The Red Hen is housed in a historic downtown Lexington building.
photo News-Gazette
Red Hen refusal ignites firestorm
When two former C-VILLE Weekly writers opened the Red Hen in Lexington in 2009, they loved everything about the Rockbridge County college town—except its lack of a farm-to-table eatery. Since then, the restaurant has become a renowned fine dining option, and that could be why White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her party of eight came to dine June 22.
Stephanie Wilkinson Facebook
Owner and UVA alum Stephanie Wilkinson, who used to write about literary happenings for C-VILLE and later was publisher of Brain, Child magazine, asked Sanders to leave because of her work for “an inhumane and unethical” administration, Wilkinson told the Washington Post. [Co-founder John Blackburn is no longer an owner of the restaurant.]
Sanders confirmed on Twitter she’d been 86ed, the second Trump administration official to not be welcomed into a dining establishment in a week, although Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, another UVA alum, left a D.C. Mexican restaurant because of protesters chanting, “Shame.”
Outrage—and appreciation—over Wilkinson’s action ensued, and other unaffiliated Red Hens around the country received death threats.
By Saturday night, the Red Hen did not open because of safety concerns, according to [former C-VILLE Weekly editor] Hawes Spencer’s report on NPR. Its Yelp page is going through active cleanup because of non-food-related comments, says the site.
And by June 25, POTUS himself tweeted, “The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”
Trump administration employees are not alone in being unwelcome at a dining establishment. Local “white civil rights” agitator Jason Kessler reportedly was banned for life from Miller’s last year when protesters shouting “Nazi go home” became bad for business.
“An all-too-familiar story in my timeline. A beautiful woman’s life cut short by a violent relationship. The only twist today is it’s my child on the other side of the gun. My son is the perpetrator. The very thing I advocate against has been committed by someone I once carried inside me.”—Trina Murphy, advocate for Help Save the Next Girl
In brief
Xavier Grant Murphy Charlottesville police
Another Murphy tragedy
Xavier Grant Murphy, 23, son of domestic violence advocate Trina Murphy and cousin of murdered Nelson teen Alexis Murphy, is charged with second-degreemurder in the June 22 slaying of Tatiana Wells, 21, at the Days Inn.
GOP resignation
Richard Allan Fox, co-owner of Roslyn Farm and Vineyard, resigned from his seat on the Albemarle County Republican Committee, because he says he can’t support U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart, who has not denounced Unite the Right rally participants, and who has said the Civil War was not about slavery.
ABC settles with Johnson
Martese Johnson, the 20-year-old UVA student whose encounter with Virginia ABC agents during St. Patrick’s Day revelries on the Corner in 2015 left him bloodied and under arrest, reached a $249,950 settlement with the agency June 20. Johnson, now 24, heads to University of Michigan Law School in the fall.
Cantwell calls CPD
On the same night that seven activists were arrested on Market Street for protesting the conviction of August 12 flamethrower Corey Long, “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell called the police department to commend it, chat about the rioting “communists” and suggest they be put through a woodchipper. He was recording as a female CPD employee said, “That’s awesome. Thanks for your support.” According to a city press release, the incident is being investigated.
Access denied
Community activists, some reportedly wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, were shut out of a meet-and-greet at the Paramount Theater with new Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney, who was welcomed on the theater’s marquee. Paramount spokesperson Maran Garland says it was a private, invitation-only event hosted by the Charlottesville Police Foundation.
I-64 stabber gets life
Rodney Demon Burnett was convicted of aggravated malicious wounding for the July 11, 2017, attack of a woman driver on I-64. When she stopped the car, he continued knifing her in the neck, pushed her out of the car and sped away, leaving her with life-threatening and permanent injuries. A jury imposed a maximum life sentence, $100,000 fine and seven years for other related charges.
Drafted by whom?
photo Matt Riley
Former UVA basketball guard Devon Hall is chosen by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round as the No. 53 pick.
Whites-righter seeks permit
Speaking of Kessler, the Unite the Right organizer is looking for a place to hold an anniversary rally August 11 and 12. City Manager Maurice Jones denied his application for a permit December 11, and Kessler filed a civil lawsuit against the city and Jones, alleging the denial unconstitutionally was based on the content of his speech.
On June 22, his attorneys filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to force the city to allow his two-day event and to provide security for demonstrators and the public.
According to a memo filed with the motion, Kessler contends counterprotesters were responsible for the violence. “Counterprotester misconduct constitutes a heckler’s veto and cannot be used as a justification to shut down Mr. Kessler’s speech by the city,” says the memo.
Kessler sued last year when the city tried to move his white nationalist rally from Emancipation Park to McIntire, and a judge sided with him in an August 11 decision that was made about the same time neo-Nazis were marching through UVA Grounds shouting, “Jews will not replace us.”
At press time, a hearing for the injunction had not been scheduled.
Many of those who attended the rally last year have said they will not return for a redo, but Kessler is asking those who want to come to be prepared to go to either Charlottesville or Washington.
His application for a “white civil rights rally” in Lafayette Square has received preliminary approval from the National Park Service, but a permit has not been issued.
London Perrantes has been calling the shots as UVA's starting point guard since he was a freshman. Photo by Matt Riley
London Perrantes was in middle school when a grown man threatened to fight him over basketball. He and his best friend, Maasai, were playing pick-up ball in Santa Monica, California, where the two grew up together. Maasai and Perrantes spent their afternoons on the local basketball courts, facing off against older men—who often grew frustrated with Perrantes when they saw how good he was—how good this kid was.
“Whatever, let’s just get back to the game,” Perrantes said after the incident.
Always the cool head.
“He was always playing with older people,” his mom, Karina, says. “Even when he was playing with organized teams, he was playing an age level up.”
That might explain why, as a freshman, Perrantes started in all but four games for the UVA men’s basketball team, handling the ball with a maturity that often surprised fans, teammates and his coach.
London Perrantes, age 5 and as a high school senior
“London is a player that, when he got here, had tremendous feel and it was instantaneous when he was on the floor,” coach Tony Bennett says. “He just steadied everything…and I thought he showed remarkable poise for a first-year.”
Bennett and Perrates have been close from the start, and this continues to affect how the team plays. With Bennett’s experience as a point guard in the NBA, Perrantes says their relationship has shaped how he plays the point guard position at Virginia.
“We can throw ideas off of each other at all times,” Perrantes, now a senior, says. “He’s open to listening to what I have to say and I’m also listening to what he has to say so just being able to have that coach-player relationship is huge, especially for our team and our team chemistry.”
This season marked a transition for the Cavaliers. After making it to the Elite Eight last year, the Hoos lost their top two scorers in Anthony Gill and Malcolm Brogdon, who averaged 18.2 and 13.8 points per game, respectively.
Last year, with Perrantes running point, he was the “assist man,” averaging 4.3 assists per game. At the start of this year, Bennett had his eye on Perrantes as the one who needed to step into the lead scoring role. But could the point guard suddenly up his points per game by eight? And would he need to?
The answers became clear as the Cavaliers notched their first few games: While Perrantes was still a key player, everyone on the team clearly felt the call to step up his game.
On a Friday night in early November, the Cavaliers were poised to take the floor for the first game of the season, a face off against UNC Greensboro that would wind up looking more like a warm up for Virginia.
But it was the first game for Bennett’s new batch of Cavaliers, and questions about the team’s season proliferated.
How will they compare with last year’s team? Who’s going to step up and fill the gap left by Brogdon? By Gill? Even Mike Tobey, sixth man of the year for the 2014-2015 season and the starting center in 20 games for the Cavaliers last year, was a regular contributor for the team. And Evan Nolte, a senior forward last season, hit key three-pointers in several of Virginia’s games, including two during the Cavs’ March 12 loss to North Carolina in the ACC Championship.
Most importantly, though, who would pick up the slack this year?
The team’s answer? Everyone.
In a 76-51 win over UNC-Greensboro, the Cavs saw double-figures from four players: junior Marial Shayok, redshirt junior Darius Thompson, junior Isaiah Wilkins and Perrantes.
While Shayok was Virginia’s leading scorer with 15 points, sophomore Jarred Reuter, redshirt sophomore Jack Salt, redshirt junior Devon Hall, and freshmen Kyle Guy and Ty Jerome all pitched in with points of their own.
Darius Thompson. By Matt Riley
After another 15-point game against Yale on November 20 and a 12-point rack up against Grambling State on November 22, Shayok has since cooled down to a solid 9.6 points per game: a key part of the Cavaliers’ offense this year, but a far cry from the buckets per game that Brogdon delivered.
Expecting Shayok (or any other guard on the team for that matter) to take the place of Brogdon would be like exchanging your Harley-Davidson for a bicycle but still expecting to get to work on time without leaving any earlier.
Bennett said much the same thing in the team’s first press conference of the season, when he talked about the Virginia team without Brogdon and Gill.
“You don’t just replace those guys,” Bennett said. “It’s not just, oh—we’ve got the exact replica of Malcolm Brogdon or Anthony Gill—we don’t. We have some different pieces.”
As it turns out, the Cavaliers have lots of different pieces.
Coach Tony Bennett. Photo by Matt Riley
It was 21-19 Virginia—too close for comfort for the fans at the end of the first half. The game clock read 3:09 and Yale’s Blake Reynolds was on a fast break.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this; Virginia should have been safely ahead by now. This was JPJ, after all: Virginia’s court, Virginia’s crowd, Virginia’s advantage.
Regardless, Reynolds was still on a break, and a sense of inevitability washed over the crowd.
Two easy points for Yale: Tie game.
Virginia races to get back. Reynolds goes up for the layup with his right hand—here we go—but the ball never makes it to the hoop.
In fact, the ball barely leaves Reynolds’ hand before it’s swatted out of the air by Wilkins. Thwack. The whole arena hears the impact and soon the whole court hears the resounding “Ohhhhh!” of the crowd.
An unlucky deflection sends the ball into the hands of Yale’s Anthony Dallier, and with the clock at 3:02 Sam Downey goes up for the layup Reynolds missed.
Virginia’s fans release a collective sigh, but they needn’t have worried because Downey’s shot never reaches the hoop either.
A second hand reaches out for the ball and executes the same off-the-backboard block as Wilkins, complete with an unlucky deflection back to Yale. Only this time it’s not Wilkins. It’s redshirt freshman Mamadi Diakite.
Isaiah Wilkins. Photo by Matt Riley
UVA students jump up and down after the double play, clapping frantically as Yale’s shot clock continues to wind down.
This is the defensive Virginia team that Cavalier fans have been waiting for, albeit the Wilkins and Diakite double-block looks more like the defensive style of Darion Atkins from two years ago than of last season’s Gill.
That’s one thing Bennett, and UVA fans, have to look forward to this season. Sure, at times the team’s game is a little scrappier than last year’s squad—the Cavs aren’t quite the well-oiled machine on offense that they were last year—but so far they are holding their own defensively.
Even in tough matchups against Ohio State and West Virginia, UVA held its opponents to relatively low totals. In Ohio
State’s case, the Cavs forced 20 turnovers (but turned over the ball 10 times themselves).
As of Monday, December 12, the Cavaliers are first in the nation in points allowed per game, allowing only 47.6 points per game thus far.
Several of those games, though, were against unranked teams, and Virginia is expected to struggle defensively in conference play, which begins December 28 against Louisville, and brings in tougher teams like No. 7-ranked North Carolina and No. 5-ranked Duke.
Perrantes says he expects the ACC to be even more competitive than last year, when the conference sent seven teams to the NCAA tournament and put two in the Final Four, not to mention Virginia’s own appearance in the Elite Eight.
“We play, night in, night out, the best teams in the country. It’s a tough task to play in the ACC, and that’s what we kind of preach to the recruits that come here,” Perrantes says, explaining that young players like Guy and Jerome are eager to take on the challenge.
That’s the other good news about this year’s team: The bench runs deep.
Having up-and-coming players like Diakite, Reuter, Guy and Jerome to help out the starting five will be a huge bonus to the Cavs going forward, not to mention it’ll help Bennett groom his younger players for next year’s season without Perrantes.
With a veteran guard line-up of Perrantes, Hall and Thompson, as well as Salt and Wilkins down low, Virginia has a defensively strong starting five.
Devon Hall. Photo by Matt Riley
The main problem at this point? Offense.
During UVA’s November 15 72-32 shellacking of St. Francis Brooklyn, Memphis transfer Austin Nichols scored 11 points in the only game he would play for the Cavaliers (soon afterward, Bennett dismissed Nichols because he violated team rules).
As a transfer, Nichols had to sit out an entire season before being able to suit up for Virginia, and Bennett had high expectations for the power he would bring on both sides of the court, saying early in the season that Nichols would “be needed in terms of what we’re having to replace.”
In November, it seemed like practically everyone on the roster would be contributing to UVA’s offense. Hell, Virginia’s three walk-ons came into the game against Grambling State with 12 minutes of playing time left—and scored. In fact, every player on Virginia’s roster scored at least one point during the course of that game.
But what about Virginia’s offensive performance against tougher teams like Ohio State and West Virginia?
“Press” Virginia, WVU’s unofficial nickname—derived from the team’s tough press defense under Head Coach Bob Huggins—is too far ahead and the crowd knows it. Virginia, No. 6, is playing No. 25 West Virginia—its first ranked opponent of the season.
The December 3 game starts off promising, with the Hoos leading by 11 points eight minutes in, but all that changes quickly, and Virginia goes go on to lose 57-66.
The silence of the crowd after the game comes more from shock than anything else. This is, after all, the school that went 15-0 at John Paul Jones arena last season; the Cavaliers hadn’t lost at home for 24 straight games. Their last home loss was against Duke on January 31, 2015.
But the Cavalier team that hadn’t lost at home since 2015 isn’t the same team that lost to West Virginia—and maybe that’s one of the most difficult things for Virginia’s fan base to recognize.
At this point in the season, Virginia is a young team that’s still figuring out what roles each player is going to have, needs to have.
“There’s some big questions to be answered,” Bennett said at the start of the season. “If you compared our team at this stage last year, we’re doing things that we didn’t have to do before. We’re not at the same place, but there’s definitely talent and there’s promise.”
Last March 27 in Chicago, 9-year-old Malakai Perrantes, London’s younger brother, decided he didn’t like his name anymore.
The Elite Eight UVA-Syracuse game had been over for hours: The fans had gone home, the arena had cleared and the Perrantes family had returned to their hotel after watching No. 1 UVA fall to No. 10 Syracuse. But the sadness remained.
“I don’t like my name anymore,” Malakai, 9, muttered under his breath to his mom.
“Why?”
“Because of Malachi Richardson.”
Richardson, a guard for Syracuse, had a banner game: 23 points, seven rebounds, two steals.
“We just thought for sure we were headed for Texas [and the Final Four],” Karina says.
So did everyone else. Virginia had the lead over Syracuse from the eighth minute of play until the last five minutes of play, including a 14-point lead at halftime: that is until Richardson’s 21 second-half points started to add up.
But in what seemed to be a telling moment for UVA’s future, Perrantes took over Brogdon’s usual role as leading scorer that night. He put up 18 points for the Cavs, 15 of which came in the first half.
It was a performance similar to Perrantes’ recent 19-point rack-up against Ohio State, where 15 of the senior’s points came in the second half.
The starting point guard’s playing style hasn’t changed much since last year. Perrantes still leads the team in assists per game, averaging 4.4 to last season’s 4.3, and he posts an average 10.2 points per game (just one point behind his average at the end of last season).
Teammates describe him as a calm, relaxed, point guard and Bennett likens Perrantes’ leadership to that of Brogdon’s, saying he is a quiet leader who leads by example.
“He just really settles us down,” fellow guard Hall says. “He’s able to play at his own pace and slow everybody else down.”
In addition to slowing the game down, it’s rare to hear him yell at a teammate. That laid-back personality extends beyond the court.
“He’s really chill,” Wilkins adds. “He’s California cool.”
The Ohio State game in late November didn’t start off well for Perrantes, who had three turnovers and a total of four points by the end of the first half. With Virginia down 12, the Hoos hustle back to the locker room, where Bennett gives Perrantes the worst tongue-lashing he has ever received in a Virginia jersey…and it works.
With only four minutes left in the game, Ohio State is up 55-52. Perrantes’ four points to start the game have grown to 14.
But the Cavs are still trailing the Buckeyes—they haven’t been ahead since the 26th minute of play.
This is a key possession: The Cavaliers need to score.
Hall goes up for a layup. It looks good. It looks like it’s in. It looks like the shot Virginia needs. But it doesn’t fall, and every white jersey except Wilkins is half-turned to run back on defense when a bounce on the rim sends the ball back out.
The ball lands in the middle of a swarm of five Ohio State players—and UVA’s Wilkins.
Wilkins battles and comes away with the ball. Every UVA player’s hand is up in anticipation of receiving it.
Thompson, Hall, Shayok and Perrantes are in a perfect arc around the three-point line. It’s clear they’re going for the tying shot.
Wilkins throws it out to Perrantes, who is standing in calm expectation at the top of the key. Ohio State scrambles to escape the knot it’s created around Wilkins and get back in formation. Marc Loving, a 6’8″, 220-pound Buckeye forward, turns from the hoop and sprints toward Perrantes, his hand outstretched for the shot he knows is coming.
But Perrantes has already set up, the ball has left his hand, and Loving is three steps past Perrantes when the shot swooshes in. Virginia will go on to win 63-61.
This is the same Perrantes from the Syracuse game; the same cool-headed leader ready to put up a basket when the Cavs need it most.
The same 13-year-old boy telling all the grown men on the court to get back in the game.
UVA’s starting five
Isaiah Wilkins, forward
“I’m stepping up as a leader. But on the court my production has to definitely increase. I can’t stay where I was last year.”
Average points per game: 6.2
Rebounds per game: 5.1
Blocks per game: 1.33
Steals per game: 1.78
Field goal percentage: 60.5
Devon Hall, guard
“I think that my role now is
just to be a lot more assertive and be more aggressive and that’s what this team needs me to do.”
Average points per game: 5
Assists per game: 1.78
Steals per game: 0.67
Field goal percentage: 32.6
Free-throw percentage: 88.9
Jack Salt, center
“Jack does a good job—he’ll see something [on defense] and he goes up and he’s real vertical and real big,” says Coach Tony Bennett. “Those are things that can hopefully help our defense.”
Average points per game: 5.2
Rebounds per game: 3.4
Blocks per game: 0.78
Field goal percentage: 60.6
Darius Thompson, guard
“With the departure of [Anthony] Gill someone has to step up in scoring and I feel I can help the team with making more plays, being a playmaker, finding the open teammate to knock down shots—pretty much like that.”
Average points per game: 8.9
Assists per game: 2.67
Steals per game: 0.9
Field goal percentage: 51.8
Three-point percentage: 44
London Perrantes, point guard
“He doesn’t seem to lose
often who he is as a player
and how he needs to play and
I think that’s one of his best qualities without a doubt,”
says Bennett.
Martese Johnson, the 20-year-old UVA student whose encounter with Virginia ABC agents during St. Patrick’s Day revelries on the Corner in 2015 left him bloodied and under arrest, reached a $249,950 settlement with the agency June 20. Johnson, now 24, heads to University of Michigan Law School in the fall.
Access denied
