Virginia moving past Pack
By Jay Jenkins / jjenkins@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
May 15, 2007

Burned by untimely long balls, Virginia dropped its opening series in the ACC some 10 weeks ago at Wake Forest.

Brian O’Connor, the team’s coach, did not allow his players to hit the panic button.

Virginia responded, winning each of its next seven series, all the while climbing steadily in the national polls.

Given that track record, O’Connor was quick to treat Sunday’s loss to North Carolina State, which gave the Wolfpack a 2-1 series win, in the exact same light.

“I am not concerned,” said O’Connor, whose team dropped to 39-12 and No. 6 in the nation. “Our kids have a lot of pride and we have good players.

“Everybody is disappointed, obviously, but in no way am I concerned. It is just a matter of us putting it together at the right time.”

The results, however, proved to O’Connor and a series-record crowd that there is a fine line in ACC, a league that boasts eight teams with an RPI of 27 or better.

“This weekend proved just how great this league is,” said O’Connor, also referencing Clemson’s 2-1 series victory at third-ranked Florida State. “N.C. State has a very good college baseball program. They have been to a lot of regionals … they have good pitching, and for some reason they have had our number.”

In fact, N.C. State has dominated Virginia in baseball since 1992, winning 43 of the last 60 games in the series.

While his program has dominated powers such as Clemson and Georgia Tech, the losing trend against the Wolfpack has painfully continued under O’Connor’s watch - the skipper is 4-11 against N.C. State.

“I can’t explain it,” O’Connor said. “I don’t think there is anything strategically that points to why they have had success against us.”

Virginia junior Sean Doolittle, who had two homers and seven RBI against the Wolfpack, said in no way did he or his teammates take N.C. State lightly.

“We knew we were in a dogfight when they came to town,” Doolittle said, “and we thought we had the series after we won the opener, but we made too many mistakes and came up short.”

Many of those miscues, whether it was on the mound or at the plate, came with two outs.

For the series, UVa left 20 runners on base and hit into four double plays.

On the mound, the ACC’s best pitching staff allowed 21 walks, which earned the team’s pitchers a lengthy postgame discussion with O’Connor.

“I told them what we needed to do to have success,” the coach said. “We have had one of the best pitching staffs in the country to this point.

“We just need to get back to challenging hitters. This weekend, we didn’t challenge them and in certain situations we didn’t step off the mound and regroup and go back to work.”

To prove his point, O’Connor pointed clearly at six walks that were issued on just four pitches.

“That is unacceptable,” said O’Connor, who hopes to avoid his first three-game losing streak in 13 months when the Cavs host No. 17 Coastal Carolina (41-10) tonight at Davenport Field.

After facing the Chanticleers, a team that beat UVa in February, Virginia closes out the regular season at Boston College in a series that starts on Thursday.

“We have four games left in the regular season, four important games,” O’Connor said, “and I just hope we are saving our hot streak for the postseason.”

 

Long follows heart to Florida State
By Jerry Miller / jmiller@dailyprogress.com | 978-7258
May 15, 2007

Few people who walk this Earth can say they have been recruited with the diligence and thoroughness of a Kyle Long.

The head coaches at Florida, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Virginia and Virginia Tech not only respectively offered Long a football scholarship, they also visited him in person at St. Anne’s-Belfield in the last few months.

While appreciated and certainly deserved, the attention was not enough to sway the rising senior from verbally committing to the Florida State baseball program.

“Kyle verbally committed to Florida State while he was on an unofficial visit this weekend,” said St. Anne’s baseball coach Allan Swanson, who indicated Long gave his verbal late Sunday. “He was blown away by the visit. He just had a spectacular time.”

Swanson said Long “followed his heart” when making the decision.

“Everyone who cares about Kyle has advised him to follow his heart,” Swanson said. “I know Kyle loves football in the fall and baseball in the spring, but this is a good fit for him.

“Florida State was the first team to offer. [FSU coach] Mike Martin made a very positive impression on him.”

The developments have shocked many, including at least 40 Division I football coaches who had already offered the 6-foot-7, 280-pound offensive/defensive lineman.

“Anyone I talked to, there was an offer there, literally,” said STAB football coach John Blake, the point man for Long’s recruitment. “Notre Dame, Southern California, UCLA, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, every ACC school - every single one of them - South Carolina, West Virginia, Pitt, Alabama, LSU, you name it.

“Some schools were calling and asking if it was even worth offering.”

Long, the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Howie Long and the younger brother of Virginia football star Chris Long, was seen as a surefire football commitment thanks to tremendous size, athleticism, strength and lineage.

Blake said, however, he is not surprised that Long chose baseball.

“I’ve known Kyle a long time, and he’s always loved baseball,” Blake explained. “He’s going to do well wherever he goes.”

Long, a power-hitting first baseman who also shines as a left-handed pitcher, helped STAB to a state championship in 2006, hitting .486 with six home runs, 37 RBI, 11 stolen bases and an .867 slugging percentage.

The southpaw, who generates significant velocity with his tall frame, also went 6-1 on the mound with a 1.64 ERA and 84 strikeouts in 41 innings pitched last season.

This past year, Long hit .583 with five home runs, 20 RBI, 19 stolen bases and a .962 slugging percentage for a Saints team that struggled to get men in scoring position for most of the year.

Long went 1-2 on the bump with a 1.81 ERA and 67 strikeouts in 32 innings pitched this season.

“It’s a tough thing to do to tell folks like Frank Beamer and Al Groh that you’re going to play baseball, but I’m not surprised,” said Eric McGrane, a six-year assistant under Swanson. “Kyle loves baseball. He took batting practice on off-days from football. He just loves baseball.”

McGrane indicated the Virginia baseball team had shown interest in Long but had not extended an offer. McGrane said that Long was unavailable for comment because he was in the middle of studying for exams and had “about 50 phone calls to make to [football] coaches.”

McGrane expects Long to have an immediate impact at FSU.

“Kyle can contribute right away as a hitter,” McGrane said. “He’s a line-drive hitter with a quick, efficient swing. He also doesn’t strike out that much.

“[As far as pitching], he’s a guy who can come in right away and give FSU some innings.”

While Long is focused on baseball and appears committed to Florida State, neither coach was quick to rule out football.

“I don’t think you can go the other way around and start with football and go to baseball. The skills are just too different,” Blake explained. “In baseball, you have to hit all the time to maintain hand-eye coordination and your skills.”
 

Revenue forecast realized
ACC officials correctly predicted that sharing income in an expanded league would not penalize existing members
Ken Tysiac, The Charlotte Observer

AMELIA ISLAND, FLA. - It's almost astounding how close the numbers are.
When exploring the idea of expanding from nine members to 12 a few years ago, ACC officials predicted additional revenue would allow the existing conference members at least to break even financially despite sharing with three additional schools.

Tax returns on the Web site GuideStar at www.guidestar.org show how right they were.

In 2003-04, the ACC's last academic year as a nine-team conference, schools received an average of $10,885,869 from the ACC.

In 2005-06, its first year as a 12-member conference, the average was $10,853,810. Sources of additional revenue for the ACC included:

* An extra $16.9 million in television rights fees after the ACC renegotiated its football and men's basketball TV packages.

* The football championship game, which gained the ACC $5,749,603.

* More bowl money, to the tune of an extra $3 million.

"We're very pleased," Wake Forest athletics director Ron Wellman said Monday at the ACC's spring meetings.

Many existing members of the conference have experienced revenue increases because new members don't receive a full share until their third year in the conference.

ACC members essentially share revenue equally, though disbursements to individual schools vary slightly because schools receive money to pay expenses to travel to events such as bowls.

North Carolina received $10,988,143 in 2005-06, an increase of more than $800,000 over 2003-04. N.C. State's ACC revenue of $11,936,414 in 2005-06 exceeded its 2003-04 earnings by almost $600,000.

"From our standpoint, it's gone up every year, so that's kind of the model we built," ACC associate commissioner Jeff Elliott said. "But there are other factors that enter into whether the distribution is up or down [in a given year]."

For example, if the ACC Tournament is held at the spacious Georgia Dome in Atlanta, the conference can generate an extra $3 million in revenue. If the ACC gets a second team in a Bowl Championship Series game -- which has never happened but is thought more likely by some after expansion -- it makes an extra $4.5 million.

So it will make more sense to evaluate the financial results of expansion over several years. But the short-term results look good for the ACC, and the biggest winners might be new members Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech.

In 2003-04, the last year Miami and Virginia Tech were in the Big East, that conference divided a total of $66,377,763 among 15 members. That's an average of $4.4 million per member.

Miami received the most at $9,039,435, but Boston College ($6,637,214) and Virginia Tech ($6,050,696) didn't come close to making what they will receive as members of the ACC.

"It's allowed us, even the first two years, to re-invest in our Olympic sports, get our operational budgets up a little, get head coaches' and assistant coaches' salaries up, get some recruiting budgets up," Virginia Tech athletics director Jim Weaver said. "Those things are invaluable."