Singletary: Stay or go?
Star's mom says 'nothing definite' on his decision
Wednesday, Jun 13, 2007 - 12:06 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- With him, the University of Virginia could well be looking at a second straight trip to the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Without him, the NIT might be a stretch for the Cavaliers in 2007-08.

It's difficult to overstate how much U.Va., in the short term at least, has riding on the choice that Sean Singletary must make in the next few days. The deadline is Monday for the all-ACC point guard to decide whether he's withdrawing from the NBA draft or keeping his name in.

"I can assure you that his mind is not made up," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said yesterday.

Singletary, a rising senior, has declined recent interview requests. But his mother told The Times-Dispatch yesterday that Singletary is flying home to Philadelphia today, and "we're going to sit together and talk. Right now there's nothing definite."

Jacqui Singletary said the family wants "what's best for Sean. At this point we have no preference, because either way we feel Sean will be successful. Right now we're leaning more to what Sean wants. You don't want to make a decision for someone."

She declined to say which way her son is leaning, but Jacqui Singletary confirmed that he's had a preference for some time.

"The question," she said, "is what's best for Sean?"

Singletary has workouts scheduled with his hometown 76ers and the Miami Heat before Monday, and his mother said he plans to fulfill those commitments.

Singletary returned to Charlottesville last weekend and has been working out with the other U.Va. players.

"It not an easy process for anybody," said Leitao, who has spoken regularly with Singletary and his parents this spring. "He's going through it, and you try to give him the time and the space to go through it."

Late in his junior season, Singletary said in several interviews that he planned to return to U.Va. in 2007-08. In late February, for example, he told The Times-Dispatch: "I haven't done enough growing as an individual and as a basketball player yet to make that type of jump [to the NBA]."

In April, however, he declared for the draft, with the support of Leitao, who encouraged Singletary to explore all his options. Singletary, who didn't sign with an agent, finished the spring semester at U.Va. and took part in the team's offseason workouts.

At 5-11, Singletary is short for an NBA point guard, and he received so-so reviews for his play at the recent pre-draft camp in Orlando, Fla. He's performed better in subsequent workouts for NBA teams, including Portland and Seattle.

Still, if Singletary remains in the draft, he's not expected to be chosen in the first round. He's not, in fact, even a lock to be selected in the second and final round of a deep draft notable for its abundance of talented big men.

"The tradition is, if you're going to make a mistake on a player," draft analyst Chris Monter said, "you're going to make it with the 6-11 player, not the 6-foot player."

If Singletary returned to U.Va. for his senior year and smoothed out some of the rough spots in his game, he might elevate himself into a first-round draft pick. In conversations with Singletary, Virginia's coaches have cited the example of another undersized point guard from the Philly area, Jameer Nelson. After a superlative senior year at Saint Joseph's, Nelson was taken 20th overall in the 2004 draft.

Monter said Singletary is among the underclassmen who might "be wise to get some feedback [from NBA teams], find out what to work on and look at next year's draft."

The Times-Dispatch's state player of the year each of the past two seasons, Singletary led U.Va. in points, assists and steals in 2006-07. He also became the first Cavalier in more than a decade to be named to the all-ACC first team twice.

Singletary is a graduate of William Penn Charter School, where the boys basketball coach is Jim Phillips. They talk periodically.

"I don't know what he's going to do," Phillips said. "It's a little bit of an enigma . . . People ask me the question every day, and I don't know the answer."

That some are questioning whether Singletary is ready for the NBA, Phillips said, could be spurring him to leave.

"That's just the nature of his competitiveness," Phillips said. "You can't tell him he's not good enough."
 

Cavs gain commitment from Schautz
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
June 12, 2007

Billy Schautz, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound athlete from Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, N.J., committed to Virginia's football program early Tuesday evening.
Schautz, who is expected to play either H-back or linebacker for the Cavaliers, is the fourth early UVa commitment for the Class of 2008.
At Bergen Catholic, he played several positions: quarterback, wide receiver, tight end, running back, safety and linebacker. He passed for more than 500 yards and 10 touchdowns last season as a junior and also had more than 500 yards receiving along with 11 TD catches.
Schaultz, who has 4.6 speed in the 40-yard dash, committed to Virginia as soon as the offer came. He was being recruited heavily by several other schools that had not yet offered a scholarship. Those schools included Notre Dame, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Syracuse and Cincinnati.

Grobe a comedian in training
By Jerry Ratcliffe / jratcliffe@dailyprogress.com | 978-7251
June 13, 2007

They came from all over the place last week, an annual pilgrimage of the McCue Society, to honor their namesake, Dr. Frank McCue.
If you’re asking what does a doctor have to do with sports, then you’re a newcomer to town. Ask any athlete that’s come through the University of Virginia since the 1960s about the people that touched their hearts and undoubtedly two of those folks on everyone’s list will be McCue and Joe Gieck, who were as inseparable as Andy and Barney.
McCue was the UVa team physician for seemingly ever and Gieck was the team’s head trainer. Back in 1988, a society formed from all of those who had benefited from Doc’s knowledge throughout the years.

A meeting of the minds
Friday night, they assembled once again to pay tribute to McCue as the worlds of orthopedic surgery, sports medicine and sports congregated at Scott Stadium with Wake Forest head football coach Jim Grobe serving as keynote speaker.
Grobe, who played at UVa and rose to National Coach of the Year after leading the 2006 Wake Forest squad to an improbable ACC title, was one of several past and present coaches in attendance along with Al Groh, Jeff Jones, Sonny Randle and Gene Corrigan, to name a few.

Zeke from Cabin Creek
We always knew that Grobe was a great person, a great coach and a very good golfer. We didn’t know he had such a sense of humor.
“If you don’t understand some of the things I say tonight, well, I’m from West Virginia,” Grobe said in his cornpone style. “When I went to the University of Virginia, they still required two years of foreign language ... but when they found out I was from West Virginia, they waved that requirement. They said this guy doesn’t speak English anyway.”

Round on the sides ...
Grobe was on Fisher DeBerry’s staff at Air Force when Ohio University began its search for a new head coach.
The Bobcats had won only 17 games in 10 years and were coming off an 0-11 season.
Randle, who coached Grobe at UVa, called the Ohio athletic director and told him he knew where the next Gary Barnett could be found. Barnett had dazzled the country with his success at Northwestern and that’s exactly what Ohio was looking for.
Grobe got the job and said that his first meeting with the Bobcats’ booster group was a rough one.
“I said that if anybody in this room has any idea how we can avoid going 0-11 again to please let me know,” Grobe said.
“A lady raised her hand and said, ‘Coach, have you thought about playing only 10 games?’”
Insert your own comedic rim shot, here.
After his miracle-working at Ohio, Grobe took on a similar challenge at Wake Forest, a school that has struggled for football success and recognition, even after winning the ACC championship and playing in the Orange Bowl last season.
Grobe found that out quickly after leading the Deacons to an upset over Oregon in the Seattle Bowl in only his second year in Winston-Salem. He told a story about spending all day in Atlanta, recruiting with linebackers coach Brad Lambert.
After an exhausting day, they dropped by a Chili’s restaurant to grab some dinner. Both were proudly wearing their “WF” logos on their shirts, proud to be Wake Forest coaches.
As they were being seated, a little guy with a “Manager-in-Training” tag on his shirt looked at Grobe’s shirt and commented: “Unless I missed my guess, you boys are with the Waffle House organization.”
“We had been feeling pretty good about ourselves until then, and that observation absolutely killed Brad Lambert,” Grobe said. “I couldn’t convince the guy that we weren’t from Waffle House, so finally I played along with him when he commented that we must be pretty high up in the organization.
“I told him, no, not really,” Grobe said, “to which the manager-in-training said, ‘No way man ... you don’t get free gear like that unless you’re way up the ladder.’ He thought he was networking with the Waffle House boys.”
Even after the Deacs beat Georgia Tech for the ACC title, Grobe and another of his coaches were going through security at the Jacksonville airport, again proudly displaying their “WF” gear, when one of the security guards stopped them and said, “Don’t tell me ... Wells Fargo?”
“So, as you can see, we’re still fighting for recognition,” Grobe chuckled.
Randle, who has had more influence on Grobe’s career than anyone, introduced the former Cavalier linebacker and jokingly said, “Jim got me fired twice, once as a player and once as a coach. He was the best player we had, so now you know why I got fired.”
Randle, who will be the color analyst for Westwood One’s weekly national broadcast of the ACC Game of the Week this fall, told a few stories about Grobe, including one that any ACC football fan will probably recall.
The story regarded Wake’s loss to Clemson last season when the Deacs were well ahead, but lost momentum when Gaines Adams broke through, grabbed a mishandled field goal placement and returned it for a touchdown, leading to a Tiger comeback.
Randle explained that some of Grobe’s assistants came into the office that following Monday asking about changing the holder, a thought that the coach rejected because he didn’t want that kid living with that moment the rest of his life.
The next week, the holder was flawless as Wake’s kicker booted five field goals to beat N.C. State. The kid went on to have a great season.
That story tells you a lot about Grobe, not only as a coach, but also as a person.
Certainly, Grobe wouldn’t have considered the evening done without thanking McCue for all he had done for athletes over the years and for making football a better game because of the development of sports medicine.
At that moment, the Society announced it has started a project to create an endowed chair in orthopedic surgery and sports medicine in Doc McCue’s name, a worthwhile but expensive venture.
As Doc McCue rose to speak, he did so in typical McCue style, playing off the announcement for the endowment.
“Should I pass the tambourine around now?” Doc said with perfect comedic timing.
Would you expect anything less?
 

The untold story of Duke's ex-lacrosse coach
Doug Doughty | 981-3129

One of the best stories in college lacrosse this year revolved around Bryant College, the Division II program headed by ex-Duke coach Mike Pressler.

It had a Southwest Virginia tie, given Pressler's association with Washington and Lee as a player and with VMI as a coach, but the story remained untold, at least in The Roanoke Times.

For three months, I pursued Pressler, leaving numerous voice messages and e-mails. On top of the Bryant story, I wanted to ask if he felt W&L had turned its back on him when it had an opening last spring.

The process went through the sports information office at Bryant College. It went through his agent. It went through his publisher. It went through his publicist. It even went through an assistant to the publicist, who was on sick leave.

"Mike says he remembers you," I was told at one point.

Pressler played in the famous "Armadillo" game between North Carolina and W&L in 1982, when W&L unveiled a new formation that caused the rules of lacrosse to be rewritten.

I covered the "Armadillo" game. Later, I wrote the story when Pressler leaned back in his chair in the W&L dining hall, at which point the chair collapsed and a wooden spike severed an artery that nearly killed him. Last spring, when the W&L job came open, not too many other reporters called to get Pressler's take on the situation.

As requests for an interview went unanswered, slowly my sympathy turned to scorn.

Maybe "scorn" is a little strong, but somehow I've become less eager to read the book, "It's Not About the Truth," that Pressler co-authored with Sports Illustrated's Don Yeager. Due out today, it deals with the 2006 rape charges against three members of the Duke lacrosse team that led to Pressler's resignation.

Along the way, one of the publicists said she would send me a "review" copy of the book, which so far hasn't arrived.

In the newspaper business, we keep reminding ourselves that nobody cares about our problems, but is anybody else getting tired of Duke, Pressler, and the television newsmagazines that covered the story ad nauseum?

You can be sure that rival lacrosse coaches are furious over the recent NCAA decision to grant an extra year of eligibility to the Duke players who were on the 2006 team when the season was canceled after eight games.

Let's get this straight: Duke canceled the season, not the NCAA, not the ACC.

A player could have blown out his knee after the eighth game and not been eligible for a hardship year, but a school voluntarily ends its season for reasons that subsequently have come into question and that's OK?

I loved the way that the NCAA cited the unanimous vote of the 12 ACC presidents as one of the factors in its decision. Want to know how many of the ACC schools sponsor men's lacrosse teams? Four.

That number was down to three for the second half of the 2006 season, when teams like Virginia might have anticipated a decent gate from a visit from 2005 NCAA runner-up Duke. Not only was the game not played, but Virginia lost the home game and had to go to Duke this year.

What's Duke going to want next, a waiver of the NCAA 12.6-scholarship limit in order to furnish grants to the players who were awarded an extra year?

You know what this reminds me of? Pete Gaudet.

In 1995, when Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski was sidelined following preseason back surgery, Gaudet, then his top aide, took over the team and the Blue Devils went 4-15 over the last 19 games. Rather than have Krzyzewski's record sullied by a 13-18 season, Duke was successful in its appeal to have the 4-15 portion of the record assigned to Gaudet.

The word "gall" comes to mind.

Somewhere, there must be a Gaudet clone that could take the fall for the 2006 men's lacrosse season. Now that the rape charges have been thrown out of court, it's getting harder to blame Pressler, who sat down for a Sunday Night Conversation interview this week on ESPN.

I'm not letting Pressler off the hook, though. What he did this year was nothing short of remarkable, beating No. 1 Lemoyne and taking Bryant, a nine-year program in Smithfield, R.I., to the brink of the four-team Division II playoffs. It was a story worth telling.
 

Prosecutor Pressed Duke Case
By AARON BEARD
Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. — As prosecutor Mike Nifong pushed forward with the Duke lacrosse rape case, a police investigator expressed concerns that there was a lack of evidence.

When he learned that Nifong planned to seek indictments, police investigator Benjamin Himan testified Tuesday, his reaction was instinctively sarcastic.

"I think I made the response, 'With what?'" Himan said.

Himan returns to the witness stand Wednesday for the second day of Nifong's trial, in which the North Carolina State Bar accuses the Durham County district attorney of several violations of the state's rules of professional conduct. All the claims involve Nifong's handling of allegations that a stripper was raped and beaten by three Duke lacrosse players at a March 2006 party.

If convicted by the disciplinary committee that is hearing the case, Nifong could be stripped of his license to practice law in the state.

Himan testified that Nifong acknowledged privately that the accuser's story was filled with inconsistencies and the case would be hard to prove.

"We didn't have any DNA. We didn't have him at the party," Himan said of former lacrosse player Reade Seligmann. "It was a big concern to me to go for an indictment with not even knowing where he was — if he was even there."

Nifong won indictments against Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans. The three were later cleared by state Attorney General Roy Cooper, who concluded they were "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."

Nifong's attorney, David Freedman, said his client told police that if they believed the accuser's allegations against Finnerty, "then you have to believe her on Seligmann."

"Mr. Nifong did not — did not — generate a warrant on his own," Freedman said. "He had the investigators go in to present their case to a grand jury. There will be no evidence of any kind that they were instructed how to present the case to the grand jury."

Attorneys for the lacrosse players, said Himan's account was further proof that Nifong should have backed off the case.

"When everyone who knew anything about the investigation kept saying, 'There's no evidence, slow down,' Mr. Nifong kept going forward," said Jim Cooney, who represented Seligmann.

Nifong's public pronouncements of confidence in the case — which included calling the players "hooligans" and saying he didn't need DNA evidence to win a conviction — formed the basis of the bar's initial ethics complaint, which accused Nifong of making misleading and inflammatory comments about the athletes.

Freedman has said that his client will testify that he regretted making such statements and that in the early days of the case evidence led Nifong to believe a crime had occurred.

In January, after Nifong turned the case over to state prosecutors, the bar added allegations that Nifong withheld evidence from defense attorneys and lied both to the court and bar investigators.