U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch May 3, 2006

DOWN TO THE WIRE: With two championships baseball and softball -- still to be decided this academic year, Virginia and Duke are tied for the lead with five ACC titles apiece.

U.Va. has won in men's cross country, men's swimming and diving, rowing, women's lacrosse and men's lacrosse. Duke's championships have come in women's cross country, men's soccer, men's basketball, women's golf and men's tennis.

Florida State and North Carolina have claimed four ACC titles apiece in 2005-06.

The ACC softball tournament is May 11-14 in Chapel Hill, N.C. The conference baseball tournament is May 24-28 in Jacksonville, Fla.

U.Va.'s hopes of capturing a sixth ACC crown this school year probably rest on its baseball team. The Cavaliers are ranked No. 11 nationally in the USA Today coaches' poll and No. 13 by Baseball America.

UNDER THE LIGHTS? The 16-team field won't be announced until Sunday night, but this much is certain: Virginia (13-0) will be the No. 1 seed in the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament.

The tourney's top eight seeds will play first-round home games. Coach Dom Starsia said yesterday that the school has proposed playing its opening game May 13 at 7 p.m.

U.Va.'s baseball team has a 1 p.m. game that day against ACC rival North Carolina at Davenport Field.

Should Starsia's Cavaliers advance to the NCAA quarterfinals as expected, they'd probably be sent to the May 21 doubleheader at Towson University in Maryland. The NCAA semifinals (May 27) and championship game (May 29) will be played in Philadelphia for the second straight year.

Final exams start tomorrow at U.Va. and run through May 12. The Cavaliers won't play again until the NCAA tourney.

BAD TIMING: In the ACC championship game Sunday in Baltimore, Virginia's leading scorer, Matt Ward, hurt his hand. Ward finished the game, but Starsia said yesterday that the senior attackman might have a broken hand. X-rays were negative, but Ward also had an MRI, the results of which Starsia hadn't seen as of early yesterday afternoon.

Even if the hand is broken, Starsia said, "I think Ward plays. It's just a question of whether they have to put a splint on his hand."

Ward has 45 points, on 26 goals and 19 assists, this season. He's one of 13 players in school history to have made the all-ACC team three times in lacrosse.

Starsia has won the ACC's coach-of-the-year award seven times, a conference record, including this year. In 14 seasons at U.Va., Starsia has a 154-54 record. Only one coach has won more games at an ACC school -- Dick Edell, who won 171 in his 18 seasons at Maryland.

J-E-T-S: Offensive tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson isn't the only former U.Va. football player headed to New York. The Jets, who selected Ferguson with the fourth pick in the NFL draft, later signed defensive end Brennan Schmidt to a free agent contract and invited linebacker Bryan White to minicamp.

Schmidt, a four-year starter, tied the ACC record with 51 career starts. White was a special-teams standout.

Hoping to join former teammate Chris Canty on the Dallas Cowboys' roster is linebacker Kai Parham, who led Virginia in tackles last season. Parham, a first-team all-ACC pick in 2005, passed up his final season of college eligibility to enter the draft, only to get passed over. He's agreed to a free agent deal with Dallas.

"I guess it was . . . challenging," Parham said of watching the draft, "but I'm not worried. I'll just go out there and play ball."

ON THE BRINK: Only three times in school history has U.Va. won 40 or more games in a baseball season. Barring a major collapse, the Cavaliers will reach that milestone again this year. They took a 38-10 record into their game with Mount St. Mary's at Davenport Field last night.

In 1996, U.Va. finished 44-21 under coach Dennis Womack. Under Womack's successor, Brian O'Connor, U.Va. went 44-15 in 2004 and 41-20 last year.

ON THE COURT: Andy Ogide, formerly a U.Va. basketball recruit, has signed with Mississippi. Ogide, a 6-8 forward from Georgia, committed to the Cavaliers last fall but didn't sign a letter of intent.

As the spring signing period approached, Virginia's coaching staff asked Ogide to spend a year at prep school before matriculating. Ogide wasn't interested in delaying his college enrollment and began looking at other schools.

Another 12th-grader from Georgia who committed to U.Va. for 2006-07, Solomon Tat, is awaiting a decision on whether he'll be issued a visa that will allow him to remain in the United States.

Tat, a 6-5 swingman, is from Nigeria. Virginia's coaches aren't optimistic about Tat's chances of securing a visa before the start of the 2006-07 academic year. -- Jeff White
 

ACC/Big Ten Challenge set
Richmond Times-Dispatch May 3, 2006

The matchups are set for the eighth annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge in men's basketball, an event that the ACC has dominated.

All 11 games will be televised on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.

Of the 12 ACC teams, only Wake Forest will not participate. Virginia Tech plays host to Iowa, and Virginia visits Purdue, both Nov. 29.

This year's event will include four rematches from previous ACC/Big Ten Challenges. Virginia beat Purdue in 2000, Maryland defeated Illinois in 2001, Michigan toppled N.C. State in 2003 and Duke overcame Indiana in 2005.

- Jeff White

SCHEDULE
Nov. 27 : Michigan at N.C. State, 7 p.m. (ESPN2)

Nov. 28 : Maryland at Illinois, 7 p.m. (ESPN); Florida State at Wisconsin, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2); Penn State at Georgia Tech, 8 p.m. (ESPNU); Indiana at Duke, 9 p.m. (ESPN); Miami at Northwestern, 9:30 p.m. (ESPN2)

Nov. 29 : Michigan State at Boston College, 7 p.m. (ESPN); Virginia at Purdue, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2); Iowa at Virginia Tech, 8 p.m. (ESPNU); Ohio State at North Carolina, 9 p.m. (ESPN); Clemson at Minnesota, 9:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
 

Smith didn't have to make his points
He caught Chargers' eye with the depth of his kickoffs for U.Va.
Richmond Times-Dispatch May 2, 2006

His final three seasons at the University of Virginia, Kurt Smith didn't attempt an extra point or a field goal, and for good reason. His teammates included Connor Hughes.

"I think it just ends up that Virginia had two of the best kickers in the country there at the same time," Dr. Bill Smith, Kurt's father, said by phone yesterday.

Hughes, who kicked extra points and field goals, is U.Va.'s all-time leading scorer with 332 points. Smith kicked off, and few in Division I-A did it better. The San Diego Chargers so valued Smith's skill that they selected him with the 19th pick of the sixth round Sunday in the NFL draft.

Only two kickers were drafted this year: Memphis' Stephen Gostkowski (by New England in the fourth round) and Smith, who's from Lookout Mountain, Ga. Not long after the draft ended Sunday, Hughes agreed to a free agent contract with the New Orleans Saints, whose kicker last season was 42-year-old John Carney.

"I think it worked out great for me," said Hughes, a graduate of Williamsburg's Lafayette High. "I couldn't ask for a better situation."

In 24-year-old Nate Kaeding, the Chargers have an outstanding field goal kicker. But Kaeding has strug- gled on kickoffs, and that's where Smith will come in.

"I don't think they're bringing me in to try to compete with him for the field goal kicker's job," Smith said yesterday.

In 2002, Smith was 7 for 12 on field goals when Hughes won the starting job. He would have preferred a larger role at U.Va., Smith said, but he and Hughes are close friends, and "I appreciated the fact that I was able to specialize. Looking back on it, that might have been the best thing for us."

- Jeff White
 

Guyer's walk-off homer saves UVa
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 3, 2006

It was "Turn Back the Clock Night" at Davenport Field on Tuesday, but it wasn't until the 11th hour that the Virginia baseball team managed to put the finishing touches on the festivities.
With a three-run, walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth that would have made Hall of Famer and former UVa star Eppa Rixey proud, Brandon Guyer sealed a 6-3 win over Mount St. Mary's and calmed the hearts of the Wahoo faithful.

It was the second homer in as many games for Guyer, who was mobbed by his teammates as he tried to jump onto the plate to polish off Virginia's 39th win.

"I know when I jumped that I didn't land on the plate. It was a good feeling," Guyer said. "I think it was a fastball, but I really don't know. I was sitting on a pitch down the middle and he gave it to me right there. I wasn't trying to do anything special with it.

"I was just trying to get the ball in play and I guess when you do that, good things happen."

Virginia needed the heroics after falling behind 3-1 on a two-run, one-out homer over the right field wall by Mount St. Mary's first baseman Josh Vittek. The blast came off UVa reliever Michael Schwimer.

"It was supposed to be a backdoor slider," Schwimer said. "Actually, believe it or not, it was a pretty good pitch. He just got the barrel out front and rolled it over the ball. It was a great piece of hitting."

Virginia got one run back in the bottom of the eighth - making it 3-2 - on a two-out flare single to right by catcher Beau Seabury. That hit drove in Guyer, who had doubled to open the inning.

"It was a huge hit by Beau," said UVa coach Brian O'Connor, whose team improved to 39-10 and has won 14 of its last 15 games. "When you are within one run you have a chance to so many different things. Down two, it is totally different. You can't bunt. You are relying on a bunch of hits or a double.

"That run in the eighth to close it within one was key."

Mount St. Mary's (19-21) had a chance to blow the game open in the ninth, but Casey Lambert got designated hitter Matt Eiden to fly out to center with the bases loaded and two outs.

The ninth-inning rally started with a simple base hit - Tim Henry drilled a 1-1 pitch to right field.

"To get on base with no outs is always a plus. You can sacrifice and you still have to tries to get a hit," said Henry, who was hitless in his four other at-bats. "Fortunately, I was able to get the bat on the ball and get a hit."

Brandon Marsh followed with a bunt down the first-base line. As Mount St. Mary's pitcher Bucky Kosyk fielded the ball, he tried to get Henry at second, but slipped, delaying his unsuccessful throw.

One batter later, Sean Doolittle reached on a bunt single that loaded the bases for UVa.

"Sean did a great job of putting down a perfect bunt to put pressure on them," O'Connor said. "In that case you play for two runs and take yourself out of a double play. You are at home and you have to play for the run.

"A base hit wins the ballgame."

Virginia did not get a base hit. But they got the next best thing as second baseman David Adams drove in Henry from third with a sacrifice fly that was two steps into foul territory in left field. Henry scored without a throw to the plate.

Then Guyer made history. It was the first time in his career, from the days of Little League to the college ranks, that Guyer had hit a walk-off homer.

"He had struggled earlier in the game and he was frustrated, but it's not how you start, it is how you end and I tell our players that all the time," O'Connor said. "Guyer came up with two clutch hits for us and helped us win the ballgame."

Lambert (3-2) got only one out, but registered the win in relief. Shooter Hunt, who made his second career start, pitched six innings, allowing four hits and a lone first-inning run.

The rally helped take Schwimer, who worked 2.2 innings, off the hook for the loss.

"I'm very happy that they picked me up," Schwimer said. "We have a great team and I knew that after I gave up the home run that there was still two innings for us to scratch across some runs."

O'Connor said the way the Cavaliers won "leaves the team with a great feeling," during a 10-day layoff for exams that starts today. Virginia opens a pivotal three-game series with North Carolina on May 12.

"It was great to see our team come from behind. In so many games we have been leading and just holding onto leads to win games," O'Connor said. "To come from behind for a win like that, no matter who you are playing, it's good."

 

Step 1: Make Virginia top seed
7 seeds, 10 at-large berths are up for grabs; could state go 7-for-7?
By Gary Lambrecht
Sun reporter
Originally published May 3, 2006

You don't have to be clairvoyant to know that the University of Virginia will be the No. 1 seed in the coming NCAA men's lacrosse tournament.
The top-ranked Cavaliers (13-0) are the only undefeated team in Division I, and their RPI ranking is tops as well. With the exception of 14-1 Hofstra, favored to win this week's Colonial Athletic Association tournament and grab one of the tournament's six automatic qualifiers, every other possible team in the field has lost at least twice, and numerous likely participants have four losses.

By the time the NCAA men's lacrosse committee unveils the 16-team bracket Sunday night, its members will have crunched all of the numbers and combinations necessary to seed the top eight teams and produce 10 at-large bids. Those factors include, in order of priority, each team's record against top five, top 10, top 15 and top 20 opponents based on the opponents' Rating Percentage Index (a strength-of-schedule measure), strength of schedule based on opponents' RPI and each team's RPI based on its entire Division I schedule.

Navy (Patriot League), Cornell (Ivy League) and Denver (Great Western) are automatic qualifiers after winning their respective conferences. The CAA, the America East and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference also will fill automatic qualifier slots this weekend.

Among the scenarios that bear watching is the possible inclusion of all seven teams from the state of Maryland. The most that have ever made the tournament is five, which happened in 1989 and 1994.

Right now, Maryland, Johns Hopkins and Navy are in.

Towson, the reigning CAA champ, plays visiting Delaware in tonight's conference tournament semifinal. The Tigers (8-5) most likely need to win tonight to have a chance at an at-large invitation. Assuming Hofstra advances as the tournament's top seed to Saturday's title game, Towson, which lost in overtime at Hofstra last month, would not be intimidated going to Long Island to get the automatic berth.

UMBC (8-4) went undefeated in the America East in the regular season, will host the league tournament this weekend and is playing its best lacrosse at an ideal time. A loss to Binghamton in Friday's semifinal could be damaging. Reaching Sunday's title game might be enough to get the Retrievers in via the at-large route. UMBC has not been to the tournament since 1999.

Loyola (6-5) could get an at-large bid and make the tournament for the first time in five seasons, but the Greyhounds most likely need to upset Johns Hopkins on Saturday. Loyola has beaten Georgetown, but its recent loss to Fairfield hurt.

Mount St. Mary's needs to win this weekend's MAAC tournament -- the Mount is seeded second -- to get an automatic spot and earn the right to get routed by Virginia in the first round.

The absence of Duke from this year's tournament creates another at-large spot that a "bubble" team could claim, a team such as UMBC, Towson or 9-4 UMass, which has struggled late in the season but is the only team to beat Hofstra.

Keep an eye on the teams that end up in the "Virginia group." They'll be glad to be included among the 16 teams, but they'll be less than thrilled at the prospect of facing the Cavaliers shortly down the road.

The team that draws the No. 8 seed -- it could be Navy -- will have to win a game over a formidable first-round opponent before presumably taking on the best team in the country. And whoever lands the fourth and fifth seeds knows that the Cavs probably will be waiting for one of them May 27. That's the day the national semifinals take place at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

 

Daly Says He's Got Gambling Addiction
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer

John Daly says he has lost between $50 million and $60 million during 12 years of heavy gambling, and that it has become a problem that could "flat-out ruin me" if he doesn't bring it under control.

Daly discussed his addiction to gambling in the final chapter of his autobiography, "John Daly: My Life In and Out of the Rough," to be released next Monday.

He told one story of earning $750,000 when he lost in a playoff to Tiger Woods last fall in San Francisco at a World Golf Championship. Instead of going home, he drove to Las Vegas and says he lost $1.65 million in five hours playing mostly $5,000 slot machines.

"If I don't get control of my gambling, it's going to flat-out ruin me," he says in the book, co-written with Glen Waggoner and published by HarperCollins.

The book got the attention of PGA Tour headquarters, and commissioner Tim Finchem met with Daly on Monday at the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte, N.C.

Finchem said the book does not violate PGA Tour regulations, although "it is clear that he continues to be concerned about and grapple with significant personal challenges."

"I have expressed to John the tour's concern for his well-being, as well as his ongoing need to uphold the image and standards of the PGA Tour," Finchem said. "While we will continue to enforce the regulations and policies of the PGA Tour, I have advised John of the tour's willingness to support him in his efforts to deal with his personal issues."

The two-time major champion wrote that he has spent the last 10 years paying off gambling debts with his sponsorship income, hustling appearance money and "running myself ragged doing corporate outings instead of spending time with my family and working on my game."

He recalled former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson telling him at a Tucson, Ariz., rehab center in 1993 that Daly would find something he loves as much as drinking, and that he would have to be careful.

"The people around me ... were hoping, of course, that the 'something' would be practicing golf. No such luck," Daly wrote. "What I found was gambling."

He said he owed $4 million to casinos in two years of gambling until he won the 1995 British Open at St. Andrews, his second major. That victory and the ability to get handsome appearance fees, enabled him to pay off the debt.

But the gambling continued.

Daly three-putted from 15 feet on the second playoff hole against Woods at Harding Park. He headed to Las Vegas and lost $600,000 within 30 minutes. He said he took out another $600,000 line of credit and lost that in two hours.

"And here's how my sick mind analyzed the situation," Daly wrote. "My sponsorship payments would be coming through in January, so I'd be able to pay everything off and get back to even by the beginning of the new year. Everything's fine. Everything's OK. No problema. Hell, yes, there's a problema."

Daly says he has taken more control of his life in the last six years.

"I'm off those ... medications. I don't drink JD (Jack Daniels) anymore. I don't beat up on hotel rooms and cars as much. Only gambling remains a problem," he wrote.

He said he plans to start at the $25 slots in the casinos and set a "walkout loss number," which would tell him it's time to leave.

"If I make a little bit, then maybe I move up to the $100 slots or the $500 slots, or maybe I take it to the blackjack table," he wrote. "It's their money. Why not give it a shot, try to double it? And if I make a lot, I can ...

"Well, that's my plan."

Daly has been one of the most popular figures on the PGA Tour since he won the 1991 PGA Championship as the ninth alternate. He has five PGA Tour victories and career earnings of $8.7 million.

 

Report: Duke missed chances
Lacrosse team piled up incidents
Pressler acted when he knew, Duke report asserts.
Jane Stancill, Lorenzo Perez and Jim Nesbitt, Staff Writers

DURHAM - Duke administrators missed repeated opportunities to rein in a lacrosse team that racked up an alarming record of misconduct in recent years, according to Monday's faculty report on the lacrosse program.
By the 2003-04 academic year, the report said, 22 players were involved in 16 such incidents, most of them related to alcohol.

The record of drunken antics so worried Stephen Bryan, Duke's associate dean of judicial affairs, that in 2004 he put together a report detailing the violations. The report, which cited incidents of underage drinking, noise violations, fake IDs and public urination, was sent up the chain of command at Duke.

But top administrators in athletics and student affairs did little to respond to the signs that the team was headed for disaster, the faculty report says.

Although it details administrative failures, the report is more forgiving of former Coach Mike Pressler, who resigned last month when the Duke lacrosse rape scandal exploded. The professors who conducted interviews and examined internal records found that Pressler took action to punish his players -- when he was informed about their misconduct. Sometimes he made them run laps; in 2005, when the team made it to the national championship game, he suspended two players from post-season play.

But most of the time, Pressler was unaware of his players' troubles with the law or with the internal disciplinary system at Duke. Except Bryan and Pressler, the faculty report said, "no other administrator appears to have treated the lacrosse team's disciplinary record as a matter of serious concern."

The 2004 report was circulated among student affairs administrators and sent to Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, who met with Athletics Director Joe Alleva that fall. But Trask did not think it was necessary for him to intervene beyond a discussion with Alleva. He did not give Alleva a copy of the document, and Alleva didn't ask for one. It was not shared with Pressler until June 2005, the report said.

"To us that was an alarming record that apparently failed to get noticed by administrators, and then when they noticed it, they failed to do anything about it," said Kerry Haynie, a political science professor who was a member of the lacrosse study committee.

"They saw red flags, and they saw indications of trouble, and they didn't follow up," Haynie said.

Trask and Alleva did not respond to requests for interviews Tuesday.

Larry Moneta, vice president of student affairs, acknowledged that the communication should have been better but added that it is always easy to reflect on missed opportunities in hindsight.

"It appears more could have been done, and I won't dispute that," he said.

Pressler has declined to comment, but the faculty report says he denied Alleva's assertions that he warned the coach the team was "under a microscope."

Although Pressler acknowledged that Alleva had told him about the meeting with Trask, the report said, "Pressler denies that Alleva or anyone else told him his team was out of control."

Once Pressler learned of the disciplinary record, he asked Bryan to notify him of future infractions. But Pressler apparently was made aware of misconduct only sporadically; the last communication was in November 2005.

The report was welcomed by Pressler's defenders.

"The perception that he let his players run amok was ironic, because he's tough," said Kerstin Kimel, the Duke women's lacrosse coach. "His reputation among the other [Duke] coaches is he's a disciplinarian with his players, maybe to a fault sometimes."

Dr. Marie Savard, an internal medicine specialist in Wynnewood, Pa., and mother of three former Duke lacrosse players, said Pressler should be reinstated. "There's no reason that he should not have the opportunity to continue coaching the program he established."

She said one of her sons had an emotional meeting with Pressler when her son was in town two weeks ago for a Duke reunion.

Speaking of her sons and Pressler, she said, "He was someone they -- I don't want to say 'feared,' because it was not like that -- but they respected him as a real parental figure."

The team's rowdy behavior at football tailgate parties did draw the attention of administrators. Trask told the faculty committee that last year he put pressure on Alleva to enlist lacrosse and baseball coaches to help moderate the tailgate scene because the two teams had been the ringleaders of the parties outside the stadium.

The baseball coach banned his players from the event. Pressler took a different approach, allowing his players to attend but enforcing stricter rules. He ordered his players to leave tailgate parties early to curtail drinking and to meet him at the flagpole outside the stadium -- then attend the game as a team. The conduct of the lacrosse players improved but failed to influence other students' tailgate behavior.

Haynie said it was obvious that administrators with jurisdiction over coaches did not carry out their responsibility. Whether Alleva or Trask should be held responsible, Haynie said, will be up to Duke President Richard Brodhead.

As for Pressler, Haynie said, "I don't know whether he was sacrificed or not, but the record is clear and abundantly clear that when he knew [about players' misconduct], he took action."

The committee recommended that the lacrosse program continue with more oversight. The panel also urged a code of conduct for all athletes, better enforcement of alcohol policies and improved communication between student affairs and athletics.

Duke Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek said the faculty group's analysis was comprehensive and appropriate.

"At the time you're communicating with folks, the tendency is to think the communication is being understood and being effective," she said. "Clearly from this report, we learned our means and methods weren't working as we had hoped."

John Danowski, head coach of men's lacrosse at Hofstra University and father of Duke player Matt Danowski, said a coach can't be expected to act alone: "This isn't just a coach's responsibility. It's faculty. It's administrators. ... We're all in the business of educating young people, and you can't do that by yourself. You need a network of people."