UPDATE, 2pm Thursday: Police have announced that the Richmond Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled the death an accident. The investigation into the shooting continues.
Those who would like to give to support the family or to charity in Maggie’s name can visit this online donation site.
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UPDATE, 8pm: According to a report from the Charlottesville Newsplex, the 10-year-old girl shot and killed Tuesday was Maggie Hollifield, daughter of pastor Paul Hollifield, who leads Commonwealth Christian Community church. Newsplex reports the church issued a letter identifying the girl and saying the shooting was accidental. Police have yet to confirm the victim’s identity, and have not released information on the age or identity of the juvenile male shooter or whether the two were related.
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Albemarle County police are continuing their investigation of the fatal shooting of a 10-year-old girl by a juvenile boy in Crozet Tuesday morning.
“They’re still putting together the pieces,” Albemarle County police spokeswoman Carter Johnson said of law enforcement, who set up a staging center at the Open Door Ministry Church near the scene of the shooting, which took place just after 10am on the 1400 block of McAllister Street off St. George Avenue not far from Crozet’s downtown.
Police have shared little about the incident, beyond confirming that the 10-year-old was shot and died at the scene, and that a male juvenile “was involved and discharged the gun.” No one is in custody, Johnson said.
Neighbors told Newsplex reporters that the shooting happened at the home of the pastor of Commonwealth Christian Community, which is affiliated with the Open Door Ministry. According to an April story in the Crozet Gazette, the church, formerly called Victory Hill, renamed itself this past Easter when Paul Hollifield was appointed as its pastor. That story says Hollifield and his wife moved to Crozet with their four children, all home-schooled, last September.
A Daily Progress report from the scene yesterday described a neighborhood in shock, with family and other mourners coming and going from the Open Door Ministry throughout the day.
Stephanie Holladay Earl as the Duchess and Andrew Goldwasser as Antonio in American Shakespeare Center’s production of The Duchess of Malfi. Photo by Michael Bailey.
Vicious but mesmerizing, The Duchess of Malfi tells the story of one of the stage’s greatest women and two of its greatest villains. The widowed Duchess disobeys her two brothers by secretly marrying her household steward. When they reveal her sham, a slew of dreadful events are planned that ultimately result in a tale of tragic love and persisting madness.
Through 6/15 $16-40, times vary. Blackfriars Playhouse, 10 S. Market St., Staunton. (540) 851-1733.
The first thing that pops into your mind as an everyday wine drinker who’s looking to start laying down a few bottles is, inevitably: “Don’t I need a big temperature-and-humidity-controlled dungeon, replete with rustic stone walls, candles, and old first-growth Bordeaux?” The answer is “No.” Cellaring wine is, really, all about understanding the rules and knowing when to break them. Truth is, a nice cool place to store your aging wine is all you need. Well, that, and a few choice tips on the types of wine to buy, how to manage it, and when to drink it.
Let’s start with a few basic questions, shall we? What are the benefits of cellaring? Why bother? Realistically speaking, most wine is ready to drink right now, today, yesterday, so why do you need a cellar? Well, because that small percentage of wine that is built to age has something in store for you that no young wine can deliver. Tannins, which preserve the wine, soften up and become another layer in the wine’s expression. Flavors and aromas that were abrasive and unkempt at an early age tend to develop, mature, and mellow, leaving a fundamentally more complex and interesting wine than what you started with.
(Also, on a practical level, it’s just really nice to have a personal collection of hand-picked wine that reflects your palate and personality.)
Now, when it comes to cellaring wine (and drinking aged wine), there are a few general rules that should be followed. Temperatures in a cellar should generally range between 45 and 60 degrees; the higher the temps, the faster the wine will age (which is not always a good thing), but for most cellars, mid-50s is a good benchmark. Humidity is also an important factor in your cellar: If the environment is too dry, the corks can dry out relatively quickly and lead to leakage. While the optimal humidity for a cellar is around 70 percent (this is, again, a good goal), most basement cellars should strive to stay above 50 percent as often as possible. Additionally, you want to avoid any direct sunlight, so a basement corner is ideal.
Achieving these conditions on a DIY-scale is not impossible, but, depending on the investment tied up in your wine cellar, you may want to consider a professional consultant who specializes in cellar design. While smaller cellars can utilize standalone fridges, as your love of aged wine grows into an obsession, those fridges fill up very quickly.
Next on your checklist is finding a solution for managing your inventory well. Sure, when you have three or four cases in your basement, it’s easy to know everything about each one of those bottles. When did I buy it? Where? How much did it cost? How many do I have?
But as your collection grows (growing your cellar can easily become an obsession), wine inevitably gets “lost.” For many, this is their management strategy: put it in an unmarked box and forget about it for a while…out of sight, out of mind. Too haphazard for an investment like this; wine can be forgotten, the perfect meal missed, the special occasion spent with the wrong bottle.
In this arena, technology is our friend. There are many proprietary cellar management software suites, but a free, cloud-based solution such as CellarTracker (www.cellar tracker.com) is actually functionally more useful for most collectors. Not only does it keep your live cellar inventory “in the cloud,” accessible from anywhere (even your phone, via such apps as Cork.z), but it also utilizes professional reviewers and other users to give you ratings, reviews, and (most importantly) recommended drinking windows for your wines. When you have 150 bottles of Cabernet, it’s extraordinarily helpful to be able to sort those wines by “when to drink.”
O.K., so you have your cellar management strategies down; now what wines should you buy? Of course, this is a question to which there is no one answer, but as a rule, you should buy wine that has the tannic and/or acidic structure to last. Predicting “ageability,” to be frank, is a skillset that is both subjective and fraught with hits-and-misses; however, most wines that are built to last for an extended period of time in your cellar will typically have substantial tannic structure (that gritty, sandpaper-esque texture that many reds exhibit), and/or sufficient acidity to make it seem a bit brusque upon release but which will preserve it for many years to come.
Last but not least, buy at least three bottles of everything. This is a mistake that everyone makes early on: buying a single bottle of something. It’s expensive. I can’t commit to any more than just one. We’ll savor this one bottle. No, absolutely not. Years later, when you haul that dusty bottle out of your cellar and discover that it’s pure magic, nothing will sting you more than realizing that there’s no more left…and since it’s years later, you can’t get any more. Two bottles is better, but having at least three is what you should strive for. One bottle to try after a few years; another just in case the wine’s not ready, and a third (or more) to enjoy when you can be sure it’s ready.
Oh, and never forget: Don’t be afraid to open a bottle. It’s just wine, and sometimes, a special bottle can turn a workaday weeknight into a special occasion. That’s what your cellar should be all about.
Sachin Gadani and a few friends recently spent a weekend combing Charlottesville for cicadas.
The UVA MD-PhD graduate student is head of the University’s entomology club, and he and several fellow amateur bug lovers haven’t had to look hard to find the first local representatives of one of the greatest spectacles of the insect world: the spring emergence of a massive brood of 17-year cicadas.
The big, orange-and-black bugs’ presence here is spotty, Gadani said, but “there are certain areas that are just teeming with them right now. My friend said he can’t even walk out of his house because there are so many cicadas smacking him in the face.”
Magicicada septendecim is one of several species in the eastern U.S. that spends nearly two decades underground before crawling from the soil and taking to the trees to sing, mate, lay eggs, and die—all in the course of a few months.
In “good locations” in Virginia, said Eric Day, the entomologist in charge of Virginia Tech’s Insect Identification Lab, their numbers could reach 1 million per acre.
“The word ‘invasion’ gets used a lot,” he said. And that leads to comparisons to the unwelcome hordes of invasive brown marmorated stink bugs and Asian lady beetles that regularly swarm local homes, their numbers unchecked by natural predators.
But that’s not quite fair, said Day, considering the cicada is no invader.
“You’re kind of throwing them in with a bad lot there,” he said. “These things are native, and for the most part, they’re not really causing that much damage.”
Indeed, while they might look like a plague of locusts, the large, winged insects won’t be ravaging any crops. Nor do they bite or sting. What they will do is lay a lot of eggs at the ends of deciduous tree branches, Day explained—enough that many branch tips will snap off. That’s a concern for orchard owners, who could see the twigs of young fruit trees wrecked as they’re turned into cicada nurseries.
“A tree may take a long time to recover from that kind of damage,” he said, but the reliable cycle of broods means people have plenty of time to plan, and most fruit growers know not to plant new trees for a year or two before a major emergence like this one.
The bugs’ rigid regularity gives us a lot to wonder at. On the East Coast, there are 12 broods of 17-year cicadas, each on their own cycle—the longest of any insect species. Some years, none emerge, said Day, but Virginia is the stomping ground of two big populations: Brood X, which last hatched in 2004, and Brood II, which is just digging its way into the light now.
Researchers think the long wait between boom times and the fact that they come at prime-number intervals has helped the insects avoid syncing life cycles with animals that would feed on them exclusively. “That’s borne out in that there are virtually no specialized predators or parasites for periodic cicadas,” said Day.
But the reasons for the long period underground are still shrouded in mystery. “We have these theories, and the evidence seems to support them, but we don’t know,” he said.
The mystery may be part of why the big hatch-outs so thoroughly capture public attention. “It’s this cryptic, huge population of insects that people suddenly realize was here living under their yard in the tree roots, and then they come out of hiding,” said Day. And there’s something captivating about such a powerful reminder of the endless cycles of nature.
“I think people see them emerge, and it makes them think about what they were doing 17 years ago,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a trip for people.”
Beyoncé performs on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." Image courtesy of Columbia Records.
Throughout her career, Beyoncé has been universally adored. But next month, when the extremely successful singer, songwriter, dancer, actress, and lady with fantastic hips brings her tour stateside, I imagine things will be different. It has been almost taboo—up until this point—to say you don’t like Beyoncé. She’s never given us any reason not to. But now she has, and so this is it. Beyoncé’s fame has reached its tipping point.
The cracks in Beyoncé’s armour first appeared after President Obama’s second inauguration. She was assigned to sing the national anthem, but she didn’t. She lip-synched. Beyoncé admitted that she didn’t sing because there wasn’t enough rehearsal time, so she didn’t feel “comfortable taking a risk.” Pounding a 12-pack and then riding a horse for the first time is taking a risk. Beyoncé, a 17-time Grammy winner, singing live, even without much practice, is not.
Shortly after LipGate, Beyoncé performed during the Super Bowl halftime show. I remember thinking that she nailed it. BuzzFeed did too. The site published photos capturing Beyoncé’s “33 Fiercest Moments.” Horrible headline aside, it was simply a series of pictures of the singer with captions praising her. Almost immediately after the post went live, Beyoncé’s PR team e-mailed BuzzFeed asking them to “take down the unflattering photos” and replace them with ones that had Bey’s stamp of approval.
As weird as that was, Beyoncé topped that with her “documentary,” “Beyoncé: Life is But a Dream.” It was by far the most narcissistic piece of art I’ve ever seen. Not that you had to watch the film to figure that out. “Beyoncé: Life is But a Dream” is a documentary about Beyoncé directed by Beyoncé. Pretty self-explanatory.
The latest in a string of control freak behavior from Beyoncé was the decision to ban all media outlets from sending photographers to document her tour. The move prompted protest from 19 news outlets. Tom Daly, a Charlottesville-based professional photographer who often works with musicians, also took issue with Bey’s actions. “I understand artists wanting to maintain control over their image, and I certainly am in that same boat as a photographer, but I think this policy can backfire on bands,” he explained. “Due to this, the main images people will be seeing of Beyoncé are camera phone photos, which as we all know are not as high quality as pro shots.”
I want to keep enjoying Beyoncé, but she’s making it too difficult. She’s a role model for young girls everywhere, so what is she telling them by lip-synching and trying to stop “bad” photos of her from being published? If Beyoncé (easily one of the most beautiful and talented women alive) doesn’t think she’s good enough or pretty enough, somewhere a teen with Beyoncé’s poster on the wall is wondering if her jeans make her look fat.
Beyoncé has always been a carefully crafted product. There’s never been much depth to her. Unfortunately, we’re finally seeing what’s underneath, and it’s not pleasant. The public backlash is about to begin, and with no shell to protect her, Beyoncé is going to feel it. As her husband and Kanye West pointed out, there’s no church in the wild.
Famous People Who are Crazier Than Beyoncé, Yet Still More Likable:
Charlottesville Tomorrow Executive Director Brian Wheeler moderates as Democratic City Council candidates Bob Fenwick, Adam Lees, Wes Bellamy, Melvin Grady, and Kristin Szakos answer media and audience questions at last week’s public forum. Photo: Christian Hommel
While the Democrats prepare for the June 11 primaries, two Republicans are quietly taking notes on the issues raised and looking ahead to the November general election, hoping to become the first conservative representatives on City Council since 2002. The five Democratic candidates fielded media and audience questions during an open forum last Thursday, where they discussed everything from transportation to per-pupil spending. Uninvited Republican candidates Charles “Buddy” Weber and retiring city police sergeant Michael Farruggio, who sat in the back of the room to observe the discussion, know they have their work cut out for them if they want break the Dems’ stranglehold on the Council.
“As a Republican we’re outnumbered here by three to one,” said Weber, the Charlottesville Republican Party Chair.
About 50 people filled the rows of fold-up chairs in the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center last Thursday, which had an air of friendly competition. Vice Mayor and incumbent candidate Kristin Szakos, emphasized the importance of having a representative on Council who understands the problems of low-income families. Wes Bellamy, the 26-year-old founder of youth empowerment group Helping Young People Evolve and a Albemarle High School computer science teacher, is one of two African-American candidates, and has said he hopes to replace Councilor Dave Norris as a voice for public housing residents.
Bob Fenwick, a local builder who made unsuccessful runs for City Council as an independent in 2009 and 2011, has joined the Democrats this time around and said last week that Council needs to prioritize taxes and fees to support local businesses. UVA graduate student Adam Lees, a 24-
year-old studying politics and foreign affairs, spoke passionately about transportation and treating low-income families with dignity. Buford Middle School math teacher Melvin Grady, whose uncle Charles Barbour was the city’s first black mayor, is a Charlottesville native whose priorities are early childhood education and, like his fellow candidates, affordable housing.
Of the topics discussed at last week’s forum, the Republicans agreed that three issues stood out in their minds: poverty, the homeless, and the embattled Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority. They’re all interconnected, Weber said, and before publicly stating a particular stance, he and Farruggio are going door-
to-door around town to gauge residents’ priorities and establish a plan to win the votes of a traditionally liberal population.
Farruggio, who has lived in the city since 1988 and served on the Fry’s Spring Neighborhood Association, said the decision to run as a Republican wasn’t an easy one to make.
“I wish everything was not so partisan,” he said. “The majority of my friends are not republicans, but…I can work with anyone.”
After Thursday’s two-hour question-and-
answer session, Farruggio commented on the question about race that had briefly silenced the entire room. In response to an audience inquiry about whether or not City Council should have at least one black representative, Farruggio said he agreed with Bellamy, who said the seat should be filled by the most qualified candidate, regardless of color.
“You can’t say you’re going to hold the position for anybody,” he said. “And if that’s the case, why in the world aren’t they holding a position for a Republican?”
Silent film star Buster Keaton (shown above in The General) put himself in danger repeatedly while performing his own stunts.
“Chaplin or Keaton?” is one of those eternal questions, like “Star Wars or Star Trek?” “The Beatles or the Stones?” There’s no correct answer, but the side you pick can reveal fundamental aspects of your character. Charlie Chaplin is far more famous today, with his “Tramp” character’s iconic bowler hat, mustache, and cane making him an easily recognized caricature around the world, a century after his first appearance. But many film aficionados and comedy fans prefer Buster Keaton, “the great stone face,” and his heart-stopping stunts.
Keaton’s work is full of compelling contradictions. He maintained a stoic, deadpan expression even as the world collapsed around him. He brought an elegance to orchestrating calamitous mishaps and destruction. Both a wide-eyed innocent and a cynical prankster, he conveyed an irrepressible gentleness and thoughtfulness even while risking his life, and health, by executing incredibly dangerous stunts. Whereas Chaplin’s films are broad and often sentimental, Keaton’s work is more subtle and graceful, and more ambitious in its staging of comedic mayhem.
Born to Vaudeville performers, Keaton was raised on the stage, learning how to execute cartoonish pratfalls as soon as he learned to walk. He began his film career as a gag man and character actor in Mack Sennett’s productions in the 1910s, often working alongside Fatty Arbuckle. He perfected his skills by directing his own short films in the late teens, and hit his stride in the ’20s as a director of a series of features in which he starred. Steamboat Bill, Jr., Go West, College, and Battling Butler are among his masterpieces.
The common tragedy of silent stars is that sound killed many of their careers. It’s possible that Keaton might have survived the transition—the intertitles in his films are often as funny as the sight gags—but his career was crushed by studio mismanagement when he transferred to MGM, compounded by debilitating alcoholism. He never regained his winning streak of the 1920s, but in later years he regained some stability, working as a joke writer for the Marx Brothers and Lucille Ball, and cementing his legacy through numerous cameo appearances in film and television.
Buster Keaton’s beloved 1926 film The General screens at the Paramount on Sunday, May 26. This marks the film’s second appearance at the theater in as many years, butitis a perennial favorite. Keaton counted it among his favorite films, and everyone from Orson Welles to Roger Ebert has claimed it as not only his best comedy, but one of the greatest films of all time.
The Generalstars Keaton as a railroad engineer for the Confederate Army (a questionable choice, justified with the specious argument that Keaton thought the audience would rather root for an underdog) whose fiancée is kidnapped by Union soldiers. Keaton pursues them by rail, and the film’s first half is a breathtaking and sidesplitting locomotive chase, as technically impressive as it is hilarious.
In an era predating not only modern CGI but even the simple technological advances required for stop-motion or miniature model-work of the mid-20th century, the only way to film the elaborate chase sequences by train was to get your hands on some trains and actually do it. Keaton races from one train car to the next, climbing along and under a driverless moving engine, firing cannons, switching tracks, and de-coupling cars, often all within a single shot. That Keaton was able to execute these sequences without getting himself killed is impressive. That he was able to instill these moving trains with his own perfect comic timing is the essence of his genius.
The film loses a little steam in its second half, but retains its funnybone, and builds towards a climax in which a speeding train collapses a burning wooden bridge, filmed (you guessed it) by sending a speeding train across a burning wooden bridge, in what was considered the most expensive stunt of the silent film era.
The Sunday screening of The General will again be accompanied by musician Matt Marshall, who teaches film at Hollins University and at UVA, and who frequently composes and performs silent scores in the area. Live music is one of the joys of silent film screenings, and Marshall’s good sense and light touch are far preferable to the often plodding and chintzy scores on Kino’s DVD releases. The screening will include wine and food tastings and a raffle in the lobby at 3pm, a pre-film program at 4pm (including comments from film historians, an archival newsreel, and a Popeye cartoon short), with the feature screening at 5pm. The event is free.
Sunday 5/26 Free, 3pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 979-1333.
Share your thoughts on the era of silent film in the comments section below…
The Virginia Cavaliers baseball team, which only returned three seniors, fell short of back-to-back national championships.
Photo: Jeff Lack/ICON SMI BAJ/Jeff Lack/ICON SMI/Newscom
I have a friend who is a sportswriter of the old school, like Frank Bascombe or George Plimpton. He sees the game as a metaphor for every noble human experience from tragedy to exaltation. In that world, Mickey Mantle’s story is about an Okie who conquers the Big Apple with raw physical talent, then destroys himself, physically and psychologically, through alcohol and recklessness, and finally has the good sense to laugh it off.
In that world, there are the falls from grace (Pete Rose), the runners up (Jerry West), the magicians (Wayne Gretzky), and the superhumans (Michael Jordan). Perhaps more significantly, at least for Plimpton, there were also the men whose bodies become weapons for social change: Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Curt Flood, Arthur Ashe, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In that world, a game is never just a game. The country kid who kicks around the minors and emerges a hero in a major media market during a playoff run is The Natural.
I have another friend who’s a basketball coach. He wakes up in the middle of the night with a gnawing fear. The statistics, the geometry that cuts up the floor, the video footage are his information. The players are his materiel. Winning his beacon. His life is a pressure cooker of details. He hardly sees the game anymore, he sees games, lining up towards the horizon, every single one of them winnable. Every one equally losable.
This week’s feature on UVA baseball coach Brian O’Connor’s quest to build a dynastic program can be read as a metaphor for lots of things. But increasingly, I find myself looking at the game at face value, rejecting the larger narratives. Is there a message I can learn about life from the experience of LeBron or Tebow or Djokovic or Mayweather? When pro athletes cost millions to develop, stars earn the GDPs of small countries, and sportswriters are a dime a dozen, the coaches, who never say anything that can be used against them, are more interesting than the players. O’Connor’s achievements are architectural rather than inspirational, more Ayn Rand than Bernard Malamud. Maybe there is a metaphor in there after all.
Brian O’Connor was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He has called Charlottesville home for 10 years now, and has racked up more than 450 wins as Virginia’s baseball coach. UVA is poised to make its 10th straight NCAA Tournament appearance. Photo: Jim Daves
It was Sunday, April 21, 2013, Brian O’Connor’s 42nd birthday. Virginia had taken both games of Saturday’s doubleheader against No. 5 Florida State and was an inning away from its first-ever sweep of one of college baseball’s most dominant programs.
Pitcher Kyle Crockett stepped into the batter’s box in the bottom of the eighth inning, his team three outs away from victory. A lock-down closer, Crockett had never taken a turn at bat in his collegiate career.
“I really didn’t have anything to lose,” he said.
To the delight of his coaches and the amusement of his teammates, the junior lefty ripped a single up the middle and eventually came around to score the final run of the game. He then completed the six-out save, striking out four of seven batters, while allowing just one hit. UVA won, 5-2.
First baseman Jared King, a Radford native, is the type of hard swinging, fundamentally sound hitter who makes UVA’s batting lineup a top-to-bottom problem for opposing pitchers. Photo: Jim Daves
The historic sweep was the result of a typical formula for O’Connor’s brand of Virginia baseball: stellar pitching and sound defense paired with power, patience, and precision at the plate.
Over the 10 years since the coach arrived from Notre Dame, the names have changed, but the results have not. Once pedestrian, UVA’s baseball program is now a perennial power. The ’Hoos humbled FSU before a total of 13,890 fans, a program record for a three-game series. Sellout crowds of 4,980 attended each of the final two games.
“Pretty good present, certainly,” O’Con-nor said of his birthday.
He wasn’t the only one enjoying himself. Seated in section 106, 74-year-old Marvin Ripley hasn’t missed a home game in more than seven years: “Man, there’ve been some cold ones. Woo-eee.”
Ripley, who sits alongside his wife, Maxine, at Davenport Field, has loved baseball ever since he started listening to the Boston Braves and New York Giants on the radio in 1948. He played the game in high school and eventually coached Little League. He’s a sucker for fundamentals, which is why he fell in love with O’Connor’s teams.
“When they need to lay a bunt down, most times they can. When they need to steal a base, they can,” he said. “And when you hit the ball, you don’t look to see if it’s foul or not, you run to first. Somebody will tell you whether it’s foul or not.”
Since O’Connor’s hiring, Virginia has won more than 450 games, captured two ACC crowns, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament nine times. (UVA had made just three such appearances prior to his arrival). O’Connor has twice taken his team to Omaha, Nebraska, site of the College World Series, and developed quite the following en route.
“We could not have the program at this level that we do today without the fan support,” said O’Connor, who answers to “Oak.” “That fan support that we got the Florida State weekend and that we’ve had for years here impacts every facet of this program.”
Virginia has seen a six-fold increase in home attendance during O’Connor’s reign, a testament to the coach and the juggernaut he has built. In nine seasons, the program has hosted six NCAA regionals and notched seven 40-win seasons. It has produced 48 Major League Baseball draft picks, 13 All-America selections, and 40 All-ACC honorees, including two ACC Players of the Year and two ACC Pitchers of the Year.
The Wahoos have won more games than any other Division I baseball program over the last five years, and the mid-April domination of Florida State—the only ACC team O’Connor had yet to sweep—served as a monument marking 10 years of Oak’s legacy.
“I tell the players all the time, ‘Never take winning for granted’” O’Connor said. “I always guard them against this, that when you have a successful program and you win a lot of games, sometimes they can have a tendency to think that it just happens. College baseball games are hard to win no matter who it’s against. And you need to take enjoyment out of each and every time that you step on the field and are victorious.”
Scott Silverstein, a fifth-year senior from Brookeville, Maryland, embodies the persistent attitude of Coach Brian O’Connor’s teams. A highly-touted recruit, Silverstein underwent two shoulder surgeries and pitched just 14 innings prior to the 2012 season. This year, he has emerged as a force in the Cavalier rotation. Photo: Jim Daves
Headfirst baseball
In June 2003, Virginia Athletics Director Craig Littlepage phoned Paul Mainieri to inquire about his top assistant, a 32-year-old named Brian O’Connor. Then Notre Dame’s skipper, Mainieri spoke with Littlepage at length before calling O’Connor, who was recruiting prep prospects in Omaha, naturally.
“Paul said, ‘Hey, I have the perfect job for you,’” O’Connor recalled. “‘I think I just talked to your future boss.’”
Days later, Littlepage and O’Connor met inside a Radisson Hotel just outside the Cincinnati airport.
“I knew within 10 minutes of our meeting that Brian O’Connor was a guy that offered the University of Virginia and our baseball program something really special,” said Littlepage, who had only taken his post two years prior. “His preparation, his vision, and the detail with which he spoke about what we needed to do to have a nationally competitive baseball program were very, very much on target.”
That Littlepage was even vetting coaching candidates was a victory in and of itself. In the spring of 2001, school administrators proposed a tiering of varsity sports, and baseball was slated to become little more than a club offering.
“Instead, the Board of Visitors made sure that excellence at UVA would include athletics, and we were charged with a game plan by which we could advance and grow our intercollegiate sports programs,” Littlepage said.
That game plan ultimately afforded Littlepage the opportunity to upgrade facilities, fully fund scholarships, and attract strong coaching candidates. He sought to identify coaches who would bring new ideas and energy to programs that were experiencing malaise “to the point where we could have success, be competitive, and win championships both on a conference and national level.”
“My thought hasn’t changed from when we got here and that is to have a very, very consistent program at the highest level that can play in the NCAA tournament every year,” O’Connor said. “We don’t talk about big expectations. We talk more about daily expectations, because if we do the little things, then we’ll have those special opportunities like we had in 2009 and 2011 [at the College World Series].”
The dawning of the 2013 campaign brought with it great uncertainty for Oak & Co. The talent was unmistakable, but so was the inexperience. Pundits held UVA out of preseason polls and predicted a rebuilding year in Charlottesville.
“This year, our expectation was that we were going to win,” said O’Connor, a four-time ACC Coach of the Year. “Are the players different? Do we not have as much experience? Sure that’s the case, but that’s never held us back before. I don’t like to put limitations on any team. Our expectations are to succeed at the very, very highest level and that will never change.”
Three weeks into the season, Virginia was 14-0. The team won its 30th game before it lost its fourth. The sweep of FSU vaulted the Wahoos into the top five of the national rankings. The success didn’t surprise the man in charge.
“It’s a really good group of young men that play the game the right way,” O’Connor said. “Many times this year, we’ve been what people would think would be out of the ball game, down five or six runs in the last couple of innings, and found a way to come back and win the game. We have a chance to win every game and they just don’t quit fighting until the last out.”
The embodiment of the team’s never-say-die attitude is Scott Silverstein, a fifth-year senior from Brookeville, Maryland. Coming out of St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C., the 6’6″ pitcher was a more highly regarded prospect than area phenom Danny Hultzen, who became one of the most decorated players in Virginia baseball history.
In the beginning of his senior season at St. John’s, however, Silverstein experienced sharp pain in his throwing shoulder and was shelved for the majority of the season. In June 2008, he underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum. The southpaw arrived on Grounds that fall and began throwing again but not without discomfort. He was shut down once more and watched from the dugout as his team advanced to Omaha for the first time in school history in 2009.
That summer, Silverstein visited renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews. After multiple cortisone injections and repeated attempts at pitching, he underwent a second major shoulder surgery—this one performed by Andrews. The subsequent rehabilitation was successful, though he was forced to redshirt in 2010. Silverstein threw just 14 innings in 2011, mostly in relief. While Virginia made its second College World Series appearance that year, he logged just one-third of an inning in Omaha.
In 2012, Silverstein pitched regularly for the first time since 2007, his junior year in high school. While his numbers weren’t spectacular, the experience he gained set the stage for a breakout performance this season.
Statistically, Silverstein is among the team leaders in every significant pitching category. Against FSU, he threw seven innings of one-hit ball, as UVA became the first team to hold the Seminoles to one base hit in 15 years. One of the Wahoos’ most dependable pitchers, Silverstein will be a critical piece of his team’s postseason run. He is the epitome of a program built on discipline, devotion, and desire.
“I remember saying to myself that the injury wouldn’t define me as a baseball player, but it would define me as a person, how I responded to it,” Silverstein said. “I’m proud of how far I’ve come.”
While the whole has always been greater than the sum of its parts for Virginia’s teams, O’Connor, a consummate professional, always measured and tactful, is acutely aware of the benefit of strong-willed individuals inside his clubhouse. He is as proud of his pitcher’s comeback as he is of his team’s wins.
“It would have been easy for that kid with the surgery that he had to give up,” O’Connor said of Silverstein. “I mean, 50 percent of the people never return from one of those surgeries, let alone two. It just shows the type of person he is… He’s going to have that for the rest of his life, that he had really tough times at this point in his life and he persevered through them. What a great lesson.”
Embattled Albemarle County Supervisor Chris Dumler leaves the courtroom after today's petition trial. Photo: Laura Ingles
A small group of protesters holding signs that read “Dumler must go” gathered outside the Albemarle County Circuit Courthouse this afternoon for the trial to determine whether Albemarle County Supervisor Chris Dumler will be removed from office. Four and a half hours of testimony later, Judge Cheryl Higgins announced that she will review the evidence presented and announce her decision at 9:30am on Friday, May 31.
Dumler pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual battery in January 2013, following an October arrest on the charge of forcible sodomy, a felony. Scottsville resident Earl Smith circulated a petition to have Dumler removed from office, and after the County Voter Registration and Elections office confirmed the signatures of 470 registered voters, the petition was put in front of Higgins.
County Supervisors Ken Boyd, Duane Snow, and Dennis Rooker were among the dozen witnesses to take the stand during today’s trial. Boyd, the first to give a testimony, stated that he had wanted to give Dumler the benefit of the doubt after his arrest, but “lost all respect for him” after his conviction.
Snow, who delivered an emotional speech at the February 6 Board of Supervisors meeting requesting that Dumler resign and send the right message to women and children, testified that Dumler has abstained from voting on certain matters, canceled Scottsville town hall meetings, and missed events like Sunday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of Scottsville’s 10-year improvement project. Snow emphasized that he and had lost his faith in Dumler and wanted County residents to know that they did not support his actions.
“It’s important that the general public know that the Board does not condone what has taken place,” Snow said.
Other witnesses called by Special Prosecutor Michael Doucette, Commonwealth’s Attorney for the city of Lynchburg, included former Board of Supervisors member Peter Way, Scottsville residents Jackie Aikins, Elizabeth Boyer, and Rob Pippin, and Dumler. Defense attorney Jessica Phillips also called Dumler to the stand, as well as County Supervisor Dennis Rooker, Board of Supervisors Clerk Ella Jordan, Albemarle County Chief of Public Works Michael Freitas, Assistant to the County Executive Lee Catlin, and Dumler’s campaign treasurer Ashleigh Crocker.
In his closing arguments, Doucette said constituents need to have confidence in their representatives’ judgement. “They need to have an ability to believe he listens to them, and is acting in their best interest as their representative.”
Dumler knew that, Doucette said, but in recent months, his actions haven’t shown it.
“I would submit to the court that…Dumler recognizes from his annual report that he has an obligation to be in contact and communicate with his constituents. The evidence is before this court that he…is very selective as to what he sees as being county business, and what he’s going to respond to.”
But in her own closing, Phillips said Dumler’s absence from boards and commissions doesn’t rise to neglect of duties, and that if anything, Dumler has gone “above and beyond” when it comes to responding to constituents.
“All I heard…is evidence of people who don’t like Mr. Dumler, don’t like that he was convicted of this offense, and want him to resign,” she said., but that’s not enough. “The people of Scottsville are going to have a chance to vote Mr. Dumler out of office if they want to—because they don’t like his haircut, because they don’t like him, because they don’t like that he was convicted, or because they don’t like his politics. For whatever reason. But that’s not why we’re here today. And otherwise we’re rewriting the statute, because the statute is clear that he cannot be removed because of his conviction.”
Dumler and Phillips were approached by reporters and TV cameras when they exited the courthouse at about 5:15, but Dumler said he would have no comment until the ruling on May 31.
