginia women’s lacrosse team earned a bye in the first round of the ACC Tournament Saturday afternoon with a 12-4 win over conference-foe Boston College. ACC Player of the Week junior Jenny Hauser led all scorers with four goals on the afternoon.

Senior Megan O’Malley and sophomore Brittany Kalkstein each notched three goals and junior Ashley McCulloch had one goal and three assists. Junior Blair Weymouth tallied a goal and an assist, while senior Kaitlin Swagart contributed an assist.

Kalkstein, the single-season record holder for draw controls, collected a team-high four draws to move into 10th place on Virginia’s all-time career list. The sophomore has won 106 draw controls in two seasons.

Senior Claire Bordley led the defense with five ground balls, while Kalkstein scooped up four and junior Jen Holden won three. Bordley also caused four turnovers, while Hauser caused three.

In goal, senior Kendall McBrearty stopped six shots, while allowing only four goals.

Boston College was led by goalkeeper Katie Monaghan’s 14 saves. Four Eagles tallied scores, while Lauren Costello had two assists.

The Cavaliers won the opening draw control, but the Eagles forced a turnover giving Boston College the first offensive possession of the game. The Eagles took their time finding the right shot, but the Cavaliers regained possession after the Eagles fired a shot wide.

O’Malley took advantage of the Virginia’s first possession, firing a pass from McCulloch into the net at 24:59. Bordley won the ensuing draw control and passed it ahead to Weymouth. Weymouth ran behind the cage before finding Kalkstein who completed the score for the Cavaliers at 24:29.

A second score from O’Malley within a minute of her first pushed Virginia ahead, 3-0, by the 24:01 mark.

The next 16 minutes remained scoreless, before Hauser found the back of the net on a free position shot. Boston College then tallied their first score at 4:55 from Lauren Fitzpatrick.

Hauser closed out the half for Virginia notching two goals. She scored her first at 1:54 and a second with nine seconds remaining, giving the Cavaliers a 6-1 halftime edge.

Swagart assisted Kalkstein at 27:46 of the second half to open scoring. McCulloch made it two-straight for Virginia a minute later. Sarah Sedgwick broke-up the four-goal run of the Cavaliers’ with a score at 26:25.

The Cavaliers tallied the next three straight to jump ahead 11-2, with scores from O’Malley, Weymouth and Kalkstein.

Maura Mahoney and Jenna McCabe added back-to-back scores for the Eagles, and Hauser marked a fourth score to bring the final count to 12-4.

Virginia (10-2, 4-1 ACC) will play their final road game of the season this week, traveling to Georgetown for a 3:30 p.m. contest against the Hoyas.

 

Cavs solve Eagles’ stall
By Bart Isley
Published: April 5, 2008

Virginia’s women’s lacrosse team did let Boston College’s grind-the-game-to-a-screeching-halt style affect it much Saturday afternoon and rolled to a 12-4 victory over the Eagles.
With the victory, the Cavaliers locked up at least second place in the ACC and are assured that they won’t have to play three straight games to win the conference tournament.
It took only six minutes to see the distinct contrast in styles between the Eagles and Cavaliers. Boston College held onto the ball in the offensive zone for about four minutes after winning the opening draw, and the Eagles missed a shot at the very end of the four-minute possession.
Fourth-ranked Virginia, on the other hand, didn’t surrender possession for the ensuing two minutes, and in that span the Cavaliers cleared the ball out of their zone after the missed BC shot, won a pair of draw controls and scored three goals to take a big early lead. Not a bad two minutes of work.
“After BC had the ball for the first four minutes, it was great to see our girls go back down and score the three in a row,” said UVa coach Julie Myers. “We were generating opportunities and lots of kids were seeing the ball.”
Megan O’Malley scored two of the Cavaliers’ three during the initial flurry, with Brittany Kalkstein chipping in another on a pass from Blair Weymouth. Both Kalkstein and O’Malley went on to finish the game with hat tricks. Boston College never seemed to recover from the outburst despite a quick timeout after the third goal by head coach Bowen Holden.
“It was important for us to get the lead first so that we didn’t have to worry about them holding the ball,” said Virginia attacker Jenny Hauser.
Hauser led the Cavaliers with four goals. Her second and third came in the final two minutes of the first half, and Ashley McCulloch assisted on both. On her third, Hauser found the back of the net with just nine seconds left in the period on a well-executed and well-timed offensive set by the Cavaliers that included a nifty McCulloch pass to a cutting Hauser.
Thanks to the late back-to-back goals, Virginia rolled into the break with a 6-1 advantage.
The Eagles continued to grind it out in the second half, moving the ball through their motion offense without taking many shots. A week ago, the strategy worked perfectly against No. 7 North Carolina as Boston College snagged a 5-4 double-overtime victory over the Tar Heels despite taking just nine shots.
Virginia, though, would have none of that on Saturday and continued to increase its lead after the break, scoring a pair of goals in the first three and a half minutes of the period to take an 8-1 lead.
Even when Boston College did manage to strike back with a Sarah Sedgwick goal just a few seconds later, Virginia’s offense reeled off three more goals. Weymouth’s fast break goal highlighted that second half run. The junior snagged her own rebound off of Boston College keeper Katie Monaghan and buried the second-chance shot to put Virginia up 10-2.
Virginia’s ability to transition the ball after Boston College’s missed shots or turnovers was critical to keeping the Eagles from completely controlling the clock. Virginia cleared the ball on all nine opportunities. The Cavaliers also held a 19-11 advantage in ground balls and turned the ball over just seven times the entire game.
“[The defense] did a nice job, especially in the first half, of stealing some of those critical possession balls,” Myers said. “I thought they did a nice job of bailing each other out and putting some good pressure on Boston College.”
Notes
Former Virginia player Courtney Leonard, who wrapped up her eligibility in 2003, serves as an assistant coach for Boston College. …Virginia took 41 shots to Boston College’s 22. …Boston College picked up four cautions in the game, including one on Holden for arguing from the bench. …Virginia’s attack played well enough defensively to stop nine Boston College clears from advancing. The Eagles cleared just 10 of 19 attempts.

 

A life on the rebound
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Published: April 5, 2008

Countless nights passed by when Gus Gerard’s heart was thumping so hard that he felt it would pop through his chest.
The cocaine had kicked in, so much in fact that the former basketball star, former millionaire, former husband, father, son, prayed a false prayer. He would ask the Lord not to let him die, that if he should be spared, he wouldn’t get high anymore.
Each time, maybe a half-hour after the prayer, Gerard would be smoking or snorting cocaine again.
Once an All-Star in the old ABA and later a starter in the NBA, Gerard let it all slip away: his career, his money, his family, and his dignity. He had lost everything in a fog of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine.
Well, almost everything.
He still had what was left of his eroded life. In his mind, it was time to end that, too.
The former Virginia basketball star had reached new lows, stealing $10 bills from his mother’s purse to get one more hit. He had burned bridges, had nowhere really to go and figured this world would be better off without him.
So, after going on a three-day binge of vodka and cocaine, Gus Gerard figured it was time to end his life. He drove around Cleveland for most of those three days before showing up at a friend’s house, a place where he was usually found a welcome couch to sleep off his problems.
This sleep would not end. Gerard eased his beat up, $200 jalopy into the house’s garage and lowered the door. He left the engine running, asked the Lord to take care of his children, laid the car seat back and went to sleep.
The fumes would do the rest, just as he remembered how former Kansas City Kings’ teammate Bill Robinzine had done. Gerard drifted off into a carbon monoxide sleep.
“Just like the drug addict I was, and as stupid as I was, I didn’t check to see if I had any gas,” Gerard said with a chuckle. “I ran out of gas during my suicide attempt.”
He can laugh about it now, looking back on life with more turns than a West Virginia mountain road.
When he woke up from the haze and realized what had happened, or rather what had not happened, Gerard had a moment of clarity. He walked into the house and prayed for help. This time he was serious, no take backs.
Help from an old friend
He saw a copy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the kitchen table and on the cover of the Parade Magazine was his old friend, John Lucas - the first person kicked out of the NBA because of drug use.
The story told how Lucas had wandered around the streets of Houston in socks - no shoes - in drug-induced stupors. But the real story was how Lucas bounced back, was six years sober, was coach of the San Antonio Spurs, and had opened his own drug rehab center in the same city where he was once a lost soul.
Gerard, who will speak to a large crowd at the University of Virginia tonight (7 p.m., Newcomb Hall Ballroom) about his life and the path to recovery, will talk about how he called his sister, Roxanne (who will be in the audience this evening) and told her that he wanted to go see Lucas. She bought him a one-way ticket to Houston for the best trip he made in his life.
“I’ve been there ever since,” said Gerard, who not only ended his drug and alcohol abuse and straightened out his life, but has since become CEO of Extended Aftercare Inc. to help others deal with their problems.
Maybe it was divine intervention or just sheer luck that the car ran out of gas, and that Lucas’ story was there before his eyes on the kitchen table. Whatever it was, he watched Lucas’ Spurs lose to Charles Barkley’s team that day, called the Spurs office and left a message for Lucas, with whom he had been roommates during the World University Games between his sophomore and junior years at Virginia.
Lucas called him back immediately and asked if Gerard was willing to come to Houston to spend time with him. He was welcomed with open arms on May 26, 1993.
He hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol since.
“I just want to let people know during my talk [entitled ‘The Long Way Home: Gus Gerard’s Path to Recovery’] that they’re not bulletproof,” Gerard said. “The progression of drugs and alcohol is that it starts off as fun and escalates until you cross the line.”
That’s the way it was for Gerard, a fun-loving player who was part of a bidding war between the ABA and NBA in 1974.
The kid from Uniontown, Pa., the same town that produced former UVa player Jim Hobgood, had made himself a star in the ACC for Coach Bill Gibson. He was runner-up to N.C. State great David Thompson in ACC scoring with a 20.8 points per game average as a junior.
At 6-foot-8, 205 pounds, Gerard was a freakish athlete for the Cavaliers. He defied the old adage that “White Men Can’t Jump.”
“The guy could get up,” said UVa legend Barry Parkhill, who was two years ahead of Gerard in school. “He had some serious hops — legendary jumping ability. He had some of the biggest calves you’ve ever seen on a basketball player.”
In fact, when Gerard went to the ABA, his leaping ability rivaled that of Julius Erving.
It was at those World University Games where scouts first noticed him and so did the agent of Parkhill, who by that time was already in the ABA.
When Gerard came back to school from the Games, Gibson had left to take the job at South Florida and Terry Holland had been hired to replace him. But at the same time, the ABA came calling. Parkhill’s agent said the Carolina Cougars, coached by Larry Brown, would pay him $300,000 to come out early.
Holland told him that if he waited a year his value would rise. But the Cougars folded, became the Spirits of St. Louis, and the next offer was staggering to a kid who never had more than 30 bucks in his pocket.
“They flew me to New York and offered me $950,000 and gave me a check for $75,000 as a signing bonus right on the spot,” Gerard said. “In 1974, that was pretty big money for a kid who grew up poor.”
The first thing he did after signing was to help his parents, a good beginning for a sterling rookie season. He made the ABA All-Rookie team, averaging about 16 points and eight rebounds per game.
However, the Spirits were a team of free spirits, including Marvin “Bad News” Barnes, who later admitted to snorting cocaine under a towel while on the bench during games.
On a trip to New York, Gerard said a friend from college came to see him play and said he should give cocaine a try, that it would give him a lift. Immediately, he was hooked.
With the ABA about to fold, he was traded to the Denver Nuggets, one of the four teams absorbed in a merger with the NBA. There he played for Brown and with Thompson, Bobby Jones, Dan Issel and others. He made the All-Star game his second year and was part of a solid franchise.
Throughout his seven-year career with seven different teams, Gerard was a clever addict. He carried on a secret life of drug use, but never caused any problems. He was never late for practice, never missed a plane or a bus.
Because there was no drug testing in those days, he managed to stay under the radar, as did many players. Gerard estimated that more than 50 percent of all the teams he played on had players that got high on drugs or alcohol or both.
When his pro career ended, Gerard returned to Charlottesville, built a nice home, had a nice family and continued his secret lifestyle. That’s when he began to fly to Vegas and Atlantic City, always footing the bill for his friends because he didn’t want to be alone and because they weren’t in his league financially.
Eventually, the lifestyle led him to squander away the $2 million fortune he had accumulated as a basketball player. The family moved to Northern Virginia and that’s when his marriage hit the rocks.
“I was manipulating, lying and my secrets started coming out about the life I was leading,” Gerard recalled. “She put me out and told me to not come back and not to plan on seeing my children unless I got some help.”
Running from his problems
He packed up his car and moved back to Uniontown to live with his mother.
“She had no idea what kind of monster was coming back there,” Gerard said. “I was blaming everything on everybody else, just lying to my family and friends. I was a hero in my hometown because I had made it to the NBA, but it didn’t take me long to burn my bridges and I had to leave there. I was stealing from my mom to support my habit.”
He moved to Madison, Ohio, with his brother’s family and that didn’t work out. His problems followed him wherever he would go. He always found the bars and the drug dealers that inhabited them.
“Meanwhile, I had gotten a divorce, never thought about child support,” he said. “I would think about my children and I knew what I was doing was wrong. But I was so deep into it that anytime I would think about my kids, it annihilated me and I had to medicate myself so I wouldn’t have to think about it.”
He owed $26,000 in child support, but had no way to pay. He wanted to make things right, he just didn’t know how.
That’s when he decided to kill himself.
When that failed and he ended up at Lucas’ rehab center, Gerard’s life turned.
Forty years old at the time, part of his recovery was two hours in the gym every day - the same gym in Houston where all the pros, former pros and wannabes would show up for pickup games. He had gotten himself in shape, was 90 days clean, and with no serious injuries, he still had amazing athletic ability.
One day he was in the gym, dunking on pros and a coach of a Mexican pro league team asked Lucas, ‘Who is that guy?’
“Oh, that’s Gus,” Lucas said. “He’s been out of the league since 1981. He’s 40 years old.”
The coach said, “He’s better than anybody I’ve got on my team.”
After the workout, the coach offered Gerard $10,000 cash to play the next two months, and he agreed. Upon completion of the season, Gerard started writing to his kids weekly and sent the $10,000 to his ex-wife as part of the support payments.
He then realized he had an NBA pension he hadn’t tapped into. He paid back all the child support, eventually sent his two kids to college and set up a trust fund for them. He got to meet his kids again and his ex-wife.
He remarried eight years ago and renewed a relationship with many of his old friends and colleagues as a member of the Legends of Basketball group.
Gerard wanted to help others, went back to school and became a drug counselor, eventually joining a friend to buy the facility that helped save him. Extended Aftercare Inc., in Houston, is the place’s name, a 60-bed facility that has a waiting list. Some of the nation’s top companies send employees there, including doctors and lawyers with similar problems.
Last December, tragedy struck when his 24-year-old stepson died of an overdose, leaving Gerard and his wife emotionally destroyed.
“Being a counselor made it even harder because I couldn’t help this kid, I couldn’t reach him,” Gerard said. “I guess I was too close to make a difference.”
That is the unfortunate part of his business, telling the stories of the ones who don’t make it. They are few but leave an indelible memory.
“My reward is to see families get back together like mine did,” Gerard said. “I used to think I could save everyone, but I realized I can’t.”
“It could have been a story with a sad ending,” said Parkhill, his old teammate. “The story isn’t over, but what he has done with his life is a happy story. I’m really proud of what he has accomplished.”
Gerard won’t consider the trip back to his old town successful Monday night unless he reaches some tortured souls. He can’t save everyone, but if he saves a few, it was worth the trip.

 

The MONEY of sports: VAF contributions far outpace academic donations
By Brian McNeill<mailto:bmcneill@dailyprogress.com>
Published: April 6, 2008

In the University of Virginia’s marathon race to raise $3 billion in private contributions, an indefatigable frontrunner is UVa’s athletics department.
The Virginia Athletics Foundation, the department’s fundraising arm, had collected $234.2 million by the end of February, representing more than 78 percent of its $300 million goal. UVa’s five-year campaign to raise $3 billion will conclude Dec. 31, 2011, and is just over halfway finished.
The athletics foundation has received so many contributions from alumni, Cavalier sports fans, former athletes and corporations that it is outpacing the fundraising performance of nearly every academic area of the university, according to documents obtained under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act.
The athletics department has generated substantially more cash and is farther along with its fundraising targets than UVa’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the School of Law, the Curry School of Education, the McIntire School of Commerce and the School of Engineering & Applied Science.
Only UVa’s Medical School Foundation has outpaced the athletics department in achieving progress toward its goal, raising $243.4 million, which is 83.9 percent of its $292 million goal.
The medical school’s fundraising arm is a significant chunk of the total UVa Health System’s fundraising effort, which has brought in a total $353.7 million, which is 70.7 percent of its $500 million target.
Out of the total $302 million worth of philanthropic gifts to the university in 2007, a full $30 million went to the athletics foundation.
“I am just really proud of the way our athletics fundraising has come together,” said Robert D. Sweeney, UVa’s senior vice president for development and public affairs. “It’s been operating on all eight cylinders for some time now.”

‘100 percent self-sufficient’
The Virginia Athletics Foundation has 21 employees, including nine fundraising officers, who operate out of an office suite at Bryant Hall, which is connected to UVa’s football stadium. Its mission is to finance the day-to-day operations and support the growth of UVa’s 25 sports.
“Not one penny of state, municipal or university resources goes into the athletics program,” Sweeney said. “It’s 100 percent self-sufficient.”
Foremost among the foundation’s expenditures are projects involving UVa’s sports facilities, such as the $86 million refurbishment of Scott Stadium and the record-shattering $130 million construction of John Paul Jones Arena.
The foundation also pays for the equivalent of 316 scholarships for many of UVa’s 650 student-athletes.
Covering the tuition of student-athletes is a considerable expense, as nearly two-thirds of UVa’s athletes come from states other than Virginia. For the current school year, an out-of-state student’s tuition is $27,940 per year — more than triple the cost of in-state tuition.
Even more worrisome for UVa athletics officials, the university’s tuition costs are rising. As a result, the foundation’s scholarship costs jumped from $10.2 million in 2006-07 to $11.3 million in the current academic year.
Down the road, tuition costs for both in-state and out-of-state students may increase dramatically. According to documents filed with the state, UVa projected that in-state tuition could climb as high as $17,578 in 2017-18 and out-of-state tuition could rise to $53,497 in that same year. In other words, having a well-funded endowment will become even more crucial to UVa athletics in the coming years, said Dirk Katstra, executive director of the athletics foundation.
“It’s scary for us,” Katstra said. “We have to pay the full freight for these scholarships.”

ACC fundraising leader
By the end of 2006, the Virginia Athletics Foundation had $126.5 million in assets, according to its most recent filings with the Internal Revenue Service. Collecting that kind of money, the documents show, was not cheap. The tax-exempt organization spent nearly $37.86 million that year.
Compared with its peer institutions, UVa’s athletics fundraising machine is a powerhouse. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, UVa led the Atlantic Coast Conference in philanthropic cash flow for sports. The next closest school in those years — the most recent for which comparative data is available — was North Carolina State University.
Yet unlike some other higher education institutions, UVa’s athletics fundraising prowess does not apparently take away from donations to academic programs, according to four fundraising officials from different areas at UVa.
“Because there had been some concern over that, I had some folks over here run the numbers and it showed that the majority of UVa’s donors give to both academics and athletics,” said Alison Traub, UVa’s assistant vice president for development and the interim director of development for the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. As of Feb. 29, it had raised $154 million, which is 31 percent of its $500 million goal.
Athletics can be a boon for higher education fundraising efforts, Traub said, because they foster pride in one’s alma mater and keep alumni emotionally engaged.
“Whether they’re watching a game on TV or if they’re watching it from the stadium, athletics let alumni stay connected to the university,” she said. “That really helps development.”
A top-notch athletics program can also help academic fundraising because it gives development officers a place to woo potential donors.
“We’ll take them to football and basketball games,” said Tim Redden, associate dean for development and vice president of UVa’s engineering foundation. “It lets us wine and dine ’em.”

Benefiting from backlash
Redden said the engineering school’s foundation does not necessarily compete with the athletics department for fundraising dollars. He added, however, that the engineering department is benefiting from backlash about the athletics foundation’s new football ticketing policy.
“We’re hearing a lot of kickback,” Redden said. “People are so upset. They’re saying, ‘We’re not giving to athletics at UVa anymore. I’m giving to engineering.’”
The athletics foundation doles out season tickets and assigns seating for Cavalier football games. Starting this fall, the best seats in Scott Stadium will go to the most generous donors to the athletics program, rather than some longtime season-ticket holders who had the most desirable seats for decades.
As many fans lost their long-held seats, the new policy angered some fans. Katstra responded by saying that the new policy will be more “equitable” in how it assigns seats and will generate at least $1 million more per year.
Katstra said it is too early to know if the athletics foundation is seeing its donations suffer from the backlash, but it does not appear so.
“We’re ahead on every fundraising benchmark,” he said.

Will woes impact giving?
It is also too soon to tell if the Cavalier football team’s woes over the past few months will impact giving.
In mid-January, the university announced that four players, including starting quarterback Jameel Sewell and cornerback Chris Cook, were not enrolled for the spring semester, making them ineligible to play in the fall.
Then, on Feb. 29, cornerback Mike Brown was arrested and charged with grand larceny, possession of stolen property with intent to sell, altering serial numbers and possession of marijuana.
And just last week, redshirt freshman J’Courtney Rydell Williams was charged with credit card theft and credit card fraud. He has since been dismissed from the team.UVa athletics donors are typically believers in the concept of scholar-athletes, Sweeney said. Many UVa supporters, he said, want to see the Cavaliers win, but not at the expense of having players who are not up to par academically or who are getting into trouble.
“We want to win,” he said. “But the way in which we win is just as important as the winning itself. We won’t sell our soul to win.”
Slightly more than 70.4 percent of UVa’s athletes graduated within six years, according to the most recent statistics available. That figure, Sweeney pointed out, is higher than the national average.