Four hours before every Virginia football game at Scott Stadium, some of the nation's best high school recruits pour into the McCue Center near University Hall with anticipation and a wary eye as to where they will continue their careers. For weeks before, a group of intensely committed students have facilitated this trip in hope that a portion of these high school football stars will choose to play in Cavalier orange and blue.
The Virginia students who have helped to create this experience are members of the Cavalier Connection, a selective group of 35 women and men who work directly with the football coaches and staff year-round to construct the unofficial visits of high school juniors and seniors.
On the afternoons of home games, after a tour of grounds, the recruits travel to Scott Stadium to have a meal with coaches and members of the Connection. Afterward, they are led into the Cavalier locker room in hope that they will envision themselves in uniform, either preparing for a game or celebrating victory. Finally, in the pinnacle of this unofficial visit, these high school athletes are led to the hallowed ground of Hamilton Field and during pre-game, they toe the sideline which defines the distinction between their status as a recruit and the possible future as a star.
During their stay, the Cavalier Connection provides high school athletes with information on all things Virginia -- not only football, but also social life and academics.
High school football players are allowed any number of unofficial visits to the colleges of their choice and then during their senior year are allowed five official visits to five schools. In recruiting, the Cavaliers assign each assistant football coach to an area of the country, with the positional coaches also specializing in the recruits from their position, as well as a Cavalier Connection team captain to assist with mailings. Coach Al Groh is heavily involved in the entire process, overseeing the recruitment of the best players in the nation and able to rattle off statistics about almost any recruit.
"We want to have an important team, so it is very important to get really good players," Groh said when he was announced as coach in early in 2001. "We are going to be very aggressive and very active in accumulating and upgrading talent."
While Virginia has been transformed by Groh during his three seasons as commander-and-chief of the football team, the Cavalier Connection has undergone a similar revolution during the years of leadership by student directors Bobbi Hansford and Yaa Agyekum.
Since their application into the Connection at the end of their first year, these women have devoted an incredible amount of time to the task of luring high school recruits to the grounds of Virginia and experienced remarkable success. The work of Groh and his coaching staff, fortified by the unwavering commitment from Hansford and Agyekum to the Cavalier Connection, has landed recruiting classes of the past two years which rank among the nation's best. Even just walking through the halls of the McCue Center, one can sense the relationship that each member of the Cavalier Connection holds with the team and coaching staff exemplified in hugs, high-fives and words of encouragement.
"The coaches really, really appreciate it," Agyekum said. "They are thanking us ahead of the weekend for what we haven't even done yet."
Within the Connection itself, the present student directors have instituted an improved application process and an orientation for all members before classes begin in August. Emphasized throughout the entire process and membership are the qualities of teamwork, flexibility and interaction both in coordination with the group as a whole, and in the link they try to establish with the recruits. While in earlier years the members may have been perceived as a ragtag group of students, the present Cavalier Connection has evolved into a devoted corps of volunteers.
"The most important part is that you need to have a good time," Hansford said. "If you're not having a good time doing what you're doing, then the people you are hosting are definitely not going to have a good time."
Throughout the year, the members of the Connection send out thousands of mailings to the top high school football recruits in the country. Included in these mailings are good luck cards for upcoming high school games, invitations to come to a Virginia home game and congratulations on accomplishments during the course of the season. In a large percentage of each mailing, members of the Connection hand address each envelope and include personal notes along with each letter.
"We really think that if we show them how enthusiastic we are about Virginia football, that they can't help but see that maybe they should really come here," Hansford said.
For the past three years, with Virginia now in the ever-improving Groh Era, the recruiting staff at the University has landed the best high school football players in the nation as part of an effort to re-invent Cavalier football. With them in the football offices of the McCue Center, a devoted group of students who call themselves members of the Cavalier Connection are able to claim a personal contribution to this effort to take Virginia into the top realm of college football success.
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