UVa's Williams showing signs of real progress
Andy Bitter
Lynchburg News & Advance
September 9, 2005

Virginia wide receiver Deyon Williams didn’t have the 2004 season he envisioned. Based on his offseason progress and his encouraging performance in last Saturday’s opener against Western Michigan, he might be poised to make 2005 his break-out season instead.

Williams caught a team-high five passes for 79 yards in the opener, hauling in a 40-yard pass in the first quarter on a play-action fake that set up a Marques Hagans touchdown run.

A 6-foot-3, 188-pound former high school track star, Williams caught just 19 passes for 261 yards and one touchdown last season in his first year as a part-time starter. But he first showed signs of real progress after the season.

“That was a real positive that so much of what Deyon has done since mid-January was a real sign that he was moving into that stage of his career where things are really starting to come together for him,” UVa head coach Al Groh said. “When that actually happens in the game too, that’s a real confidence builder for him as well as everybody.”

Tunnel vision

Hagans opted not to join his co-captains for the coin toss against Western Michigan. He prefers to run out of the tunnel with the rest of the team prior to the game instead and will do so for the rest of the season.

That wasn’t a problem for Groh, who allowed senior linebacker Bryan White to join the other three captains - defense end Brennan Schmidt, safety Tony Franklin and tailback Wali Lundy - for the coin toss before the teams took the field.

The coaching staff plans to replace Hagans each week with the outstanding special teams player from the previous game. Since there was no previous game in the first week, White was chosen.

“Bryan is one of our senior special teams stalwarts,” Groh said. “We wanted to give him that honor.”

Nose(s) for the ball

Groh was encouraged by the play of his three-man rotation at nose tackle. Kwakou Robinson, Ron Darden and Keenan Carter all saw time at the position against Western Michigan and combined for four solo tackles, three assisted tackles and one fumble recovery.

“I thought as an entity, the position did OK,” Groh said. “We’re thinking that because they did it that way (with the rotation), they’re able to go full bore. … They can let it rip pretty good.”

Every bit helps

At a recent Lynchburg Sports Club dinner, new UVa basketball coach Dave Leitao did more than just speak about helping the people in New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina. He backed it up with his wallet.

Leitao, who had already donated money to the relief effort, told the Lynchburg Sports Club crowd of 125 members that he would match whatever donation they gave when a hat was passed around the room. The group pooled $1,100, which both Leitao and the sports club matched, raising $3,300 to help victims in New Orleans.

Extra points

Groh’s comment when asked if Connor Hughes’ failed 37-yard field goal attempt in the third quarter of the opener was close: “That’s like saying that the putt that would have won the U.S. Open that just missed, was it close enough?” … Sophomore safety Nate Lyles intercepted a pass on Saturday, the first interception by a Cavaliers safety since Robbie Catterton picked off a Rod Rutherford pass in the 2003 Continental Tire Bowl.

 

Haley gets foot in door with JetsHed here
Former Salem and Virginia star Dennis Haley sticks with the Jets' practice squad.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

Dennis Haley's schedule of practices and meetings Thursday was not any different from the routine followed by the rest of the New York Jets roster.

That will change this weekend when Haley, a member of the Jets' practice squad, will not accompany the team to Kansas City for its opening game.

"It's not the best situation," said Haley, a graduate of Salem High School and the University of Virginia, "but I'm part of the organization.

"It's a step. I don't know if I would call it a step forward, but it's not a step backwards."

He's getting paid, too.

"There's a set amount that you get paid for the practice squad," said Haley, who has been joined on Long Island by his wife of four months. "I don't know how much it is. I guess I'll see next week, when I get my paycheck."

Haley was one of three free-agent rookies from Virginia who were added to practice squads this week, two of them from the Roanoke Valley. William Fleming graduate and ex-UVa defensive back Jermaine Hardy made Arizona's practice squad and former Cavalier Marquis Weeks is with Seattle as a running back.

Six of the seven UVa players who were drafted will be on opening-day NFL rosters and the seventh, sixth-round Cleveland pick Andrew Hoffman, is on the Browns' practice squad.

Elton Brown, a two-time winner of the Jacobs Blocking Trophy as the ACC's top offensive lineman, is listed as the starting right guard for Arizona in its opener Sunday against the Giants in New York. Brown was drafted in the third round by the Cardinals.

Haley said he had received positive feedback from the Jets' coaches, including Corwin Brown, an assistant at Virginia for three years.

"It's been crazy just with the anticipation of what was going to happen," Haley said. "When they told me I hadn't made the 53-man roster, they said right away that I would be on the practice team."

Haley was not told how close he came to making the team or how soon he can expect to be activated.

"Last year, they had eight linebackers active on the 53-man roster," he said. "This year, they have six linebackers on the active roster, a seventh on the injured list and me. I've got to feel like I'm not that far away."
 

Did Groh gamble on Brooks?
Rare turf game a Syracuse subplot
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

As I listened to the latest ESPN report on Barry Bonds and whether he will or will not play baseball this season (as if it makes a difference with San Francisco lingering 12 games under .500), it made me think about Ahmad Brooks.

Are we still going to be sitting here in November, wondering whether Brooks will play in the last month of the season?

I don't think so. It's been my contention for a while that UVa coach Al Groh wanted Brooks to be as close to 100 percent for the Cavaliers' meeting with Syracuse at the Carrier Dome on Sept. 17, so he held him out of the opener Sept. 3 against Western Michigan.

If that was the case, then Groh's plan came dangerously close to backfiring.

If the Cavaliers had lost to Western Michigan in a scenario that Brooks could have prevented, even at less than 100 percent, the decision might have haunted Groh for the remainder of his coaching career.

That's assuming that the decision to save Brooks was made consciously, and I don't know that for a fact. Groh hasn't said. But Western Michigan, which had trimmed a 24-3 deficit to 24-19, very conceivably could have won the game.

On a crucial fourth-quarter possession, the Broncos had picked up a first down at the Virginia 37 before tight end Brandon Ledbetter was smothered for no gain by Tony Franklin, Jermaine Dias and Jamaal Jackson on a fourth-and-4 pass.

Groh can be slow to tip his hand, and who can blame him? But, this situation with Brooks reminds me of a situation during the 2003 season, after quarterback Matt Schaub was injured during the opening game.

With the media bombarding Groh about the likelihood of Marques Hagans moving to quarterback, Groh went with redshirt freshman Anthony Martinez the next week at South Carolina and the result was a 21-7 loss.

Second-guessers had their day when Hagans was brilliant the next week, when he quarterbacked the Cavaliers to a 59-16 victory at Western Michigan. How might things have been different if Hagans had been at QB one week earlier at South Carolina? But, make no mistake Waldo Stadium in Kalamazoo, Mich, will never be compared to Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C.

That's why they pay Groh the big bucks (bigger now than they were in 2003) and with a win over Western Michigan behind him, impressive or not, an open date will give Brooks an extra two weeks in his rehab from January knee surgery.

Now, in addition to a Brooks watch, there is a Wali Lundy watch. My impression, after watching Lundy run off the field last Saturday, was that he was not seriously injured. I think there is a good chance that Brooks and Lundy both will play at Syracuse, solidifying UVa's advantage.

Syracuse, coming off a 6-6 season in 2004, looked eminently beatable in its opening game. Matter of fact, the Orangemen were beaten at home by West Virginia, 15-7, although I think there is a value for teams like WVU that have played at the Carrier Dome before.

Virginia has not played in a dome since the 1998 Peach Bowl and Groh could not remember a UVa game on artificial turf in his five seasons.

I thought that Virginia might have played on artificial turf last year at Temple, but media gadfly Jeff White informs me that was not the case. The Cavaliers played on turf at Wisconsin in 2001 and at Western Michigan in 2003.

FOR VIRGINIA, one of the unfortunate aspects of the closer-than-expected opener was the inability to get work for backup Christian Olsen or any of its other quarterbacks. Olsen and Kevin McCabe combined to attempt only 21 passes last season.

Jamie Oakes, who covers Virginia for rivals.com, had an interesting item this week on 6-foot-5, 235-pound West Springfield junior quarterback Peter Lalich.

Lalich, who runs a 4.7 40, told Oakes that he has received a written scholarship offer from Virginia and that “UVa is easily my number one school. … I am thinking about deciding early. I think there is a 50-50 chance it could happen.”

Oakes also did an interview with Norfolk Granby wide receiver Chris Bell, who said that Virginia is at the top of a top five that includes Florida, LSU, Oklahoma and Penn State.

“I know UVa has the things I am looking for in a school but it is always great to hear that your number one school has you as their number one target," Bell was quoted as saying in the Oakes piece.
 

Traitors in our midst: putting pride up for sale
Sean McLernon, Columnist

With over 24 hours left in his online auction, you would have to think this eBay user was pretty happy about the way things were going.

Selling two student guest tickets to the Cavaliers' final regular season home game, prized tickets against hated rival Virginia Tech that have a face value of $50 apiece, this Virginia student had received 13 different bids for the passes to the sold-out game, the highest standing at $275. By the time the auction finally ended Thursday night, the price would have likely approached $400.

So why would this mysterious individual cancel his auction and likely ruin the 100 percent positive feedback rating he had built up and boasted about? The truth may lie in the fact that guy may not be so mysterious after all.

A quick people search on the U.Va. homepage reveals an undergraduate student at Virginia whose U.Va. computing ID is identical to the eBay user name selling the student guest tickets. Considering that only students currently enrolled at the school have the ability to purchase student guest tickets, it doesn't take much detective work to figure out how this guy got his hands on these passes.

Student guest tickets went on sale Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. Those who got there early enough only had to wait about an hour and a half or so. Some of us stragglers weren't so lucky. I stood in line for three hours that afternoon. Some people had to wait upwards of four hours to get a chance to spend pay $100 dollars for a pair of tickets to the season finale against the Hokies.

There were also those who weren't as lucky as I was. According to the Virginia ticket office, over 2,500 student guest passes were sold in a nine-hour period on Tuesday and as of Wednesday afternoon, only a couple hundred remained. Some people weren't willing or able to skip class and give up half their day to stand in line. They couldn't manage to allot a three-hour block in the middle of a weekday to wait in line at Bryant Hall. But that didn't stop this student from putting his tickets up for auction.

He couldn't even wait until the tickets officially went on sale. The eBay user opened up his auction on the night of Monday Sept. 5, more than 12 hours before the Bryant Hall ticket office opened its windows to students. So it's not like this guy bought his tickets and then discovered later that he couldn't make the game. The student went to Bryant Hall Tuesday morning with the explicit purpose of buying the tickets to sell them on the internet and make a nice little profit.

To top things off, every student that did buy a ticket signed an honor form that states that the student will not try to sell their tickets with intent for profit. Had the sale been completed, this guy may have had some explaining to do.

Of course, the sale wasn't completed for one reason or another. Maybe his conscience got to him. Maybe he was afraid he'd get kicked out of school for an honor violation. Maybe he found out I was planning to write a column in today's Cavalier Daily exposing his eBay escapades. Either way, I would be surprised if this is the only incident of student guest tickets appearing on eBay before the Nov. 19 matchup.

Last year, several student guest tickets found their way onto eBay and who knows how many more were dealt off to online brokers. The honor agreement students were forced to sign when purchasing tickets may deter some student guest ticket holders this time around, but I'm not overly concerned about the honor implications of auctioning the tickets off. I just think that students should be the only ones allowed to purchase these tickets.

Any student has the ability to get a refund for their student guest tickets to the Virginia Tech game up to 24 hours before kickoff. That means anybody can get their money back and ensure that a Virginia student gets the tickets, since any passes turned back in will be open up again for sale to those with a valid student ID.

Making hundreds of dollars in profits simply by putting some tickets on eBay may sound tempting. But anybody lucky enough to get tickets owes it to the hundreds of students who spent hours waiting, the dozens of people who had to leave the line, and the hundreds, if not thousands more who couldn't land tickets for one reason or another to make their tickets available exclusively to students. At least one student wised up. I only hope other ticket holders will follow suit.

 

A Matter of Life and Death for Cavs' Stupar
By Mark Schlabach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 7, 2005; E01

When Virginia tight end Jonathan Stupar suffered a foot injury for the second time within a few months last October, he felt the frustrations many athletes face when their seasons end prematurely. Redshirted as a freshman in 2003, Stupar worked hard last summer to emerge as a backup behind all-American Heath Miller. But Stupar broke his foot during training camp, missed the first five games and then aggravated the foot injury after playing in only two games.

"I was depressed because I'd worked so hard," Stupar said. "I was just so crushed."

Stupar couldn't have known the second foot surgery would ultimately save his life. During a final checkup of his foot in January, Stupar told Virginia trainers of symptoms that led doctors to diagnose a potentially fatal heart condition. For more than 20 years, Stupar had lived with heart disease that could have killed him. But not until Stupar broke his foot did he realize his heart was a ticking time bomb.

"The doctors said there was a 90 percent chance I could have dropped dead," Stupar said.

So when the sophomore made three catches for 34 yards Saturday, his family, friends, teammates and coaches had more to celebrate than a season-opening victory over Western Michigan. Fully healed from heart surgery, Stupar and sophomore Tom Santi are being counted on to replace Miller, the greatest tight end in U-Va. history.

"The bottom line is the broken foot saved his life," said Steve Stupar, the player's father. "We feel very fortunate. There are a lot of kids who have died from this."

Only now does Stupar realize how close he was to dying. By the time the Cavaliers left in December to play Fresno State at the MPC Computers Bowl in Boise, Idaho, Stupar's foot had healed enough for him to begin running and lifting weights again. When Stupar returned to his parents' home in State College, Pa., for winter break, he went to a local gym to work out. After the workout, he went back to his parents' house and showered, walked downstairs and watched television while his family prepared for dinner.

A few minutes later, Stupar called for his father and told him he had lost his peripheral vision and could only see straight ahead. After about 30 minutes, his vision was clear. His parents called a doctor, who told them to take their son to a hospital for tests. A CT scan revealed nothing abnormal, so Jonathan and his parents figured he had overexerted himself after going so long without working out.

"We felt a little bit at ease about it," Steve Stupar said.

A few days later, Stupar, 21, left home to begin spring semester classes at Virginia and stopped at a cousin's house in Baltimore on the way. There, he had a couple of fainting spells after working out, but didn't think much of it. So he climbed into his car and finished the drive to Charlottesville.

When Virginia trainers were checking Stupar's foot the following day, he mentioned his loss of vision and fainting spells. One of the team physicians was standing nearby and overheard the conversation. The doctor ordered Stupar to go to University of Virginia Medical Center immediately for tests on his heart.

Stupar called home later that night and told his father trainers said his foot was healed. He then matter-of-factly added, "Oh, yeah, I told them about me fainting and they took me down to do some tests on my heart, but they said it wasn't a big deal."

"What are you talking about your heart?" his father asked. "When did you faint?"

When Stupar called his father the following day, he had frightening news. Stupar had Wolfe Parkinson White Syndrome, a sometimes fatal condition that causes the heart to beat irregularly. Doctors told Stupar if he hadn't broken his foot and had practiced and played in games more than he had the previous season, there was a 90 percent chance he would have died.

"That was pretty eye-opening," Stupar said. "I'd had this condition my whole life, but didn't know it."

An electro-cardiologist offered Stupar two options: undergo risky corrective surgery or give up football and strenuous exercise for the rest of his life and the condition could be controlled by drugs. For Stupar, the decision was easy -- he wanted to continue playing football for the Cavaliers and possibly in the NFL. He had grown up watching Penn State football in his home town and his father had played defensive tackle for the Nittany Lions during the 1970s. His uncle, Jeff Hostetler, was a star quarterback at West Virginia and led the New York Giants to victory in Super Bowl XXV in 1991.

"I wasn't going to sit around and do nothing for the rest of my life," Stupar said.

Stupar's parents left the decision up to their son, but they worried about the risks of surgery. Virginia Coach Al Groh was out of town recruiting when he learned of Stupar's condition. By the time he talked to Stupar, the player had already decided to have surgery.

"It certainly was a very shocking thing," Groh said.

According to the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center Web site, Wolfe Parkinson White Syndrome is caused by an extra node in the electrical system between the top and bottom chambers of the heart. In a normal heart, there are three connections on the right atrium and one on the left. Stupar's heart had two connections in the left atrium. The extra impulses caused by the additional node can travel around the heart very quickly, in a circular pattern, causing the heart to beat unusually fast, sometimes resulting in a life-threatening arrhythmia. When doctors tested Stupar's heart, his resting heart rate was nearly twice the normal rate.

To correct the condition, surgeons must eliminate the additional microscopic node in the heart -- without damaging the normal connections. The additional node is destroyed through burning or freezing and usually takes several tries. The surgery can last as long as 12 hours and proves to be fatal for some patients.

"If you knock out a good connection, you're done," Stupar said.

When Stupar's parents arrived at his hospital room before surgery, their son was connected to several wires and monitors.

"It was scary seeing your son laying there on a table and the doctor is saying, 'This is a risky surgery and there are some patients that don't make it,' " Steve Stupar said. "I said, 'Jonathan, are you sure you want to do this?' But he wanted to do it. Football isn't life, but it's very important to Jonathan."

Doctors inserted wires near Stupar's collarbone and groin. During the procedure, the surgeon told Stupar's parents he wouldn't have done the surgery if he had known how close the nodes in his heart really were, his father said. "Jonathan was about a quarter of an inch away from never playing football again," Steve Stupar said.

The surgeon was able to freeze the additional node on the first try, less than three hours into surgery. But then Stupar's heart went into an arrhythmia, so surgeons had to stop his heart and restart it at a normal rate with defibrillators, his father said.

But the surgery was a success and less than three months later, Stupar was running and lifting weights again with his teammates during spring practice. He is finally healthy and hopes to live up to the potential that made him one of the country's most highly recruited players during his senior season at State College Area High School.

Stupar, 6 feet 3, 250 pounds, was offered scholarships by Florida State, Ohio State and Southern California, but wasn't recruited by Penn State, his father's alma mater and his hometown college. The Nittany Lions had only 11 scholarships to give out when Stupar was being recruited, and signing a tight end wasn't a priority. So Stupar chose Virginia, which also has offered a scholarship to his younger brother, Nathan, a high school junior.

If Nathan Stupar chooses to play for the Cavaliers, one of the first things he'll do in Charlottesville is undergo heart tests for Wolfe Parkinson White Syndrome, a new medical requirement for every Virginia football player.

"They say God works in mysterious ways," Steve Stupar said. "Here we were worried about a broken foot that wouldn't heal properly, but in the end, it revealed a heart condition that could have killed my son."
 

Virginia to reveal Forbes' status today
The junior swingman has been barred from team workouts this fall
Richmond Times-Dispatch Sep 9, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE - An announcement is expected today from the University of Virginia regarding swingman Gary Forbes' status for the coming basketball season.

A 6-6 junior from Brooklyn, N.Y., Forbes is enrolled at U.Va. but has had academic issues, sources said, and might be ineligible for part or all of the 2005-06 season. He hasn't been allowed to participate in official team workouts this semester.

Forbes, 20, averaged 9.4 points and 4.1 rebounds in 2004-05 and was projected to start for the Cavaliers' new coach, Dave Leitao. As a freshman, Forbes started 17 games for Leitao's predecessor, Pete Gillen. He started only four games last season but played about the same number of minutes and continued to flash his considerable talent. Forbes had three games in which he scored at least 21 points.

If Forbes isn't cleared to play, Virginia will have only 10 players on scholarship this season, including three freshmen.

In an e-mail last night, Leitao said he wasn't at liberty to disclose any details but confirmed that U.Va. officials have ruled on Forbes' status. A news release would come today, Leitao said. - Jeff White