I've spent the past four years asking athletes and coaches what they've learned. The answers have ranged from the mind-numbingly boring to the incredibly fascinating.
Charlottesville was a zoo the morning of Aug. 28, 2004. Minivans were parked on medians, parents were sweating up stairs with mountains of clothes, and box fans were being revved up in every window. On that blazing hot summer day, the best group of athletes the University has seen in a long, long time moved.
This column is going to fail. I'm 100 percent, no question, hand-on-my-heart guaranteeing it. Why?
I am a second-semester fourth-year. I have exactly 40 days of classes left before college ends and the real world begins.
I am writing this in a T-shirt with the window open. If my "Forecastfox" add-on is right, you'll be reading this with mittens on, possibly while riding a snowmobile. So in the spirit of spring, and because I have the attention span of a gerbil in this weather, today is about bouncing around the sports world.
Back in 2003, when some of you first-years were just wee babes, Coors aired a legendary TV commercial titled "Love Song." The ad was subtle, the target audience was sophisticated and the lyrics (screamed by a pack of wild, beer-chugging dudes) went something like this: "I love football on TV, shots of Gina Lee, hanging with my friends ... and twins.
Less than a week from today, this year's football season will come to an end. Kids will cry, men will eject themselves from their recliners for the first time since Halloween, and beer vendors will enter their own version of Prohibition. But the most devastated person in the country will not be wearing a cheese-head or a foam finger -- that person will be the editor of People magazine. It seems like this season the NFL has been one part ESPN and one part TMZ.
You're hot stuff. You've got recruiters all over you, begging you to take your game to the next level.
Arms crossed, Dave Leitao stands at midcourt. In his tucked-in white polo shirt he looks exactly like one of the giant pillars holding up the front of John Paul Jones Arena, and he shows about as much emotion. Leitao is single-handedly running the basketball team's daily practice in the bowels of an awkwardly empty building that magnifies every shout, grunt and hard foul as a dozen giants in matching Nikes try to kill each other. On the "Blue Team" there are the big names (Singletary, Diane, Joseph) and a couple new bright spots in the Cavalier lineup (freshman guard Jeff Jones and freshman forward Mike Scott). The "Orange Team" is made up of the spoilers: Sammy Zeglinski, Jamil Tucker, Andy Burns, Jerome Meyinsse and Mustapha Farrakhan.
