No letdown in sight
Ever-improving Cavs roll past Georgetown and into Final Four
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
May 22, 2006

TOWSON, Md. - Just when you think that the University of Virginia men’s lacrosse team can’t dominate its opponents much more than it has already this season, just when you think that the squad is finally going to come back to earth a little -finally get tested, maybe even be involved in a close game - it raises its play to an even higher level.

It’s been happening all season, and it happened again Sunday afternoon at Towson University’s Johnny Unitas Stadium.

The top-seeded Cavaliers exploded on Georgetown, outscoring the eighth-seeded Hoyas, 9-2, in the third quarter en route to an easy 20-8 win in front of 7,317 spectators.

UVa’s remarkable season continued, as it advanced to the Final Four. The Cavaliers (15-0) will play Syracuse at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Saturday. The Orange advanced with a victory over Johns Hopkins.

“It was a terrific win for us today,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia. “In our sport, it’s a real honor to be playing in the Final Four and to reach that level. It’s certainly a very concrete and specific goal in college lacrosse.

“To be on that stage, in that setting, is certainly something we’ve thought about for a long time. We’re very pleased to be going back.”

Ten players scored for Virginia. Ben Rubeor led the way with five goals, a career high. The sophomore southpaw also added two assists.

Matt Poskay tied a career-high with four goals, while Matt Ward had three goals and a career-high five assists.

Virginia’s unselfish play was on display throughout.

“Nobody really cares who scores the goals as long as we get the win,” Ward said. “That’s been an attribute of this team all year.

“In the first half we struggled a little on both sides of the ball, but in the second half we played well. I think if we can play up to that intensity for the rest of the year, I think everyone will be happy.”

Just like in the first-round win over Notre Dame, quick passes around Georgetown’s defensive perimeter led to quality scoring chances. The Hoyas (12-3) had no idea which Virginia weapon they should try to stop.

“It’s pretty obvious that Virginia is a heckuva lacrosse team,” said Georgetown coach Dave Urick. “I wouldn’t want to play them again this season, that’s for sure.”

Georgetown trailed Virginia just 8-5 at the half and had a man-up opportunity to start the third quarter.

But UVa defenseman Matt Kelly broke up a Georgetown offensive set. That led to a pretty pass in transition from Kyle Dixon to Poskay that gave Virginia a 9-5 lead.

Georgetown’s Garret Wilson made it 9-6 on a wrap-around goal 1:41 later, but UVa scored the next eight goals to put the Hoyas away for good.

Rubeor, who had just one goal in the first half, went berserk after the break. The 5-foot-11 attackman was a part of five straight Virginia goals.

First, he made a perfect pass to a cutting Poskay in front of the net that gave Virginia a 13-7 lead. Then he scored two goals within a 1:46 span to put UVa up 15-7. He assisted on a Ward goal 56 seconds later before netting his fourth goal that capped Virginia’s nine-goal quarter (its second highest tally of the season).

“To me that was a typical Ben Rubeor performance,” Starsia said. “I expect that kind of performance out of Ben. I don’t mean to shrug it off, but I’d like to think that a lot of stuff in our offense happens because it happens. I didn’t think he was ever pressing things. He just let stuff come to him.”

Rubeor echoed his coach’s sentiments.

“In our offense, things just come,” he said. “If you’re in the right spot at the right time and the ball moves to you, you get your scoring opportunities. I wasn’t doing anything differently.”

Georgetown won the ground ball battle (43-33) and held its own on faceoffs (Virginia won 15-14), but the Hoyas couldn’t muster a consistent offensive attack as the Cavaliers’ defense kept penetration to a minimum.

On the rare occasions that Georgetown got decent chances, Virginia goalie Kip Turner turned the Hoyas away. Turner had 12 saves before giving way to backup Bud Pettit in the fourth quarter.

“Since the beginning of the year, he’s been very steady,” Starsia said of Turner. “I’m glad that we can really depend on Kip right now.”

Starsia got a hearty chuckle out of some media members when he said he didn’t think his team “played that well.” Somewhere, Urick had to be shaking his head.

“I think we can play better than we did today,” Starsia said. “We want to keep moving in that direction. I just don’t think that [the players] are all filled up with themselves. They just want to keep going and getting better.”

The grin on Ward’s face told you how happy he is to be headed to the City of Brotherly Love.

“Playing in front of 45,000 people in an NFL stadium is something you’re going to remember for the rest of your life,” he said. “I’m just glad we came out and played well today and got our team back to that stage.”

Virginia should have some confidence heading into its semifinal showdown with Syracuse. The Cavaliers defeated the Orange, 20-15, during a regular-season meeting at Klockner Stadium on March 4.

“Get there early, buy your tickets,” Starsia said. “That’s always a fun game. These two teams are very familiar with each other. The first was a typical Syracuse-Virginia game, but both teams have probably changed since that time.”

 

Cavs earn a shot at Noles
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 22, 2006

Long before the season started, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said he had one regret about the schedule his team would play.
There was one noticeable team missing from the Cavaliers’ regular season schedule - Florida State.
O’Connor will get his wish.
Florida State (39-17) lost to North Carolina State on Saturday night, leaving the Seminoles in a three-way tie with the Wolfpack and Wake Forest at 16-13 in the ACC. Thanks to the tiebreaker set up by the ACC, Florida State was awarded the sixth seed and a first-round date with third-seeded Virginia (10 a.m. Wednesday) at the 33rd Annual ACC Baseball Championship at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, Fla.
“It is kind of unique. You play 30 games in the league and the two teams that are matched up are the two teams that didn’t play each other,” said O’Connor, whose team enters the postseason 45-11. “You like playing Florida State. Every year they are one of the top teams in the country and you like to play the best. I’m looking forward to playing them.”
Virginia right fielder Brandon Marsh, who will be playing in his first ACC Tournament, said the players are also looking forward to playing the Seminoles but know very little about the opposition.
“I just know their tradition, but I’m not one that keeps up with stats and stuff. I don’t know anything about any team,” Marsh said. “I just try to go up there and hit and go out in the outfield and catch balls. I try to look at that stuff to a minimum.”
Don’t misunderstand O’Connor’s desire to open the double-elimination event against the Seminoles. He knows just how good the Seminoles are despite a late-season slump - FSU lost 15 of its last 28 games and might have a streak of hosting 10 straight NCAA Regionals snapped.
“Florida State has one of the storied programs in college baseball and they have good players,” O’Connor said. “They have good pitching and good quality position players, and we will have to come to play our best game.”
UVa and Florida State are positioned in bracket A with North Carolina and North Carolina State, who will meet on Wednesday at 1 p.m. The opening-round winners will play on Thursday at 4 p.m., while the losers will play an elimination game at 10 that morning.
“They are four very, very good teams in our bracket,” O’Connor said. “North Carolina has great pitching and N.C. State swept us earlier this season. It is a great bracket. There is no doubt about it.”
Clemson secured the top seed with a 24-6 record in league play. The Tigers will face Wake Forest in the opening round (7 p.m. Wednesday). Bracket B also includes
fourth-seeded Georgia Tech and fifth-seeded Miami, who meet at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
The two bracket winners will play for the title on Sunday at 1 p.m.
“It is going to be a challenge for whoever wins this tournament,” said O’Connor, who noted that all eight teams have been ranked this season. “The ball is going to have to bounce the team’s way that wins this tournament. They are going to have to get a few breaks throughout the tournament in order to win it.”

INJURY UPDATE: O’Connor said Sean Doolittle (foot) remains listed as day-to-day for the opening game of the ACC Tournament. Doolittle fouled a ball off his foot in the eighth inning against Virginia Tech on Saturday and left the game after he walked in the plate appearance.
If he is cleared to play, Doolittle (10-1) will start against FSU in the opening game. Doolittle pitched three innings against the Seminoles last year, striking out eight batters en route to a save in UVa’s only win in a three-game series in Tallahassee, Fla.

 

Virginia Men's Tennis Suffers Loss to No. 1 Georgia in NCAA Quarterfinals
Cavaliers close out season with 24-9 record
May 22, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - The No. 8 seeded Virginia men's tennis team had its 2006 season come to a close Sunday night with a 4-0 loss to No. 1 Georgia in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. The match, initially scheduled to be played at the Taube Tennis Center on the campus of Stanford University was moved 35 miles north to the indoor courts at the San Francisco Tennis Club due to rain.

Georgia (28-0) opened the match by taking the doubles point. The team of Colin Purcell and Ricardo Gonzalez defeated Doug Stewart (Malibu, Calif.) and Darrin Cohen (Lafayette, Calif.) 8-4 at No. 3 doubles. The Bulldogs clinched the opening point as Luis Flores and Matic Omerzel topped Somdev Devvarman (Chennai, India) and Treat Huey (Alexandria, Va.) 8-5 at the No. 2 position. In the suspended match at No. 1 doubles, Rylan Rizza (Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.) and Nick Meythaler (Owensboro, Ky.) led 6-5 over John Isner and Antonio Ruiz, the 2005 NCAA Doubles Champions.

Singles play began with the matches at No. 1-4 due to the court availability at the San Francisco Tennis Club. The Bulldogs extended their lead to 2-0 as Omerzel defeated Huey 6-1, 6-4 at No. 4 singles. That lead became 3-0 as Flores rallied from dropping the first set to win in three sets against Rizza at No. 2 singles. The decisive point for Georgia came at No. 1 singles, where Devvarman and Isner both held serve in every game of the match, but Isner won both the first and second set tiebreakers for the victory. In the abandoned matches, Stewart led Ruiz 4-2 in the third set, while the matches at No. 5 and No. 6 were still in the first set due to starting late once courts were available.

"I was pleased with our effort tonight," said Virginia head coach Brian Boland. "We got caught in a bad situation tonight, as it is always tough to play the national indoor champion inside. Congratulations to Georgia on playing a great match. They have proven all season long that they are a tough team to beat, and they were the better team tonight. I think it is a shame for college tennis when the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament get moved inside, since this championship is designed to be played outdoors. Unfortunately mother nature didn't cooperate today, and we didn't rise to level we needed to win."

The loss closes out the Cavaliers' record at 24-9 this season. Four Cavaliers will remain in California for the NCAA Individual Championships later this week. Rizza and Meythaler will compete in the NCAA Doubles Championship. Devvarman and Rizza will compete in the NCAA Singles Championship, while Huey could also make the singles field after being named an alternate.

 

Virginia romps into semifinals
Top-seeded Cavaliers crush Hoyas to take berth against Orange
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER May 22, 2006

TOWSON, Md. -- He knew the University of Virginia men's lacrosse team was very good. But Georgetown coach Dave Urick didn't know the Cavaliers were that good, that dominant, that overpowering.

He knows now.

"I wouldn't want to play them again real soon, that's for sure," Urick said yesterday afternoon at Towson University's Johnny Unitas Stadium.

A crowd of 7,317 witnessed one of the more impressive performances in NCAA tournament history. Top-seeded U.Va. broke open a close game in the third quarter, outscoring the Hoyas 9-2 in that 15-minute period.

By the time the final horn mercifully sounded for No. 8 seed Georgetown, the score in this NCAA quarterfinal was 20-8, and the Wahoos were headed back to the Final Four in Philadelphia.

"They made a believer out of me," Urick said.

Virginia (15-0) will meet No. 5 seed Syracuse (10-4) on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field. The teams met March 4 in Charlottesville, and the Cavaliers rolled 20-15. But the Orange knocked off defending NCAA champion Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals Saturday and has won nine straight.

"Get there early," U.Va. coach Dom Starsia said. "Buy your tickets. That's always a fun game. It's hard to imagine it being played 7-5."

It was 8-5, Virginia, at halftime yesterday, and the Hoyas had possession to start the third quarter.

"That wasn't necessarily a bad place to be," Urick said.

His mood soon darkened. The spree started at the 11:16 mark, when junior midfielder Drew Thompson scored off a pass from senior attackman Matt Ward to give U.Va. a 10-6 lead. Two more Virginia goals quickly followed. The Hoyas (12-3) temporarily stopped the assault, scoring to pull to 12-7, but U.Va. answered by reeling off five straight goals to take an insurmountable lead into the fourth quarter.

Virginia attackman Ben Rubeor, a sophomore playing in his hometown, had one point at halftime. He finished with a career-high seven points, scoring five goals -- also a career high -- and tallying two assists.

"I think in our offense things just come," Rubeor said, "and if you're in the right spot at the right time and the ball happens to move to you, you get your scoring possibilities."

For the second straight game, Ward played with a broken bone in his right hand. Again it didn't seem to bother him. Ward had four goals and one assist in Virginia's first-round win over Notre Dame. He had three goals and a career-high five assists against Georgetown.

"My hand felt a lot better today," Ward said.

Ten players had at least one goal each for the Cavaliers, including senior midfielder Matt Poskay, who tied his career high with four. Thirteen of Virginia's goals were assisted. The Cavaliers' faceoff specialists Thompson, Charlie Glazer and Adam Fassnacht -- won that battle 15-14, and junior Kip Turner played brilliantly in the goal.

And yet, Starsia said, "I don't think we played that well today, to be honest."

 

No. 1 Virginia routs Georgetown defense
High-scoring 2nd half lifts Cavs into semifinal against Syracuse
By Paul McMullen
Sun Reporter
Originally published May 22, 2006
College lacrosse

Virginia had concluded a casual second quarter that gave Georgetown hope of accomplishing what no college lacrosse team had done this season, but there were no grand adjustments from the unbeaten Cavaliers at halftime of their NCAA tournament quarterfinal, just some pointed advice from midfielder Kyle Dixon (Archbishop Spalding).

"We hit the post a bunch in the second quarter," Cavaliers coach Dom Starsia said. "In the locker room, Kyle said, 'Make sure we shoot inside the pipes.' "

That the Cavaliers did, as they scored nine times in the third period to turn a tenuous three-goal lead into a 20-8 romp over the Hoyas before 7,317 at Johnny Unitas Stadium. Ben Rubeor, a sophomore out of Loyola High, had five goals and two assists. Matt Poskay added four goals, and Matt Ward had three goals and five assists.

Starsia said: "It's not reasonable, to expect to be able to score like that," but these Cavaliers are not an ordinary team.

Virginia (15-0) will meet Syracuse in Saturday's semifinals at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. It will be the fourth final four in five years for the Cavaliers, who are seeking their third NCAA title since 1999 and the first perfect season in school history.

The nation's top-scoring team hit 20 goals for the fifth time this season, but the fact that goals customarily come at a premium in the postseason and the opponent's reputation added to the significance of its latest explosion.

Other than a 24-16 loss to Syracuse in 2000, Georgetown had never allowed as many as 20 goals since Dave Urick became its coach in 1990. The Hoyas are always sound at the defensive end, but Urick had no stops for Virginia's abundant offensive options.

Only one previous opponent had scored more than 10 goals on the Hoyas, who limited Navy to seven in the first round of the tournament and came in allowing 7.5 per game. Virginia topped that figure in the third period alone, when the Cavaliers turned an 8-5 lead into a 17-7 bulge.

Virginia won seven of 10 faceoffs in the period, and connected on nine of 18 shots.

"I love watching our offense score goals," said Kip Turner, the junior goalie out of Severn who was rarely tested after the break. "I have a great view of all that passing."

The Cavaliers feasted with splendid ball movement and slick solo moves, as Rubeor scored three times and Poskay twice in the third period.

"I didn't do anything different," said Rubeor, who had career highs for goals and points. "In our offense, things just come. If you're in the right place at the right time, the ball comes to you and you get scoring opprtunities."

Virginia prospered even when it was a man down, as Rubeor scored his fourth turnaround goal of the season. No other team in the nation has more than three man-down goals. His latest, with 3:22 remaining before the break, was one of two first-half reversals that underscored why this has been the year of the Cavalier.

In the last minute of the opening period, the Hoyas' Sean Denihan stole a clearing pass and had a one-on-one opportunity, but Turner cut down the angle and the shot hit the right pole. The Cavaliers got possession and Poskay scored in transition for a 5-1 lead.

After Virginia raced to a 4-0 lead in the 12th minute, Georgetown (12-3) never got closer than three goals. The Hoyas held their own in the second quarter, but then faceoff man Christiaan Trunz ran out of steam and goalie Miles Kass, whose brother Hunter played for Virginia the previous four years, came under siege.

"We did some things I've never seen us do," Urick said. "I saw players make mistakes they had never made, and Virginia had something to do with that. ... They're awfully damned good. They made a believer out of me."

The only previous meeting between the two teams came in 2003, under similar circumstances. After beating Georgetown in the quarterfinals at Towson University's stadium, Virginia went on to win its last NCAA title. In addition to that omen and all their talent, the Cavaliers have very high standards."

"I don't think we played that well," Starsia countered. "We can play better than we did today."

 

Seeking a rebound
BY MICHAEL MARTZ
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER May 21, 2006

In 2003, Ralph Sampson settled two sets of federal child-support charges and paid two mothers a total of $51,000 in back child support. (2003, LINDY KEAST RODMAN/TIMES-DISPATCH)
Ralph L. Sampson Jr. was sitting in his home in the Atlanta suburbs a year ago when he heard a knock at on the door. It was his past, again.

Federal agents had come to arrest the former basketball star at the University of Virginia and in the NBA for failing to pay full financial support for two children he had fathered in Virginia almost 20 years ago. One was an 18-year-old woman in Alexandria whom he thought had been adopted by another man. Sampson said he had signed away his parental rights and given the mother what he called 'a huge sum of money.'

Suddenly, years later, the young woman's mother, Lisa Carol Payne, was asking for almost a quarter-million dollars in back support for an obligation that Sampson thought he had honored and ended. "I thought I was pretty much done with it," he said.

He was mistaken.

Sampson, at 45, is looking to rise again after yet another knockdown. The millions of dollars he earned in the NBA are as spent as his once-agile knees. His obligations to eight children, including four by his former wife and one by his current fiancée, remain. The three other children, by three other women, are at the heart of the federal charges filed against him, first in 2003 and again last year, for failing to pay support.


He pleaded guilty in October to one count of failure to pay child support under a plea agreement with the government, but he's still awaiting sentencing.

Most worrisome is the possibility that he could go to prison on perjury and related charges that stem from his arraignment after being arrested in Atlanta last year. The perjury charge alone could carry a prison sentence of up to five years.

The government alleges that Sampson lied about his income in order to receive representation by a court-appointed attorney. It also alleges that he did not disclose that he owned, through a corporation, a $43,000 sport utility vehicle and was living rent-free in a $200,000 home in return for promotional appearances on behalf of another company. He pleaded not guilty on all charges. The trial is scheduled for July 17 in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

. . .

Sampson has regrets, but he's not depressed or forlorn. He still believes in himself -- as a dutiful father, a mentor to young athletes, a businessman with his best years ahead of him. He's still 7-foot-4 and a legend of the game, recently nominated for the Basketball Hall of Fame, 20 years after he helped lead the Houston Rockets into the NBA Finals at the peak of a career that was all too short.

"This year is . . . the comeback year for Ralph Sampson," he said during a 90-minute interview with The Times-Dispatch in April.

Sampson answered his cell phone for the interview and asked if he could call back. "I've got my little one in the tub," he said, the tinkle of a child's voice in the background.

The little one is a 3-year-old daughter by his fiancée, whom Sampson will not name. He's wary of questions about any of his children. He doesn't want them hurt by the personal issues that continue to follow him, in court and in the news. "None of them should have to go through that," he said.

He has four children, ranging in age from 7 to 18, from his 17-year marriage to Aleize Dial. They live with their mother in the Atlanta area, and Sampson said he sees them daily. He does all the things a normal father would do -- picking them up from school and taking them to appointments. "I just don't live in the same household."

His oldest son, Ralph III, is a 6-foot-11 sophomore who helped lead Mount Pisgah Christian School to the basketball championship of the Georgia Independent Schools Association this year. Rachel, the oldest at 18, is a star tennis player at the school and is about to graduate. He and his ex-wife have one other son and daughter.

Three other daughters live in Virginia and the Maryland suburbs of Washington. The oldest was born in 1985, two years after Sampson graduated from U.Va. and entered the NBA. He had met her mother, a Charlottesville resident named Cherie L. Sampson, during his first year in college. Even though their last names are the same, they did not marry.

The daughter in Charlottesville was the subject of the first child-support charge filed against Sampson, three years ago in federal court in Charlottesville. The same year, a charge was filed against him in federal court in Richmond for failing to pay child support to the mother of a girl born in 1988 to Avis B. Banks in Falmouth, near Fredericksburg.

Sampson settled the two sets of charges with federal prosecutors and paid the two mothers a total of $51,000 in back child support that he had failed to pay after the collapse of his finances and his marriage several years earlier.

Last year, the federal government filed charges against him again for additional child support owed to Banks, now amounting to more than $10,000. But the biggest blow was the claim in the same suit for almost $260,000 owed to Payne, then living in Alexandria. He said he had signed away his parental rights and agreed to his daughter's adoption by her stepfather some years ago, but he never went back to family court in the District of Columbia to end his obligation.

Sampson said that the papers he signed never were filed in court. "I was under the impression that it all was taken care of," he said.

He won't discuss the perjury charge that the U.S. attorney's office brought against him in January, just weeks before his scheduled sentencing on the child-support conviction; sentencing in that case has been delayed until the perjury case has been resolved.

He's relying on one of Richmond's best-known lawyers, James C. Roberts, a senior partner at Troutman Sanders, who is representing him for free. Roberts won't discuss the case.

Efforts to talk to the mothers of Sampson's children, including his ex-wife, have not been successful. The Times-Dispatch made numerous attempts to reach all of them. Cherie L. Sampson, through Charlottesville attorney Elva Holland, declined to comment. Banks and Payne did not respond to attempts by the paper to get their perspectives.

Sampson's ex-wife initially agreed to talk to The Times-Dispatch but then backed out. Sampson said she and the other mothers contacted him and were adamant about staying out of the spotlight.

He said he never shirked his responsibilities as a father. "All of my children I speak to on a daily or weekly basis."

As for the child-support claims, "it's always been about dollars and cents," he said. "Ain't never been about anything else."

. . .

A national spotlight has been on Sampson since he was in high school.

In 1979, as a senior at Harrisonburg High School, he was the target of what a Richmond News Leader sports columnist called "the great man-chase of the decade." He was 7-foot-4 and capable of running the fast break. He was a new kind of big man, and some of the biggest college basketball programs in the country wanted him in the worst way.

The courtship of Sampson was an eye-opening experience for members of U.Va.'s basketball team.

Mike Owens, then a junior forward on the team, had been asked to help recruit Sampson for the university. He and senior center Otis Fulton figured they would show him around town and the university grounds.

They didn't expect a helicopter to land in the University Hall parking lot.

"Ralph wanted to see Charlottesville from the air," said Owens, who played with Sampson for one season, 1979-80, when the team won the National Invitational Tournament.

Something big was happening to Virginia basketball.

"It just changed with the pressure that comes with Ralph Sampson," said Owens, now a doctor and director of an emergency medical center near Pittsburgh. "It just changed."

Everyone wanted a piece of Sampson, including legendary Boston Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach. He tried to persuade Sampson to turn pro after his freshman season and waved a $1 million offer in his face. Another media vigil ensued and, once again, Sampson chose Virginia.

For all his celebrity, he was a small-town guy who Owens remembers making his own clothes. He was shy and "extremely quiet," said Jeff Jones, who played with Sampson for three years at Virginia.

"One of the biggest things Ralph wanted to do was not stand out," Jones said.

It just wasn't possible. "When you're in that light, what is normal?" Sampson asked recently.

He never regretted his decision to stay at U.Va. He re-evaluated his choice after each season. "I enjoyed it," he said. "If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't have stayed four years."

His decision was good news for U.Va., which was enjoying a golden era. In 1981, Sampson helped lead the school to its first Final Four appearance. He became a three-time national player of the year.

The Virginia staff had to work hard to find the balance between promoting Sampson and protecting him. He even lived a year in coach Terry Holland's basement apartment. "That was a little bit unusual," said Jones, a former head coach at U.Va. who now leads the men's basketball program at American University.

U.Va. Athletic Director Craig Littlepage was an assistant coach to Holland for three of Sampson's years there. The demand for media access to Sampson and personal appearances by him made it necessary for the university to provide "some level of gatekeeping," he said.

"There are just so many decisions, so many expectations placed on student-athletes," Littlepage said. "It's a lot for an adult to handle."

. . .

The year that Sampson really found out how tough the world could be was 1987, four years after graduating from Virginia.

He had been one of the top players in the pro game, but he injured his knee and underwent the first of three surgeries that eventually would cut his career short.

He found out that his agent, Thomas M. Collins, had lost much of his wealth on "business deals I didn't know I was in," he says. Another client of Collins', former Los Angeles Lakers center Kareem Abdul Jabbar, filed a $58 million lawsuit against Collins, but it was dismissed.

At the end of the year, after a game in Chicago, he was told that he had been traded to the Golden State Warriors, despite the six-year, $12 million contract he had just gotten from Houston.

"When that snowball starts going down that mountain -- it's not a little mountain -- it's hard to stop," he said.

His personal life also had become fodder for the news and gossip pages. He had married Dial, a 5-foot-10 model, in a secret ceremony presided over by soul singer Al Green at the end of 1986. A few months later, she was pregnant with their first child.

That summer, Sampson and Dial planned a formal wedding ceremony in her hometown in Alabama.

He didn't show up.

He called the no-show a misunderstanding, but the couple separated, and his wife hired Los Angeles divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson. They didn't divorce but eventually reunited and went on to raise a family.

At that point, however, Sampson already had fathered two children by two other women in Virginia -- one by Cherie Sampson in 1985, the other by Payne in 1986. The next year, nine months after the birth of his first child with his wife, he became a father again to Banks' daughter in Stafford County.

"I put the onus on myself," he said recently. "I have great remorse for the things I've done."

He didn't seek legal advice in some of the settlements he made with the mothers. He was still playing in the NBA and hopeful of returning to greatness. It wouldn't happen. He finally hung up his high-tops in 1992, after two seasons with the Sacramento Kings and one with the Washington Bullets. He tried playing in Spain, but his knees wouldn't let him do the things he once had done with ease.

He kept his hand in the game by working as an assistant coach to Lefty Driesell at James Madison University in Harrisonburg. He said he "got basketball out of my system" by the mid-1990s, and moved to the Richmond area. He and his wife bought a house in western Henrico County.

Sampson got involved in various business ventures. He made an unsuccessful pitch to build a new home for Richmond's health department. He ran sports camps for young people, a passion he has never abandoned. He came back to basketball with the Richmond Rhythm, first as general manager and then as coach, but the team was part of a league that wouldn't last.

He was running out of money. He received $539,060 in deferred income from the Kings in 1999 and $134,765 the next year, according to a sworn statement by a special agent for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during his first battle over child support in federal court in 2003. In 2001, Sampson reported income of $11,207.

"The money runs out, people run out," he said.

Sampson won't discuss his marriage. His ex-wife and children moved back to Atlanta from Alabama last year. The relationship "seems to be OK most of the time," he said. "I'm not interested in getting into the marriage stuff."

By the late 1990s, however, the marriage clearly had problems. Henrico police received a report from Sampson in August 1999 of a burglary at his home. Two vehicles -- a Mercedes station wagon and a Toyota Land Cruiser -- were among the items reported stolen, along with furniture, computers and televisions, and clothing. Henrico police said they concluded that the items had been taken by Sampson's wife and called the reported thefts "unfounded."

The Sampsons sold their house on Rupert Lane in Henrico in 2000 for a profit of $162,500, but the money went to his wife -- "all of it," he said.

Their divorce became final in 2003, the same year that his legal problems began.

Finding work that would pay enough to cover his obligations has been a challenge. It's not easy for someone with his fame to get a job in the workaday world, he said. "They say, 'You're Ralph Sampson. Why do you need a job?'"

On the other hand, Sampson's connections helped him get a job in marketing for an Atlanta mortgage-banking business. He likes the work and is taking courses in commercial lending to learn the business better.

He knew he needed more than one stream of income, so he put together a plan to sell voice communications over the Internet. He planned to launch the new business on June 1, 2005. A little more than two weeks before the scheduled rollout, on May 13, federal agents knocked on his door and arrested him. The business plan went into mothballs, though he said he's still working on it.

The comeback road isn't easy, but being Ralph Sampson still has advantages -- the rent-free house, for example. His friends are helping him raise funds to settle the child-support obligations at issue in federal court.

"The name Ralph Sampson has carried me a long way," he said. "It will continue to carry me."

 

Play, party, study
Accomplishing all three with voraciousness is part of college lacrosse's culture
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER May 19, 2006

Play hard. Party hard.

That's long been a rallying cry in men's college lacrosse, a sport closely linked with alcohol and socializing. Just ask Dom Starsia, who's in his 14th season as coach at the University of Virginia.

"The party-hard, play-hard mentality has been at times a little bit of a badge of honor," said Starsia, who played football and lacrosse at Brown. "There's a certain recklessness about a lacrosse player that as many people find endearing as find it unattractive."

Former U.Va. coach Gene Corrigan said: "It's definitely a social sport. I don't think that's all bad, either."

Men's lacrosse players are known for pursuing their studies with vigor, too. In December, the NCAA announced that lacrosse graduated the highest percentage of its players of any Division I men's sport. Many of those players end up working on Wall Street, where what former U.Va. All-American Conor Gill calls the "go, go, go attitude" prevalent in lacrosse is prized by companies looking for competitive, energetic, intense employees.

As a result of the criminal charges filed recently against three Duke lacrosse players, however, as well as reports of other alcohol-fueled incidents involving team members, some aspects of the sport's culture are likely to change. Even before the now-infamous off-campus party in Durham, N.C., lacrosse had been recognized as the fastest-growing sport in the United States, and the profiles of players in the top college programs were rising.

"People want to know more about what you're into, and there's just more focus on the sport in general," said Gill, whose brothers, Brendan and Gavin, followed him on the team at U.Va.

Today, ESPN televises much of the NCAA tournament, and crowds of more than 40,000 flock to both the national semifinals and championship game. Sports Illustrated devoted a large chunk of one issue to lacrosse last April, and the number of public high schools across the country offering lacrosse far exceeds the number of private schools.

Corrigan, who played at Duke in the late'40s and early'50s and whose son Kevin coaches at Notre Dame, marvels at the sport's growth.

"When we would play Princeton or Hopkins or Maryland, we knew everybody on those teams, because we knew them from high school," said Corrigan, who grew up in Baltimore. "Now, my God, there are like 3,000 high schools in the country [that play lacrosse]."

No longer are the sport's only hotbeds found in Baltimore, Long Island and Central New York. Top-ranked Virginia starts a freshman from Illinois, for example, and defending NCAA champion Johns Hopkins starts a freshman from California. With expansion has come change.

"It used to be pretty well known and pretty accepted: It was kind of party hard, play hard and work hard and everything," said Gill, who grew up in Baltimore and now stars in Major League Lacrosse for the Boston Cannons.

"I think the more media coverage and the more exposure that the sport's getting, it's harder to keep that kind of image up without it being noticed. It's kind of the tradeoff for the sport getting bigger."

Starsia said: "That kind of behavior is probably not going to be acceptable any longer. That kind of behavior is going to have to change."

Former Virginia star Tucker Radebaugh said: "If I was a player in college now, if I was going to go back out to have an extra beer at a party late, maybe I wouldn't go."

The culture started to change in U.Va.'s program in the fall of 1998, when Starsia concluded that excessive alcohol use was hurting his team. He met with team leaders, including Radebaugh, then a senior, and they agreed on a policy.

Players would limit their drinking to one night a week during the regular season. They wouldn't drink at all during the NCAA tournament.

"People didn't think Virginia lacrosse was willing to make that commitment," Starsia recalled. "They thought that nothing was more important than partying at Virginia."

Not coincidentally, perhaps, U.Va. won the NCAA title in 1999 - Gill's freshman season - and added another championship in 2003.

"Looking back in retrospect, what we gave up wasn't a huge sacrifice," Gill said. "And the product of that - the championship - that lasts a lot longer than any party you would have missed."

Starsia said his players determine among themselves each year what their policy on alcohol consumption will be during the season. The captains inform him, he said, when they want to discipline a team member for violating that policy.

"You've got no chance on a college campus with students of enforcing the policy from outside," Starsia said.

When he was at Duke, Corrigan said, the lacrosse team was like a fraternity. That's the case at many schools, and Radebaugh believes that's one reason why lacrosse players often are characterized as rambunctious. He's something of an authority on the sport and its culture.

Radebaugh's father played at Delaware, one brother at Maryland, another brother at Salisbury, a cousin at Loyola (Md.), an uncle at Maryland and another uncle at Johns Hopkins.

"I think a lot of people point to lacrosse because when you're out, you're out with a group of 20, 30 guys," said Radebaugh, who works for J.P. Morgan in Boston. "It's not necessarily that you're out of control, but you're visible. Instead of being out in a group of five guys, you're in a group of 30 friends."

St. Christopher's coach John Burke, who grew up near Syracuse, N.Y., played lacrosse at Denison University. He believes that lacrosse's culture once was unique, but "I'm not sure it still is," Burke said.

"Because it was a game only played at the national level by a few people. It was much more of a sport that bred camaraderie among all players, kind of like a common bond."

With his players at St. Christopher's, he's addressed the Duke situation "on the level of just relationships between human beings, just how you treat people. A big part is teaching about making appropriate decisions and holding your values and using your character to determine what you do," Burke said.

"This obviously transcends lacrosse to other sports, too. I hope that those people who really understand social relationships realize this was not an event that happened because of lacrosse."

Gill agreed.

"This whole Duke thing has been eye-opening to a lot of people," he said. "It shouldn't just be lacrosse players, but athletes in general. You've got to watch what you're doing. It should be a lesson to everybody."