Cavaliers' Brooks Pleads No Contest
By Steve Lewis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 30, 2003; Page D02

University of Virginia freshman linebacker Ahmad Brooks, the 2001 All-Met defensive player of the year, pleaded no contest yesterday to a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession stemming from a May traffic stop. He was put on six months' probation and ordered to perform 24 hours of community service.

Brooks, 19, a graduate of Hylton High School in Woodbridge, also will be subject to random drug testing during the probation period. The misdemeanor charge will be dismissed if Brooks fulfills the terms of probation handed down yesterday.

In a brief statement read to reporters outside the courtroom, Brooks apologized to his family and others and expressed his hope that public opinion would end up in his favor. Brooks said, however, that he "was in no way found guilty," and his attorney, Chester Banks, said the no-contest plea was the "best way to resolve the matter and put the incident behind" Brooks.

Brooks appeared at Prince William General District Court in Manassas on charges arising from a May 17 incident, in which Prince William County police stopped a car for speeding and discovered a small bag of what they believed to be marijuana at the feet of Brooks, who was riding in the back seat.

Brooks, a 6-foot-2, 249-pound inside linebacker who is the son of former Washington Redskin Perry Brooks, is a cornerstone of the Cavaliers' touted 2002 recruiting class. The 2001 USA Today defensive player of the year spent last fall at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., to raise his standardized test scores and enrolled at Virginia in January.

 

ACC lawsuit on fast track
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Jul 30, 2003

VERNON, Conn. - A Superior Court judge has decided to keep the Big East's lawsuit against the University of Miami and the Atlantic Coast Conference on the fast track.

Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza on Monday denied a motion from the ACC that would have prevented the case from proceeding with expedited discovery.

"This ruling preserves the fast-track schedule previously ordered - including depositions of Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee and ACC Commissioner John Swofford," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.

Four Big East football schools, including the University of Connecticut, are seeking millions of dollars in damages claiming the ACC conspired with Big East member Miami to join the ACC and weaken the Big East.

 

U.VA. NOTES
Jul 30, 2003

WELL-POSITIONED: Virginia is the team to beat in the race to land basketball standout Cornelio Guibunda, his legal guardian said Monday night.

A native of Mozambique, Guibunda is a 6-9, 205-pound rising senior at King & Low-Heywood Thomas School in Stamford, Conn. He recently received a scholarship offer from coach Pete Gillen and will visit U.Va. in early September.

"Depending on how that weekend goes, it could be decided right then and there," said guardian Ervin Braun, who coaches Guibunda at KLHT. "We'll see. He's very high on Virginia right now. Very high."

In fact, Braun said, if "it was up to him, he would have decided last week." But Braun cautioned Guibunda against choosing a school before visiting it.

Guibunda, whose father is a judge in Mozambique, will visit his native country next month for the first time in two years.

"I think at this point he's really done with the whole [recruiting] process. He can't wait for it to be over," said Braun, whose son Adam plays basketball at Brown, which met U.Va. in an NIT game at University Hall last season.

Recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons recently ranked Guibunda among the top 50 prospects in the Class of 2004. U.Va. is seeking athletic post players, and Guibunda fits that mold.

"He's just a gazelle," Braun said.

FIRED UP: Virginia hasn't played at South Carolina in football since 1987, but tailback Alvin Pearman has an idea of what to expect Sept. 6 at 80,250-seat Williams-Brice Stadium, home to some of the nation's most rabid fans.

During his junior year at Charlotte Country Day, Pearman took an unofficial visit to South Carolina. The Gamecocks were in the midst of a long losing streak, and their opponent that day was lowly Vanderbilt. No matter, Pearman said.

"It was sold out, and that place was rocking," he said. "It was crazy."

THE CORPS: U.Va.'s linebackers this season include 6-4, 248-pound freshman Ahmad Brooks, 6-4, 242-pound sophomore Darryl Blackstock and 6-3, 246-pound redshirt freshman Kai Parham.

"This is starting to look like an NFL group," Cavaliers coach Al Groh said.

Not only are all three big, they "can run," Groh said. "That's going to be a pretty imposing-looking group."

ACCELERATED LEARNER: Ron Darden, who redshirted as a freshman last season, heads into the season No. 2 on the depth chart at left offensive guard behind Brian Barthelmes.

Barthelmes, a sophomore, was one of several key offensive linemen who missed all or part of spring drills for medical reasons. The 6-4, 315-pound Darden, who played only two years of high school football, benefited from their absence, getting a "head start on his career in the spring," Groh said.

"With all the offensive linemen who didn't participate, Darden got almost all the turns at left guard. Now, on some days, when it was his 65th or 70th play, it might not have been good news at that time, but he certainly wouldn't have accumulated that amount of plays under another set of circumstances, so his progress has been really moved along."

MEN'S LACROSSE: The recruiting class that will enter coach Dom Starsia's program in 2004 nearly is filled and includes three rising seniors from this state. Episcopal High midfielder Kevin Coale and Cape Henry Collegiate midfielder Ryan Kelly committed to U.Va. months ago, and Mike Timms recently followed suit.

Timms, a 6-3, 205-pound defenseman, lives in Virginia Beach and is one of Kelly's classmates at Cape Henry.

"The cool thing is, those guys are best friends," Cape Henry coach Will Gibbs said. "They're attached at the hip."

Coale, Kelly and Timms were first-team all-state selections in 2003. - Jeff White

 

W. Forest president speaks up
Published July 30 2003
David Teel


Wake Forest president Thomas Hearn broke from his ACC colleagues last week. He spoke, with at least partial candor, about the conference's botched expansion.

If only Virginia's John Casteen and North Carolina State's Marye Anne Fox were as forthright.

Casteen and Fox adamantly and arrogantly refuse to discuss the process, or the leading roles they played. Hearn, without calling out names, indicted all concerned.

ACC presidents, Hearn said in a Q&A posted on Wake Forest's Web site, "experienced a serious communication problem with unfortunate consequences." A "majority of our members, including myself, believed that we had taken a decisive vote that would lead to offers of admission to Boston College, the University of Miami and Syracuse University, absent any negative findings - of which there were none - from the site visits.

"A smaller group thought ... the crucial vote was yet to be taken. ... We entered a period of procedural paralysis, trying to find a way out of the impasse created by our failure to understand one another."

Indeed, ACC presidents twice voted to expand to 12. The first vote was 7-2, with North Carolina and Duke opposed. The second vote was 8-1, with Virginia opposed.

Miami, Boston College and Syracuse were the "understood" targets of the first vote. They were the stated targets of the second, with only the mere formality of campus visits separating the ACC from its half-baked plan to upgrade football and dominate the Eastern Seaboard.

Five times the presidents met via conference call to confirm the super-majority of seven votes required to extend the invitations. Five times they failed as Duke and North Carolina resumed their initial opposition, and Casteen caved to Gov. Mark Warner's demand that he reject any expansion that excluded Virginia Tech.

Groping to save face, the presidents considered several compromises. The most palatable to the group appeared to be a Miami-Boston College-Virginia Tech combination - until Fox inexplicably turned thumbs down on Boston College.

On July 1, seven weeks to the day after the original expansion vote, the ACC officially welcomed Miami and Virginia Tech. Hearn called the conclusion "good," but said the conference CEOs "must acknowledge the embarrassment our process brought to the ACC institutions, our presidents and chancellors and, more importantly, to Boston College and Syracuse University, which were affected by our flawed process.

"Speaking for myself and for Wake Forest, I deeply regret the misunderstanding that occurred among our presidents."

Hearn's pro-expansion stance perplexed many.

Wake Forest, the conference's smallest school, is a marginal player in football, and expansion drops the Deacons further down the food chain. But Hearn said Wake Forest was obligated "to consider the interests of the entire conference as well as our own institutional concerns. ... The firm majority of conference opinion was and is that expansion in the foreseeable future was inevitable, and that we should expand when desirable institutions were available and eager to join us."

Hearn strayed into absurdity only once, when asked if expansion was football-driven.

"The needs of all of our sports programs were considered," he said. "Even in basketball, there is concern that the larger conferences are receiving a proportionately larger share of invitations to the NCAA tournament."

Such concern is baseless.

Since the creation of the Big 12 in 1996 made the ACC the smallest of the power conferences, 31 ACC teams, or 49.2 percent of the membership, have earned NCAA tournament bids.

That's a larger share than the Big 12, Southeastern Conference, Big East and Pacific 10. The ACC's share trails only the Big Ten's.

Yes, the ACC's bids dipped in 1999 and 2000, but not because the conference wasn't big enough. It wasn't good enough.

Hearn otherwise spouted the flawed party line: Larger conferences are the wave of the future; some ACC members might have bolted.

But at least he spoke. The silence from Virginia and N.C. State is outrageous.