Brandon spreads the wealth

Now that’s how an offensive coordinator’s credentials are supposed to look.

Success at multiple schools and conferences; innovation, balance and impeccable references.

Virginia football coach Al Groh confirmed Tuesday news that leaked last week: Gregg Brandon is replacing Mike Groh as the Cavaliers’ offensive coordinator.

Mike Groh was a poor choice from the start, and not simply because he was the head coach’s son. He had never worked at another school, never coached under anyone except his father.

Inexperience + nepotism = problems.

Sure enough, Mike Groh’s three seasons were rife with disappointment. Rather than regurgitate the stats for the hundredth time, suffice to say the Cavaliers struggled to score and endured two losing seasons.

So exit Mike Groh — anyone who thinks the separation was voluntary is more delusional than Rod Blagojevich — and enter Brandon.

In six seasons as Bowling Green’s head coach, from 2003-08, Brandon had one losing year — 4-8 in 2006. His overall record was 44-30, but only 24-24 in the last four seasons.

Bowling Green fired Brandon last month, because of the on-the-field decline and off-the-field academic and legal transgressions. The NCAA docked the Falcons seven scholarships in 2008 and two more in 2009 due to their poor Academic Progress Rates.

But football is big business in Charlottesville — you don’t pay your coach two million clams and raise 86 million more to gussie up the stadium so as to brag about admirable graduation rates — and Brandon was hired to upgrade the product.

His pedigree is undeniable. He spent eight years at Bowling Green, six as head coach and two as coordinator, and seven of his offenses ranked among the nation’s top 50 in scoring — a level Virginia last attained in 2004.

As an assistant, the 52-year-old Brandon has worked for Urban Meyer, Gary Barnett and Mike Price, respected minds all. His teams have not only passed as effectively as you’d expect for an advocate of the spread offense, but also run well enough to create balance.

Moreover, Bowling Green quarterback Omar Jacobs generated early Heisman Trophy buzz in 2004, when he ranked second nationally in total offense and threw 45 touchdown passes. Virginia has thrown 46 touchdown passes in the last four seasons combined.

Jameel Sewell, Marc Verica, Vic Hall and whoever else might take snaps next season should be ecstatic.

“The U.Va. offense will be wide open and fun to watch,” Brandon said in a statement. “Our players will find the system unique and creative. I can’t wait to get started.”

Great quote. Nice sentiment. One caveat: That fourth-quarter flea-flicker against Virginia Tech had better work.

Al Groh’s job depends on it.

Posted by David Teel
 

Brandon brings life, spread to Virginia
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Published: December 26, 2008

Gregg Brandon will never forget those early days at Bowling Green. He had worked as a longtime position coach at larger universities, but dreamed of becoming a coordinator and this was his chance.
Urban Meyer, then one of the college football’s best-kept secrets, had just been hired as Bowling Green’s head coach. The Falcons’ program was in horrible shape and it would be up to Meyer to turn things around.
An Urban legend
“When Urban called me up and told me that he had gotten the Bowling Green job, needed to hire some coaches, and asked me if I knew of any, I said, ‘You’re talking to one,’” Brandon said Tuesday before leaving his new office at Virginia to return home for Christmas.
Brandon was in Charlottesville to finish up paperwork, while his wife scouted out possible homes. When he returns in a few days as the Cavaliers’ new offensive coordinator, he will begin putting together a new plan for UVa just as he and Meyer did back in 2001 at Bowling Green.
“When Urban and I got together we said, ‘What do we want our offense to look like?’” Brandon remembered. “We kicked around some ideas. I had watched Northwestern in 2000, the last year I was at Colorado. [Northwestern] was rushing the ball up and down the field, rushing the quarterback, and that was something that intrigued us.”
Brandon and Meyer decided that Bowling Green’s offense would include a quarterback running game, which they believed would give them a big edge. They knew they would spread the field, which would allow the Falcons to throw or run whether the quarterback was alone in the backfield or had a running mate. The offense would have backs and or receivers spread, whether it was three on one side and two on the other, or four on one side and just one on the other.
Great minds
Before putting the plan together, they visited a number of places, including Northwestern, where Kevin Wilson (now at Oklahoma) was coordinating, then to Purdue where Joe Tiller had taken some spread concepts to another level.
“Joe had followed Paul Roach at Wyoming (Brandon had worked under Roach at Wyoming earlier in his career), then went to the Big Ten and opened things up and nobody had a clue how to defend it,” Brandon said. “[Tiller] won a lot of games there with a lot lesser players than some of the powerhouses in that league.”
No mistake that Purdue was on Brandon’s “places to visit” list as soon as he landed at Bowling Green.
“So, we had this blend of spread it out with the quarterback in the shotgun, but a back in there and we would run the back and run the quarterback,” Brandon said. “If you watch Florida (where Meyer is head coach), the Gators are doing that, but they rely on [Tim] Tebow, which ain’t bad. I would rely on him, too. Missouri has taken off with it. I like some of their ideas the last three or four years. And, Appalachian State does a nice job with [the spread].”
I’ve often wondered that when coaches sit down to create a new offensive concept, such as Rich Rodriguez when he was at tiny Glenville State, or Meyer and Brandon at Bowling Green, just how do they do it. Do they just draw things up or experiment with live players on the practice field?
“A little of both,” Brandon said. “You have to be careful because you can get carried away and do too much. Players have to be able to execute it and handle it and really, that first spring (at BG) was a learning curve. We had to figure out what the kids could do. The philosophy that I’ve learned in my career is that you’’ve got to think players first.
“Anybody can draw up a play, but if you don’t have the players to run it, it’s no good,” he continued. “Once you’ve got your system, you know what kind of players you want. The style of quarterback is going to be successful in the system. At Bowling Green we had a couple of different styles and we were able to move the ball and score with them.”
That first year, 2001, Meyer won the Mid-America Conference Coach of the Year honors for turning the Falcons around. He stuck around one more season before going to Utah and Brandon replaced him as BG’s head coach in 2003.
“In 2002, 2003 and 2004, we were averaging 500 yards and 40 points a game over that three-year span,” Brandon said. “So, a lot of folks were coming in and visiting us. Missouri, Oregon, they’re running [the spread] now. People started studying us and taking bits and pieces.
“Now, it’s fun watching them. I watch a lot of football and this past season Tulsa was real explosive, even though they run a different deal. Houston lit it up this year. I spent some time with June Jones (formerly of Hawaii), who is a run-and-shoot guy, but has great passing concepts. Texas Tech runs those big line splits. So it’s that kind of stuff I like to look at. But, it’s got to fit what your players can do,” Brandon said.
Virginia’s new offensive coordinator has been influenced by a lot of brilliant offensive minds, starting with his old high school coach Gary Burnett in Colorado.
“Coach Barnett is the reason why I got into coaching,” Brandon said. “I was in college, floundering around. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. My father had passed and I used to hang out around Coach Barnett. When he asked me what I wanted to do, I told him that I liked sports. He told me I should think about coaching or teaching and I got into it and liked it.”
He assisted Barnett in high school, then met Mike Price when he and Barnett went to a coaching clinic at Missouri in the late ’70s. It was a meeting that would impact his life. His first college coaching job was for Price (now at UTEP) at Weber State.
“That was kind of my indoctrination to offensive football,” Brandon said. “I coached tight ends, wide receivers, quarterbacks, and linebackers there. I learned from Coach Price and from Bob Bratkowski, who has been in the NFL for about 15 years. Bob Petrino was there for a couple of years, so there were some good offensive guys I kind of grew up with.”
Because Weber was in the shadows of BYU, which was nearly unstoppable at the time with a wide-open passing game, Brandon spent a lot of time in Provo picking the brain of Norm Chow.
From there, Brandon went to Wyoming under Roach, where he learned a lot of football.
“[Roach] really helped me learn the importance of running the football because in the Big Sky we were throwing it 50 to 60 times a game,” Brandon recalled.
Shortly afterward the young coach was reunited with his mentor, Barnett, at Northwestern.
“When he called and said, ‘Do you want to go to Northwestern with me,’ I said, ‘Shoot, yeah.’ At that time a lot of guys said that Northwestern was the graveyard, that they’d never won there. That was in 1992 and they hadn’t been to a bowl game since 1949 and they were coming off an 0-11 season,” Brandon said.
Together, they helped turn Northwestern around and went to the Rose Bowl in 1995 and ’96. From there, they took over at Colorado where Brandon was exposed to some West Coast offensive principles from Tom Cable (now the interim coach of the Oakland Raiders), who had been with Steve Mariucci at Cal.
All those great offensive minds, all those assortments of offensive concepts have brought Brandon to Virginia where he will install the only pure spread offense in the ACC.
“The UVa offense will be wide open and fun to watch,” he said. “Our players will find the system unique and creative. I can’t wait to get started.”
Don’t be surprised if the Cavaliers draw a record crowd to their spring game come April. Let the fun begin.

 

Hokies might need to call long-term audible on offense
Dave Fairbank
December 27, 2008

One program won the conference championship and goes to a BCS bowl for the second consecutive year. The other shuffled its coaching staff in the aftermath of its second losing season in three years.

So, which program is set up to have a more effective offense? Not the one you might think. Or, at the very least, it's a subject open for debate.

We speak, of course, of Virginia Tech and Virginia, the state's major college football collectives.

The Hokies prepare for the least-anticipated Orange Bowl in the history of bowls, and oranges, following a second straight ACC championship.

Virginia, meanwhile, sits home following a 5-7 season that turned up the heat under head coach Al Groh and prompted a staff makeover.

Indeed, given the men now atop the offensive flow charts in the two programs, it isn't difficult to make a case that the Cavaliers suddenly are capable of fielding the better, and certainly more interesting, attack.

Groh lured former Bowling Green head coach Gregg Brandon to Charlottesville to run the offensive show next season, while Tech coach Frank Beamer said that Bryan Stinespring remains the Big Headset on offense.

Brandon possesses some offensive bona fides, having tinkered with the spread offense as Urban Meyer's partner years ago and then assembling some effective and entertaining units on his own.

Stinespring never has worked anywhere but Virginia Tech, nor for anyone other than the defensive-minded Beamer. He received a battlefield promotion to offensive coordinator after Rickey Bustle departed to become a head coach, and the Hokies' annual bowl machine rolled onward.

Tech's offenses under Stinespring have been inconsistent and downright curious at times in the past couple of years. The Hokies were last in the ACC in total offense this season, 11th in pass offense and eighth in scoring.

In 2007, Tech finished in the bottom half of the ACC in rushing, passing and total offense.

Beamer's reluctance to overhaul the offense is a product of loyalty — Stinespring is practically a surrogate son — and a kind of competitive inertia. A conference championship staff at rest remains at rest, and a BCS team in motion retains the same people who control the motion. Or something like that.

Speaking of competitive inertia, ask the U.S. auto industry how doing it the way they've always done it is working out these days. Granted, the Hokies are in better shape than Chrysler or General Motors, but the idea that success today covers all warts is a shortsighted and dodgy proposition in both business and football.

Put another way: Stinespring's best friend the past couple of years has been Bud Foster's defenses.

Foster annually assembles nasty, speedy groups that routinely provide the Hokies' offense a sizable margin for error. Last year's unit was sprinkled with NFL-caliber talent. This year's is younger and less experienced, but improved as the season progressed.

Tech's offensive struggles and inconsistencies haven't gone unnoticed within the program. Linebacker Purnell Sturdivant and Foster himself opened windows that showed cracks in the all-for-one, one-for-all image that Beamer has cultivated through the years.

Sturdivant wondered about the play-calling and said the offense was too predictable following a loss to Miami, which caused Beamer to close ranks and temporarily limit reporter access to players.

Foster essentially said, "Not on me or my guys," recently when discussing the Hokies' more businesslike approach to the upcoming Orange Bowl than in previous years.

Sturdivant might have been baited into a few discouraging words. Foster clearly was not. He volunteered that he thought last year's Orange Bowl preparation was the best in his experience and that the defense did top-shelf work in the loss to Kansas — which it did.

Virginia had no such margin for error, hence the staff purge that sent former coordinator Mike Groh overboard and resulted in Brandon's hiring.

The caveat with Brandon is two-fold: autonomy and tenure.

How much freedom does Groh give Brandon? And, if the Cavaliers are .500 or below next season, even with a productive or entertaining offense, Groh is likely out the door. Brandon's system could be little more than a one-year experiment, depending on Groh's successor.

Brandon should benefit from some options at quarterback, with Marc Verica, the return of Jameel Sewell, and perhaps even Vic Hall as a change of pace. Receivers Kevin Ogletree and Maurice Covington are quality performers, and backs Mikell Simpson and Keith Payne are potentially valuable.

In Blacksburg, meanwhile, Stinespring will have quarterback Tyrod Taylor, whose improvisational gifts are outside the playbook. Running back Darren Evans and the Hokies' receivers will be a year older and presumably more effective.

But this isn't about personnel as much as the men moving the chess pieces. Forced or not, Virginia upgraded. The Hokies have not.

 

UVa Insider, The Column

Virginia men's basketball coach Dave Leitao was able to find time for 14 players Tuesday in a 74-48 victory over visiting Hampton, which only made junior Solomon Tat more conspicuous by his absence.

Tat, a 6-foot-5 wing player, was in uniform but did not play. He has played in two of Virginia's first nine games but for only a total of one minute. On both occasions, he was inserted in the game for defensive purposes at the end of the first half.

Tat played in only 15 games last year, when he missed the first 11 games of the season after undergoing surgery for a sports hernia.

When the subject was raised following Tuesday's game, Leitao said there is nothing physical that is keeping Tat off the floor.

I'm paraphrasing here because of a tape-recorder malfunction but Leitao said there is a possibility that Tat will be needed in the future and that he needed to be ready, just like fifth-year senior Tunji Soroye and some of UVa's other, lesser-utilized players.

Soroye clearly has falled behind 7-foot freshman Assane Sene on UVa's post pecking order, but when Sene fouled out with 5:27 remaining Tuesday, Soroye took off his sweats and played the rest of the way.

Soroye was one of four UVa players who had two blocked shots apiece, joining Sene, Mike Scott and Jerome Meyinsse.

Not long after his entry, Soroye (6-11, 250) was joined by freshman John Brandenburg (6-11, 241) and sophomore walk-on Will Sherrill (6-9, 221) in a frontcourt alignment that few would have imagined. The use of Brandenburg and Sherrill, who had played eight minutes apiece in the first eight games, served to draw attention to Tat's inactivity.

Tat could have likened it to the 2007-2008 season, when he received negligible playing time prior to a Jan. 3 game at Xavier. Tat was inserted in the final minutes of a 108-70 shellacking and responded with 12 points in 16 minutes.

UVa was off for 10 days after that. In UVa's next game, a Jan. 13 visit to Duke, Tat played 16 minutes again but turned the ball over twice and did not score.

Tat had a third 16-minute stint in a late-season game against Miami and had six points, but his playing time did not increase.

He has played 165 and 100 minutes in each of his first two seasons and it would take a drastic change in Leitao's thinking to have him get to 100 minutes this season.

I'm not here to make Tat's case for increased playing time. He has the size and athleticism of a wing guard, but he does not handle the ball well and is not as good a shooter as a couple of other wings who have found playing time to be spotty, Jeff Jones and Mustapha Farrakhan.

Presumably, Tat has the athletic ability to furnish help as a defensive stopper or offensive rebounder, but he has lacked consistencty in those areas.

Mostly, Tat has served as a poster child for Leitao's first full recruiting class, which arrived in 2006 amid considerable promise. Only Jamil Tucker is getting appreciable minutes (16.3 per game) from a group that included Tat; Meyinsse, the lone spring signee of the bunch, and Will Harris, who transferred to Albany.

Maybe the UVa coaches have been wary of placing too much stock in Tat, whose visa status has clouded his eligibility on an annual basis, but, one way or another, he has become a forgotten man.

MORE: I was surprised to see Tucker in the starting lineup against Hampton after a sub-par outing in UVa's 58-56 loss to Auburn, but the Cavaliers clearly are wary of foul trouble with Sene, who is going to be a good player, maybe a very good player.

Sene reminds me a little bit of Olden Polynice, who looked really shaky in his first month at Virginia in 1983-84, but played a major role later that season in helping to get the Cavaliers to the Final Four. Sene is slightly-taller than Polynice, is a left-hander and thus a more natural shotblocker and has a better-looking foul shot.

Sene could do worse than have a Polynice-like career. Polynice was more than a little bit nutty but he was a first-round NBA Draft pick who spent 15 seasons in "the league."

 

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ACC's football appeal an issue
New TV contract to be negotiated
Roger Van Der Horst
Staff Writer
Posted: Friday, Dec. 26, 2008

In addition to the ACC's depth and breadth, other factors could help the league as it negotiates a new football TV deal:

THE GOING RATE: The SEC's huge deals with CBS and ESPN, for a combined $3 billion over 15 years, reveal the networks' continued craving for college sports and a leaning toward longer contracts that, in the ACC's case, could lessen the impact of a recent weakness in football. The "underlying loyalty" of TV viewers makes college sports less subject to "ups and downs" than the NBA and Major League Baseball, former CBS Sports President Neal Pilson said.

ACC FOOTBALL'S SIBLING: That would be basketball, which gives the league more leverage in football negotiations, Pilson said. "The conferences have long since learned to negotiate both sports together," he said. Kelly, the ACC's assistant commissioner, alluded to as much when he spoke of the opportunity "to possibly go to market with all of our sports at the same time."

THE DIGITAL PLATFORM: The ability to "stream" live games on the Internet represents a rising market -- and another bargaining chip. Rights-holders can reach a different audience without diluting their TV viewership.

Dealing from weakness
In addition to the ACC's recent national championship irrelevance and lower TV ratings, other factors could hurt the league in football contract talks:

THE ECONOMY: The conference can only hope it shows signs of rebounding before the negotiations really heat up. There's a reason the International Olympic Committee is putting off the broadcast rights negotiations for the 2014 Winter Games and 2016 Summer Games as long as possible. Less ad revenue in a global downturn means less money for networks to spend on sports programming. "Six months ago, we were saying sports was recession-resistant rather than recession-proof. But I don't think anything is recession-resistant," NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver told USA Today in October.

ONE LESS POTENTIAL BIDDER: Fox, which holds the rights to the Bowl Championship Series games through the 2010 season, recently was outbid by ESPN for the 2011-14 contract. Until then, Fox had been interested in combining the BCS rights with a regular-season package, "and that obviously is not going to happen now," IMG's Barry Frank said. That makes it likelier that the ACC will have to go back and make a deal with ABC/ESPN.

As the ACC gets ready to dangle its television rights in football, the conference can trumpet the depth and market reach that expansion helped bring four years ago.

What the league can't sell is its "it factor," any strong sense that people around the country are talking about or tuning in to ACC football. For the most enticing television matchups on Saturday nights, ABC and ESPN tended to look elsewhere this season, nudging the ACC to lesser time slots or networks. And for the most part, when ACC teams made it to prime time this year, fewer people watched.

Just months from starting negotiations on a new football deal, the ACC is suffering from an untimely malaise that could cost the conference millions of dollars in TV money. The lack of a dominant team, a poor Bowl Championship Series record and audience indifference could undercut the league's bargaining position, the very thing that expansion was intended to bolster.

If one season really matters, the ACC will have to sell more than its top-to-bottom depth and Boston-to-Miami reach. The conference will have to count on the overall strength of college football, the ACC's long-term promise, even its basketball clout.

"If a conference is doing well and is strong against the competition at the time the negotiations are going forward, that's in the back of everyone's mind," said Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports, who now heads a sports media consulting company. "... And frankly, if the conference is not doing well, then that tends to depress the enthusiasm of the negotiators, even though they're all experienced people and they all realize they're making a deal over a lengthy term where fortunes could certainly turn around."

Michael Kelly, the ACC's assistant commissioner of football operations, said he doesn't believe the networks would put much weight on one season, insisting that the league is "well positioned" to negotiate a new contract.

"The strength and balance of our football is unparalleled," Kelly said.

10 going bowling

The ACC's perceived strength certainly helped in the last round of negotiations, said Barry Frank, who represented the league on that football deal.

"It was part of what justified a significant increase in the ACC's package last time around," said Frank, executive vice president of IMG Media. "They had just taken on Boston College and Virginia Tech."

The prospect of gaining that kind of clout was the driving force behind expansion. It quickly paid off.

The ACC's first post-expansion football contract, with ABC and ESPN in 2004, was worth $260 million over seven years, or about $16 million more per year than the previous contract. That meant more money for each school, even with the additions of Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami.

The deal will expire after the 2010 season, and Frank said in a telephone interview that negotiations on a new one generally begin about two years out. Frank, who hopes to represent the ACC again, declined to speculate on the likely length and value of a new deal but said the conference's bargaining position remains strong.

"The ACC has indicated a willingness to play games on Thursday nights and Saturday nights, which has been helpful," he said, "and the league has been pretty balanced. No one's really dominated it over the years. And the quality of football has certainly been excellent."

The league put 10 of its 12 teams in bowl games this season -- a record for any conference.

That kind of depth translates into "exposures," or televised games. Only three games involving conference teams this season were not televised or live-streamed on the Web, Kelly noted, and 21 games involving ACC teams were broadcast nationally in prime time, surpassing last year's 17. The ACC made more prime-time appearances -- in nationally televised games, generally 7-11 p.m. -- than the powerful Southeastern Conference.

"If we are the only conference in NCAA history to ever do this," Kelly said of the record number of bowl bids, "don't you think the TV broadcasters may be interested in that overall quality of play?"

On the negative side

They also may be interested in some numbers that reveal the flip side of depth:

* The ACC is the first Division I conference ever in which each football team lost at least three league games.

* Since 2004, the year Virginia Tech and Miami joined the ACC, the league is 14-16 in bowl games and 0-4 in Bowl Championship Series games. It hasn't won a BCS game since 1999.

* Although the ACC went 37-11 in nonconference games this season, it is 1-20 against nonconference opponents ranked in the nation's top 10 since expanding in 2004.

* The SEC championship game was the most-watched college football game of the year, seen by more than 15 million people and 9.3 percent of TV households -- the Nielsen rating. With a rating of 5.5, the Big 12 title game was the eighth-most-viewed game this year. Virginia Tech's 30-12 victory over Boston College in the ACC title game drew only a 2.6 rating and, by many accounts, was played in front of a half-empty stadium in Tampa, Fla.

* Seven of the eight highest-rated games of the season were on ABC on Saturday night, none involving an ACC team. Of the ACC's 21 prime-time appearances, only three were on Saturday nights on ABC. Most were on the lower-rated Thursday night telecasts or on Saturday nights on ESPN2 and ESPNU, which reach smaller audiences.

For example, the ACC's average rating on Thursday nights was 2.1, lagging the overall rating of 2.3 for that time slot and far short of ABC's Saturday night average of 4.9, said Michael Humes, a spokesman for ABC and ESPN.

Though ABC and ESPN can't always choose which games they want -- other leagues' TV deals come into play -- "the great thing about college football is that you have the flexibility to follow the story lines as they develop and put those games in the most viewed windows," Humes said.

Perhaps more to the point, the ACC just wasn't part of the national championship conversation. Only one conference team, Georgia Tech at 14th, finished among the top 15 in the final BCS standings. Virginia Tech, which finished No. 3 last season, dropped to 19th. Florida State and Miami, a pair of once- dependable fixtures on the championship scene, have gone a relatively ordinary 8-4 and 7-5, respectively, this season.

Time benefits ACC

While acknowledging that its low buzz factor could be used to drive down the ACC's price, Pilson said, the negotiators "all sit there knowing that, if history is any guide, situations change. And if you're making an eight- or 15-year deal, it obviously doesn't make a lot of sense to do it based on the won-lost record of the given year in which you're negotiating."

Besides, Kelly said, the timing will work to the ACC's advantage. These negotiations will follow the SEC's blockbuster deals with CBS and ESPN, worth a combined $3 billion over 15 years.

"We're next up," Kelly said with obvious relish.

Yet, the ACC also doesn't have to close a deal tomorrow. The league can wait a couple of years for its football programs to grow stronger.

"We feel that our football programs are all really pointed in the right direction, which can only lead to even stronger teams in terms of rankings and therefore probably even more valuable to the package," Kelly said.

 

A well-timed call from the Hall
By Whitey Reid
Published: December 26, 2008

It was at a roast in his honor, just prior to getting inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in November, when Virginia coach Dom Starsia had an overwhelming feeling of embarrassment sweep through him.
One might say that’s the whole point of a roast, but in this case Starsia was taken aback by something that most people would be basking in.
“Guys were getting up and talking about winning championships and winning rings,” recalled Starsia, who had his entire family and about 150 former players and colleagues in attendance. “I really wanted to get up there and say, ‘It’s really not about that.’ It really was all about all the people who were in the room. The championships are a wonderful byproduct.
“We’ve certainly won a lot of games over the years, but there have just been so many great people. That’s the stuff that stands the test of time as much as anything else.”
Starsia’s coaching style is certainly something that has endured. His rapport with players and fellow coaches has been a big
reason why. Talk to just about anyone and they inevitably bring up the New York City native’s infectious personality.
“The reason Virginia lacrosse is what it has become now is because of Dom,” said former Virginia captain Matt Ward. “I think he’s such a great coach and understands the game so well, but he understands what’s important in life.
“He instills values in the team and brings in kids with high character who kind of mesh with the way he looks at life. He cares about the kids first and foremost. He’ll talk with you about everything from your schoolwork to your social life. You couldn’t ask for a better coach. Everything is important to him.”
Members of the media wax poetic when talking about Starsia. The 56-year-old father of four is extremely accessible.
Longtime Virginia assistant coach Marc Van Arsdale couldn’t think of a more worthy candidate for the Hall.
“He’s been at the top of our game for a long time,” Van Arsdale said. “The thing with him is that it hasn’t just been the results on the field. He’s done it the right way.
“It’s his enthusiasm and day-to-day effort that has been sustained over time is what has made him so successful.”
Starsia is one of the most successful coaches in the sport’s history. He’s just one of three men’s coaches to have won at least 100 games at two schools. He coached at Brown from 1982 to 1992, compiling a record of 101-46, leading his alma mater to two Ivy League titles and five NCAA tournament berths while being named the USILA Morris Touchstone coach of the year in 1985 and 1991.
In 1993, he took over at Virginia and has since led the Cavaliers to three national championships (1999, 2003 and 2006).
At UVa, he has a record of 184-62 and has led the Cavaliers to 10 NCAA semifinal appearances.
“He’s been outstanding throughout his entire career,” said former Virginia coach Jim Adams, Starsia’s predecessor, who first met Starsia when he was a player at Brown in the early 1970s. “When he was at Brown, he had some very good teams and has continued that here at Virginia. I think he’s very deserving of the Hall of Fame. He’s done a great job.”
Starsia, of course, likes taking credit for his accomplishments about as much as Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens enjoys being a team player. When you ask him about his success, he immediately brings up Van Arsdale, along with the likes of past and present coaches like Chris Colbeck, Hannon Wright, Doug Knight and Tucker Radebaugh.
“It goes without saying that it’s a team sport,” Starsia said. “It may be that my name is the one on the Hall of Fame plaque, but this is a group activity. I’m not trying to be too gracious by saying that. That’s just the reality of it. You can’t do this by yourself. There’s no chance that this is happening without them.”
Starsia’s election to the Hall of Fame came as total surprise — especially since he was on the voting board and hadn’t heard a peep about his nomination. He says it was a special feeling when he received word.
“It makes you think about the length of your career and all the people you’ve had the pleasure to work with, both on the staff and workings with players,” he said. “It really has been a pretty great ride.”

 

Henrich ready for ACC slate
By Jay Jenkins
Published: December 27, 2008

When ACC wrestling action unfolds in a matter of weeks, Chris Henrich will be a marked man in many respects.

The sophomore grappler turned heads in his debut season winning the league’s rookie of the year award and later an invitation to the NCAA championships. He followed that up by claiming All-American honors at the University Freestyle National Championships and the FILA Junior National Championships.

Despite the pressure that is associated with raising the bar individually, Henrich walks and talks with a swagger proving that lessons learned last season, including five one-point losses, should propel him even further.

“Last year, I felt like I kind of needed some time to get into it and get the whole feel of college wrestling,” said Henrich, currently ranked No. 12 nationally in the 174-pound weight class. “This year, you can throw me out there against anybody and I am ready for them. I am excited about it.

“What it comes down to is that you can’t be scared of it. It has to be fun for you and you have to be confident of what you are doing. A year ago I couldn’t have said that, but 365 days later, whatever happened, I have that confidence now to go out there and be ready for anyone that is on the mat.”

Thus far, Henrich has lived up to the hype. The Lansdale, Penn., native is 16-0, including an 8-0 mark in dual matches. He has also registered two falls, three technical falls and five victories by major decision.

The season, however, could not have started soon enough for Henrich.

“It actually worked out perfectly because we had been going so hard in the [wrestling] room pretty much since the summer. We were kind of getting sick of beating on each other,” Henrich said. “It was time to turn it on to some people in different colors because that’s what we do it for.

“It is fun to some degree [at practice] but you want to take it out there and take it out on other guys and show what you have been working on outside of the room.”

Henrich’s dominance has been a boost to Virginia’s efforts as a team in its dual matches. Despite a tough schedule that included dates with four foes ranked in the top 16 programs in the country, the Cavaliers (4-4) have been ranked most of the season and currently sit at No. 24.

“I think this is going to be another stepping stone of a year. We have a lot of guys who are stepping up or need to step up in order to make a difference,” Henrich said. “It is not a make-or-break year, but I think it is a year that we need to get a lot of matches because again we are a very young team and, I think, we can crack into the top 15 and possibly in the top 10 if everything works out right.

“On the contrary, if we don’t do the right things and things don’t go our way, we can fall off in the national rankings and look at it as a step back. That would not be the case really, but it is about us building and making mistakes and learning from our mistakes. This definitely can be a good year.”

While the ultimate team goal includes an ACC title, something Virginia narrowly missed last year, individual recognition can be earned for the Cavaliers, including Henrich, at the NCAA Championships.

“Last year, I was right where I wanted to be as a freshman going in to the NCAAs,” Henrich said. “Obviously, things didn’t turn out as well as I wanted, but getting that experience there last year has lit a fire in my belly and I am willing to do whatever it takes to get back there and do a lot better this year.”

 

Ex-Cav adjusts to life in NBA
By Jeff White
Published: December 25, 2008

By the time he played in his first NBA game, Sean Singletary was on his third NBA team. And the former University of Virginia star's professional odyssey was not over.

Singletary, one of Sacramento's second-round picks in June, was traded Dec. 10 to team No. 4 -- the Charlotte Bobcats.

"It's a business," said Singletary, a 6-0 point guard. "I've been on a lot of teams, and it's been pretty tough, but you learn from your experiences."

Singletary played for the Kings' summer-league team before being traded in mid-August to the Houston Rockets. Less than two weeks later, he was shipped to Phoenix.

There, his mentors included Steve Nash and Grant Hill -- as well as a big guy named Shaq -- and Singletary split time with another rookie, Goran Dragic, as the Suns' No. 2 point guard. But when Phoenix and Charlotte agreed on a major trade involving Raja Bell, Jason Richardson and Boris Diaw, among others, Singletary was added to the deal. And so he found himself back in ACC country this month.

"A lot of Carolina blue here," Singletary said.

He's the Bobcats' No. 3 point guard behind Raymond Felton and D.J. Augustin, and there's no guarantee he'll stick in Charlotte. Singletary has appeared in only three games -- for a total of four minutes -- and scored two points for the Bobcats.

For now, though, he's happy. He's closer to his family in Philadelphia, and to his alma mater, and he's known Bobcats coach Larry Brown for years.

When Singletary was a schoolboy, his friends included Ryan Ayers, whose father, Randy, was one of Brown's assistants on the 76ers. Singletary and Ryan Ayers would watch the Sixers practice periodically.

"Coach Brown is great," Singletary said. "He wants me to play my game, and he believes in me."

Nobody believes in Singletary more than U.Va. coach Dave Leitao. In three seasons under Leitao, Singletary made the all-ACC first team three times and became the face of the Cavaliers' program.

Singletary and Leitao trade text messages regularly, and the coach tries to keep the player's spirits up. First and foremost, Leitao tells Singletary, remember that as an NBA player "you're living out a dream."

Leitao said his other message to Singletary is this: "In order for this to work, you've got to maintain your patience and maintain your aggressiveness."

That's no easy task. Until this season, Singletary never had been a pass-first point guard. In four seasons at U.Va., he scored 2,079 points -- fifth-most in school history -- and made 222 3-pointers.

As an NBA rookie, though, he's been cast in a supporting role. No longer is Singletary expected to supply a significant chunk of his team's offense. A reserve point guard in the NBA often is on the court with several starters, and his job "is to get those guys shots," Leitao noted.

In such situations, Singletary can become passive and stop looking for his offense. When that happens, he's not nearly as effective.

"It's a delicate, delicate balance between the coach's want and establishing yourself as an NBA player," Leitao said.

Singletary appeared in 13 games for the Suns, averaging 2.6 points, 1.2 rebounds and 0.9 assists. His role with the Bobcats has been smaller, but Singletary remains confident that he'll succeed in the NBA. Even if it requires another stop or two.

"I would like to settle in and be somewhere for a while," Singletary said, "but you never know what's going to happen. You just take it day to day."