Depending on your allegiances, UVA sports teams brought either joy or frustration to die-hard Cavaliers followers during the 2009-2010 season. For the all-around fan, however, it was a banner year for UVA athletics—and the school has the ranking to prove it.
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The NCAA champion UVA women’s rowing squad, led by ACC Coach of the Year Kevin Sauer (center), is one of a few Cavalier teams bringing national attention without generating the revenue of sports like basketball or football. |
UVA ranked third in the 2009-2010 Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup competition, after top-ranked Stanford and the University of Florida. The Directors’ Cup, awarded July 1 by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, ranks athletic programs based on the performance of every sports team. The award marks the first time in the 17-year history of the cup that the Cavaliers have ranked in the top five.
And with UVA’s two biggest revenue-generating sports—men’s basketball and football—posting losing records last season, many of the teams responsible for UVA’s overall dominance may be those with the smallest crowds or cheapest tickets.
“I think it demonstrates that the blueprint that we established eight years ago—in terms of where we wanted to take the program to establish the University of Virginia athletics as being a top 10 program, and as a program that could consistently perform from a national standpoint—is coming to fruition,” says Craig Littlepage, UVA director of athletics, about the Directors’ Cup finish.
During the last academic year, UVA athletes or teams in 21 of the school’s 25 sports competed in the postseason. Of the 21, three won NCAA championships: women’s rowing, men’s soccer and men’s tennis. UVA also nabbed seven ACC championships in sports like women’s rowing, women’s swimming and diving, wrestling, men’s lacrosse and men’s soccer.
“We’ve been knocking on the door for a long time,” says Kevin Sauer, coach of the women’s rowing team. Sauer was named ACC Coach of the Year, and nabbed other national coach of the year honors, as did men’s soccer coach George Gelnovatch and field hockey coach Michele Madison.
“This is the 15th year of our sport at UVA, and we have finished in the top four nationally nine times,” says Sauer. “So we feel that we’ve done a lot of the homework, so to speak, to get us to the championship. And we were able to pull it off this year.”
The two top-dollar sports didn’t fare as well. Football’s last season ended with a disappointing 3-9 record; former head coach Al Groh was booted from the program with a $4.3 million severance package; University of Richmond’s Mike London replaced him. Meanwhile, men’s basketball began the era of head coach Tony Bennett—hired after a 10-18 season under former coach Dave Leitao—with a 15-16 record.
“Our goal is to have every one of our teams competitive in a national environment,” says Littlepage. “And for many people, success in intercollegiate sports is measured by how you’ve done in football and basketball. I understand that. Our goal is to have a comprehensive, broad-based competitive program across all 25 sports.”
He adds that he is “very pleased” with the new coaches hired to lead both the football and basketball team.
And other UVA sports cheer for the big teams’ success. “We all very much care about what they are doing and are very supportive,” says Sauer. “We want them to succeed just as much as we want each other to succeed … we look at it as ‘UVA Athletics’ and we’re pulling for each other in every way shape or form.”
Littlepage names two sports that exemplify the progress of UVA Athletics: wrestling, which won the ACC championship, and softball, which for the first time competed in an NCAA tournament while only three years ago it had “difficulty winning an ACC game.” The hiring of softball head coach Eileen Schmidt, whom Littlepage says is a “unique, talented and dynamic leader and educator,” provided the right ingredient for a winning season.
“We think again in football and basketball we have the right leaders,” says Littlepage. “We are providing the right type of resources, they are bringing the right type of student athletes into the program and they have the talent as coaches and as builders to be able to put together a truly and consistently performing program.”
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