After initial resistance from men's lacrosse team officials, Virginia granted attackman Joe Yevoli a release last week, allowing him to contact other schools regarding the possibility of transferring for his senior season. Yevoli sat out last season due to a misdiagnosed back injury and first requested the release at the end of May after, according to his father, he was urged to play hurt and then kicked off the team.
Following a denial by the team to grant Yevoli a release in May, he appealed the decision and in accordance with NCAA procedure had his case presented at a university hearing in late June. Should Yevoli now choose to officially leave Virginia, a subsequent request and release to transfer is merely a formality.
Neither Yevoli himself nor his father, also named Joe Yevoli, could be contacted following the outcome of the hearing, although the Yevoli's father went on record last week to talk about his son's experience with the team and head coach Dom Starsia over the past year.
The problems between Yevoli and the team began in the spring of 2004 during the attackman's junior season when he was injured during the team's first spring scrimmage. His injury was diagnosed by team trainers as a hip injury and he played the rest of the season in pain, recording his lowest totals for goals (19) and points (31) since arriving at Virginia. The pain continued to persist and in September, 2004, Yevoli visited his family doctor in New York where he was diagnosed with having three stress fractures in his back. These fractures forced Yevoli to sit out Virginia's fall tournaments and scrimmages and eventually led to him red-shirting his entire senior season. According to the attackman's father, Starsia wasn't content with the decision.
"Starsia didn't like that [decision]," Yevoli said. "He thought Joe should play at 70 percent."
Starsia said that forcing Yevoli to play hurt was never an issue.
"We all wished Joe could have played but no one forced him to play or expected him to play if he wasn't going to be healthy," Starsia said. "After he decided in January that he wasn't going to play we never pressured him to play."
Even though Yevoli ended up medically red-shirting his senior season, he still attended the majority of the team's practices and following an agreement he made with Starsia, worked towards graduating while also beginning the process of rehabilitating his back.
But whatever the situation was between Yevoli and the team, it all changed in the week leading up to Virginia's NCAA quarterfinal game against Navy May 21.
"He officially got kicked off the team the Wednesday before the Navy game in the NCAA tournament," Yevoli said. "[Assistant coach and former Virginia attackman] Connor Gill called him up and told him that he wasn't traveling with them to Baltimore [site of the quarterfinal] and that he was off the team."
Starsia denied these allegations, saying that Yevoli was never kicked off the team and simply didn't make the travel list for the quarterfinal.
Whether officially kicked off the team or simply left off the travel list, Yevoli immediately requested a release to contact, which if granted gives a player permission to contact other schools about the possibility of transferring. The team promptly denied the request.
Starsia explained the reasoning behind the denial.
"If there's some indication that someone wants to explore transferring, we could indicate that we are not prepared to release them to play," Starsia said. "We don't have to release somebody. If the school says they don't want to release you then you have the right to appeal that decision. None of that is out of the ordinary."
Upon being denied, Yevoli quickly appealed the team's decision and waited for a hearing to be arranged by the University, one that finally took place on June 30
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