UVA women’s swim and dive team celebrated its fourth consecutive national championship win on March 23. Photo by Jamie Holt/UVA Athletics.
The University of Virginia women’s swim and dive team brought home the NCAA Division 1 championship title for the fourth year in a row. UVA is now part of a small list of Division 1 women’s swim teams that have won more than three consecutive NCAA championships, joining the University of Texas and Stanford University.
There were ups and downs (mostly ups) for the Cavaliers last week. They won the first event of the meet, but touched fourth in the 800-yard freestyle relay. This meant the Hoos stood in second place at the end of day one—but that didn’t last for long. Gretchen Walsh took three individual NCAA titles, and also considerably lowered the NCAA record in each of the swims. Alex Walsh also took gold in all three of her individual events, and Jasmine Nocentini touched first in the 100-yard breaststroke. After the fourth-place finish on the first day, UVA won every relay during the meet, ending with a gold in the 400-yard freestyle relay on night four. The team ended the meet in first place, nearly 87 points ahead of second-place finisher Texas.
Before 2020, UVA women’s swimming was not nearly the powerhouse we know today. In 2019, the Cavs finished the NCAA championship meet in sixth place (268.5 points behind the first-place team), with no records. Now, UVA owns 11 of 19 possible records in NCAA D1 women’s swimming. But the team didn’t stumble across these accolades solely by luck—the Hoos stepped up their game during practice and increased their efficiency as they swam to the top of the rankings.
During her first year swimming at UVA, Cavan Gormsen was immersed in a new training program, which she says is very different from what she did in high school. One difference is the use of a statistical analysis program the team does in partnership with a professor at the university. This more scientific use of numbers in swim training helps swimmers learn how to improve their technique and get the most out of their stroke. “There’s been a big difference,” she says. “I’m going fast times, but in a more efficient way where I’m conserving more energy.”
Professor Ken Ono began working with UVA’s swim team in 2019. Although a statistics prof helping out a Division 1 swim coach might sound like a joke set up, Ono’s work on the pool deck provides helpful feedback and analysis that swimmers and coaches can look at together. “What I do is not big data. I’m not doing machine learning, training for the average. I’m literally constructing a digital twin of everyone I test,” Ono says.
This creation of a “digital twin” is done by attaching an accelerometer and force sensor to the swimmer and using an underwater camera to capture data. This data includes information like moments of deceleration, and the force sensor measures the amount of force generated by a swimmer’s movements. “I look at the video trying to figure out what is causing [deceleration],” Ono says. “I write reports, I pass that along to the coaches, and the coaches keep an eye on that and help the athletes remove some of those sources.”
One swimmer who substantially improved over the past few years is Kate Douglass, who, since joining the team in 2019, has become an Olympic medalist, world champion, and NCAA and American record holder. Douglass was a statistics major in college, and is continuing this academic pursuit in graduate school while training with the team. She doesn’t typically do any statistical analysis like this in the classroom—she is more interested in number theory—and says she is working on an independent study with Ono, but unrelated to swimming.
Even if it isn’t her academic interest, Douglass has benefited from Ono’s analysis methods. “It definitely was super helpful to kind of pinpoint exact areas in a race or a stroke that [wasn’t] efficient, and figure out how to make it more efficient so that you decelerate less or get more out of each stroke.”
Douglass started her career at UVA as primarily a sprinter, but Ono says he quickly recognized that she would be a strong breaststroker. “I remember telling [Coach] Todd [DeSorbo], ‘I know she’s gonna score a ton of points for you in relays and sprint, but she’s really the most gifted’—and I still maintain that—‘in 200 breaststroke,’” he says.
Douglass now holds both the American and NCAA records in the 200 breaststroke, and has medaled in the event at multiple world championship meets. Some consider her a favorite to make the Olympic team in this event.
“Making everything that I do more efficient is gonna make me better. And I’ve specifically seen that in my breaststroke this year especially. We’ve kind of just been working on making my stroke and my kick as efficient as possible to be able to get more out of each stroke,” Douglass says. “And I’ve already seen, I feel like, a huge improvement in my 200 breaststroke this year because of that work.”
DeSorbo speaks to the impact of Ono’s use of statistical analysis to help DeSorbo and the swimmers; it’s effective and has contributed to the team’s ascension to the top of the NCAA, but it isn’t everything—maybe 10 or 20 percent of the cause. “I think it has contributed to the success of the program, to certain individuals within the program,” he says. “But I think that without a lot of the other 80 percent of what goes on in our program, none of it would happen.”
Del. Katrina Callsen (left) and state Sen. Creigh Deeds (right) are pessimistic about the future of gun legislation under Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Supplied photos.
Bill-ding blocks
Virginia’s state legislature adjourned on schedule March 9, with members saying they’d balanced the budget and passed a swath of bipartisan legislation.
The session—which ran for 60 days—was the first time Democrats held control of the legislature since the election of Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The governor signed 64 bills into law, amended 12 bills, and vetoed eight pieces of legislation prior to the session adjourning. In a surprise move, Youngkin approved a bill ensuring protections for same-sex marriage. His vetoes and amendments otherwise fell along party lines.
“I am grateful that my colleagues worked hard to get hundreds of bills through to the governor with at least some bipartisan support,” says 54th District Del. Katrina Callsen. “I was not thrilled to see those vetoes and amendments, but was proud that 64 bills fully passed before the end of session.”
Youngkin is still considering a number of bills passed by the state House and Senate, and Charlottesville representatives are concerned about the future of several items.
“Honestly, I worry about a lot of the bills we passed,” says state Sen. Creigh Deeds. “I worry that the governor will reject a lot of those bills in large part because we didn’t agree to his arena plan.”
A Youngkin-endorsed plan for the construction of a professional sports arena in Alexandria using taxpayer dollars was blocked during bipartisan budget discussions. Some Democrats are concerned the governor will retaliate by vetoing progressive legislative priorities—including gun-control bills put forward by Callsen and Deeds.
Among the eight bills already vetoed by the governor is House Bill 46/Senate Bill 47, which sought to regulate the transfer of firearms by people prohibited from ownership.
“I don’t think that veto bodes well for our bills,” says Deeds. “I’d like to think that [Youngkin will] look at every one individually, but I’m afraid he’s just gonna look at the majority of the gun bills with one thing in mind and then use red ink and veto them.”
While lawmakers have the ability to override the governor’s decision, Democrats do not have the two-thirds majority needed to bypass a veto when they reconvene in April.
“The people of the commonwealth spoke loud and clear last November, and they would like to see sensible gun violence prevention, protection of women’s health care, improving education, and protecting voting rights,” says 55th District Del. Amy Laufer. “I hope that we will see some changes in April that more align with those values.”
New to the legislature, Callsen and Laufer say they are proud of their achievements and enthusiastic about the work to come later this spring. Both junior delegates advanced multiple items of legislation to the governor’s desk, and Callsen was named Freshman Legislator of the Year by her peers.
Another major item to monitor in April is the budget, according to Deeds. The budget approved by the legislature includes a requirement for reentry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will be difficult to line-item veto says the state senator.
“I think there’s a very real possibility that he vetoes the whole budget,” says Deeds. “I’m a little worried that we’ve got our work cut out for us in April.”
The Virginia state legislature reconvenes on April 17.
Gamemaker
The University of Virginia men’s basketball team starts its tournament run March 14 in the quarter-final round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. In order to secure a spot in the NCAA tournament this Selection Sunday, the Hoos, who have a double-bye for the ACC tourney, need a good showing Thursday night. UVA will face off against either Boston College, the University of Miami, or Clemson, all teams the Cavs beat during the regular season.
Keyes sentenced
Tadashi Keyes was sentenced to life in prison in Charlottesville Circuit Court on March 11 for the murder of Eldridge Smith. Prior to his death, Smith was a member of local violence interruption group Brothers United to Cease the Killing. Prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony called for the maximum sentence for Keyes, who was out on early release from a previous life sentence at the time of Smith’s murder. “This is a community and a commonwealth attorney’s office that believes in second chances, and sometimes even third and fourth chances,” said Antony. “Mr. Keyes was granted early release and given a second chance. But he chose to take that second chance, and his freedom, and execute Eldridge Smith in cold blood.” Over a dozen members of Smith’s family attended the hearing, and several expressed support for the sentence.
School shuffle
The Albemarle County School Board will hold a public hearing on redistricting recommendations on March 14 at 6:30pm. Current redistricting recommendations from Superintendent Matthew Haas would move 42 students from Stone Robinson to Stony Point Elementary, 88 students from Baker-Butler to Hollymead Elementary, and 59 students from Woodbrook to Agnor-Hurt Elementary.
The University of Virginia’s women’s swimming and diving team racked up 17 wins while claiming its fifth-straight Atlantic Coast Conference championship.
Photo by Jim Daves / UVA Athletics.
Last week, the University of Virginia swimming and diving team traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina, for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. The women’s team returned to Charlottesville with 17 wins, six NCAA records, and a fifth-straight ACC championship title. The conference meet occurred about a month before the women’s Division I NCAA championship—a showdown with college swimming’s highest-performing athletes.
UVA Assistant Coach Tyler Fenwick couldn’t be prouder. “The team just works their tails off and they had big goals,” he says. “And just to be able to see those goals come to fruition this weekend and to be able to see all that hard work pay off—I mean, they performed at a really, really high level. As a coach, that’s fun to see.”
Every NCAA record broken at the meet was by either Alex or Gretchen Walsh. Gretchen, a third-year, grabbed NCAA, U.S. Open, and American records in the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle, 100-yard butterfly, and 100-yard backstroke.
Alex, a fourth year, lowered the 200-yard butterfly NCAA record by 35 hundredths of a second, breaking a record that’s stood for six years. She also, along with her sister, was part of the 200-yard freestyle relay that broke NCAA, U.S. Open, and American records.
“When you have people who are as gifted as [Alex and Gretchen] are, who work hard, that’s a lethal combination,” Fenwick says. “And really what we’ve come to kind of expect is every time they dive in the water, we don’t know what to expect, but we do expect them to be great, and they seem to outdo themselves every time they hit the water.”
A new ACC champion was also born over the weekend, with first-year Cavan Gormsen bringing home wins in the long-distance events—the 500-yard freestyle and 1,650-yard freestyle (dubbed the mile). While she didn’t crack three-time Olympian Katie Ledecky’s NCAA records from 2017, it’s very likely Gormsen will swim the events again next month at the NCAA championship.
But the Walsh sisters and Gormsen weren’t the only ones standing on the victory podium: Final heats were frequently stacked with multiple UVA women. The Hoos went 1-2 in the 50-yard freestyle, and 1-2-3 in the 200-yard breaststroke.
During the meet, the women scored 1,637.5 points, crushing the second-place team (Louisville) by nearly 500 points. According to SwimSwam, this makes the Cavaliers the highest scorers in ACC swimming championship history.
Fenwick is now looking ahead to March 20, when the team hopes to bring home its fourth-straight NCAA championship, something the Cavs have been building up to all year. “This is a team that knows that meet really well,” he says. “And they know what it takes to win at that meet.”
Local pickleball players participate in an open-play session at the Key Recreation Center on May 21, but you can find them practicing somewhere in town, on almost any given day of the week. Photo by Eze Amos
While this weekend’s PickleFest may sound like a celebration of brined cucumbers, it’s instead a festival centered around a sport that’s gained a massive following in Charlottesville over the last half a decade.
Pickleball, the paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong, was created in Seattle, in 1965, and has been slowly making its way to the eastern side of the United States ever since.
“Unless you’re into pickleball, you might not know it, but people will drive an hour or more to come here to play,” says Teddy Hamilton, president of the Central Virginia Pickleball Club.
The group of about 325 pickleballers from Harrisonburg to Louisa spans all ages and athletic abilities. “It is truly a potpourri of people, and that’s one of the things I like best about it,” Hamilton says.
Her club hosted the Central Virginia Classic with nearly 200 registered pickleball competitors at the Boar’s Head over Memorial Day weekend, but those who missed that tournament will get a second shot at spectating, or even picking up the paddle, this weekend.
U.S. Open gold medalist and SickTrx member Ben Johns. Courtesy photo
PickleFest, founded by local pickleball- and tennis-based company Weigo, kicks off at Glenmore Country Club on Thursday, May 31, with a free exhibition match by a team of pros that includes U.S. Open gold medalists and SickTrx (pronounced “sick tricks”) team members Ben Johns, Kyle Yates, Irina Tereschenko and Brian Ashworth. They’re like the Harlem Globetrotters of pickleball, and best-known for their heavily practiced and entertaining paddlework.
Weigo co-founder Megan Charity, who came to America from South Africa on a tennis scholarship to Kentucky’s Campbellsville University in 2012, also has quite a bit of practice under her belt.
After graduating from Campbellsville, Charity coached multiple tennis teams and played pickleball on the side before moving to Charlottesville in 2016, where she started Weigo with Barrett Worthington, a University of Virginia Darden School of Business alum.
“In tennis, you have to spend months on the court to feel like you’re improving,” Charity says. “In pickleball, you just have to get out there and start playing.”
Worthington and Charity initially imagined an online business that would match tennis players with coaches and organize tournaments and clinics for the sport, but Worthington says it immediately became clear “that pickleball is almost taking over the tennis scene,” and now Weigo supports both sports.
On almost any night of the week year-round, you can find local pickleballers swinging paddles in open-play sessions at the Brooks Family YMCA, ACAC or several other designated spots around town, often playing for five hours at a time.
“You just get sucked in,” says Charity. “That happens to me, too. Sometimes in the summer, they play until three in the morning.”
“She’s not exaggerating,” adds Worthington. “I’ve never seen people so fanatic about anything in my life.”
Join in
You don’t have to play pickleball to relish the experience of PickleFest. Spectators of the Thursday exhibition match and Sunday tournament teams should register online at goweigo.com or contact barrett.worthington@gmail.com.
May 31: Free exhibition match by SickTrx, at 6:30pm at the Glenmore Country Club. Followed by a meet and greet with the pros (ticket required).
June 1-2: Sold-out pickleball camps.
June 3: PickleFest Classic starts at 8am at the Glenmore Country Club. Open to the public to play or watch, with free cider tastings, food and music.
The time of the May 31 exhibition match was corrected on May 29 at 10:30am.
Patrick Clancy (right), pictured with his brother and mother, is suing the Monticello High athletic director and a former soccer coach for allegedly not heeding guidelines that could have prevented him from suffering exertional heat illness.
Eze Amos
Patrick Clancy, his brother Ryan and nine other teens went to an 8am soccer practice at Monticello High School on an artificial turf field July 21, the second day of a National Weather Service heat advisory.
The two-hour practice ended around 10am, when the heat advisory officially kicked in. By 11:30am, Patrick was in the emergency room at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital being treated for heat exhaustion. C-VILLE Weekly has spoken to the parents of three other boys who were affected by the heat that day.
The response from Monticello High: Conditions were not adverse, the practice met Virginia High School League guidelines and Patrick should have brought more water.
His mother, Emily Clancy, doesn’t buy that response. A soccer player herself and a former soccer coach, she’s convinced VHSL guidelines were not followed and she’s on a crusade to get the word out about the dangers of practices on heat advisory days.
Because she worries that if she hadn’t been home that day, Patrick could have died.
It’s happened before in Albemarle County. In 2005, 18-year-old Kelly Watt, a recent Albemarle High grad and cross country runner, was preparing to go that fall to the College of William & Mary, where he’d been recruited. He took a run on a scorching July day and died from heat stroke.
Patrick, 16, went to the out-of-season practice because he wanted a position on the starting team. “We felt like we needed to prove it to the coach by showing up,” he says.
He brought two 32-ounce bottles of water and says on the artificial turf field, “you could feel [the heat] through your cleats.”
About two-thirds of the way through the practice, “I stopped sweating,” Patrick says. He also says he stopped feeling hot, but didn’t feel cool, either. “I was in a weird state of feeling dizzy and sick.”
“I’ve been playing soccer all my life,” says Ryan Clancy, now 18. “That day was the worst I ever felt. I felt like throwing up. One kid had to sit out because of the heat. Others said to me, ‘It’s so hot I think I’m going to die.’”
After the practice and helping put away equipment, by 10:15am Patrick was having a hard time getting into the car and he could hardly talk, says Ryan. “I thought when he was in the car, the air conditioning would help. I had to carry him into the house. He was so pale and shaking.”
Emily Clancy knew Patrick was in trouble as soon as he came in the house. He was crawling up the stairs, had stopped perspiring and couldn’t talk. “I got him in the shower immediately,” she says. “He couldn’t stand. He had to sit on the shower floor. His fingers were turning blue and he threw up.”
When he didn’t seem to be cooling down in the shower, she moved him to the bathtub and tried to give him water, but he threw up again, she says. He was having trouble breathing, and his toes and fingers were blue. That’s when she took him to Martha Jefferson.
After many IVs and several hours later, Patrick walked out of the emergency room with a diagnosis of heat exhaustion.
“I was mad,” says Emily Clancy. “Those conditions should never have happened.”
The coach, Stuart Pierson, emailed Clancy July 23 to say he’d gotten the medical note that Ryan brought July 22, was happy to hear Patrick was feeling better and reminded her that each player was supposed to bring a 2-liter jug of water to each practice.
“He blamed it on my 16-year-old son for not bringing enough water,” says Clancy, who says she’s licensed by the U.S. Soccer Federation and has coached for 11 years. “I’m very familiar with what coaches are supposed to know.”
Pierson, who is no longer coaching at Monticello High, declined to comment.
Clancy doesn’t believe the practice should have taken place outdoors during a heat advisory on a day with no cloud cover, no shade breaks and with no extra water offered to the players.
Matthew Pearman, the athletic director at Monticello, says there was an adequate supply of bottled water available in the coach’s vehicle parked inside the stadium, a water fountain available next to the stadium restrooms and water and ice available in the concession stand that students and coaches can access.
That water was never offered to the students and the concession stand was locked, says Clancy.
According to the National Weather Service, the heat index factors in both the temperature and relative humidity to measure how hot it really feels. And on days with full sun, the heat index can increase up to 15 degrees.
The artificial turf field exacerbated the problem, says Clancy, and VHSL guidelines say to add 35 to 55 degrees to the heat index if not playing on grass.
By 8am she calculates the heat index on the turf field in full sun was 108 degrees and by 10am it was at least 127 degrees—all in violation of VHSL guidelines, which says the maximum heat index should be 105 degrees for an outdoor practice.
That was not the conclusion athletic director Pearman reached.
He writes in an email that when the practice began at 8am, “the air temperature was 80 degrees with a heat index of 83.” When practice ended at 10am, “The air temperature was 88 degrees with a heat index of 92,” conditions “well within the VHSL Heat Guidelines, which recommend no outside activities when the heat index/humiture is 105 or higher.”
The discrepancy, believes Clancy, is that Pearman does not add 15 degrees for the full sun, nor did he include the artificial turf factor. Pearman says VHSL guidelines were followed that day.
He conducted his own investigation on a day in which he says the weather conditions were the same as July 21. Clancy scoffs that such a comparison is possible. “How in the world can you duplicate heat advisory conditions?”
In an email to Clancy, he says when he measured the turf with a psychrometer, it was 4 degrees warmer than grass. “Our determination remained, after this comparative reading, that the conditions on the morning of July 21 were not adverse,” he writes.
Not satisfied, Clancy appealed to the school’s principal and then filed a complaint with the Albemarle County schools administration.
And her sons began to experience bullying from other students and from the school administration, she says.
“Last year a lot of players were harassing me, saying, ‘What’s your mom doing? We’re trying to win,’” says Ryan Clancy. “I said, ‘My brother almost died.’ They said, ‘I don’t care.’”
And then Ryan found he was blocked on Pearman’s @MonticelloAD Twitter account. “I already felt bullied,” says Ryan.
Says Pearman, “@MonticelloAD is my personal, not school, Twitter account.” He’s says it’s not unusual to block “when a person responds to one of these posts with negative or inaccurate information,” a situation Ryan denies happened—and is unhappy that Pearman would make that allegation.
B.J. Morris’ son was also at the July 21 practice. “I found my son sprawled out under a tree,” she says. “He felt bad with a headache and nausea.”
Not all parents think conditions July 21 were that bad.
“My son was at the same practice,” says Gregg Scheibel. He says the coach told him his son was “huffing and puffing” and sat him down and gave him some water.
Scheibel says the practices were voluntary and the temperature was in the low 80s. “When you play in the heat, you take on certain risks,” he says. That’s why the athletes have physicals, he adds.
Scheibel started a petition to bring Pierson back, and he says the coach resigned because of Clancy’s complaints. The school has had four soccer coaches in the past few years.
“We’ve got an unhinged woman who has a vendetta against coaches at Monticello High,” he asserts.
“If I’ve seen a coach harming a child, I’ve spoken up,” says Clancy. “If that means I’m unhinged…”
Clancy says she’s been asked to meet with the county’s Student Health Advisory Board. And she appeared before the Albemarle County School Board February 8, and says she gave them information on what can be done to avoid such situations as the weather warms up, including posting signs warning about the extreme heat on artificial turf fields in hot weather.
“I didn’t just complain,” she says. “I have a deep fear of this happening again and I came up with solutions.”
She says she’s had parents blame her for allowing her sons to practice that day. And she says she’s blamed herself for trusting that the coach would not have them playing outdoors in full sun on a heat advisory day.
She’s also been reminded that her sons could have sat out if they were too hot, but both Patrick and Ryan say they wouldn’t have done that.
“Boys don’t do that,” Clancy agrees. “You think as an athlete you have to get to the next level. You push through.” And boys don’t think their coach would put them in harm’s way, she adds.
Because of the heat exhaustion, Patrick will be susceptible to heat in the future, she says.
Patrick, who was on the varsity team as a freshman last year, will not be playing soccer this spring, and he opted for the swim team over the winter. “Ryan and I really do like soccer, but with the coaching staff and what’s going on,” he says, they decided to forego the season.
He doesn’t want what happened to him to happen to anyone else. “I felt lucky,” says Patrick. “It could have been much worse.”
While denying that conditions were dangerous July 21, Pearman says the school will take additional precautions in the future. Certified athletic trainers will be present at summer practices and the school division’s Student Health Advisory Board will be reviewing the VHSL heat guidelines “to determine if we need to make the guidelines we follow more restrictive,” he says.
“Our primary focus is on providing our student-athletes a safe environment in which to represent Monticello High School while participating in the sports/activities they love,” he says. “Any team’s chances of winning are immaterial to that focus.”
That’s one thing about which he and Clancy can agree.
“I still have nightmares that I can’t wake my son,” she says, haunted by the thought, “What if I wasn’t home?”
Emily Clancy coached her sons’ SOCA team, which won the Virginia Soccer Festival tournament in Richmond in June 2014. Ryan is in the back row, second player from the left. Patrick is in the first row, third player from the left. Submitted photo
Urgent cool down
John MacKnight, medical director for sports medicine at UVA, says the symptoms of heat exhaustion—fatigue, lethargy, headache, nausea, cramping—can “absolutely” turn to heat stroke if the victim has stopped sweating, is “grossly disoriented” and loses consciousness.
If a person is no longer cognitively present—”if they can’t give facts—they’re in the heat stroke range,” he says. A rectal temperature of 104 degrees is the “catastrophic” range when one loses function because he’s too hot.
“Once you’ve lost the ability to dissipate core temperature, then the wheels really fall off the cart,” he says.
With heat exhaustion, cooling with cold towels, shade, air conditioning, shower and drinking water or Gatorade “usually perks them up,” he says. If that doesn’t turn the person around, it’s time for more aggressive treatment, he says, and that’s why cold tubs are at sporting events.
“Time is brain, time is muscle, time is heart,” says MacKnight. And while the practice used to be to call an ambulance, MacKnight says every minute counts, and cooling should start immediately because “every minute that your body is subjected to markedly high temps has a potential for damage. The longer the time, the more the damage. Try to bring the temperature down immediately.”
He also says that people who’ve been ill are more likely to be dehydrated from medications they’ve taken, which can “push you over the edge.” And for people with attention deficit disorder who are taking stimulants, that’s not good for training in heat and makes it harder for their bodies to get rid of heat.
“I don’t think there’s any question” that playing on artificial turf makes for hotter conditions, MacKnight says. “If the ambient temperature is 95 degrees, the field could be 125 degrees.”
Where he’s most likely to see heat exhaustion is at cross country and distance events. “Temperature doesn’t play as much a role as humidity,” he says. “With no cloud cover, kids are going to struggle.” And when it’s hot, humid and sunny, “the stars align.”
Says MacKnight, “Most of the time when people have an issue, it’s almost always a perfect storm condition.”
Any way you slice it, there’s a lot to love about Charlottesville. That’s why, every year, we ask readers to tell us their favorite things about our city—burgers, bike shops and homebuilders alike. And while we respect the answers you’ve given, you’re not the only ones with opinions. In honor of Best of C-VILLE’s 20th year, we decided to take a stab at some “bests” of our own, from food trends to music stores, even borrowing a few categories from the magazine’s two-decades-long history (like Best Chain Restaurant and Best Place to Work). Of course, as with anything, you have to take the good with the bad, so we’ve also cooked up a few complaints (it wasn’t as hard as we thought) relating to traffic, Trump and where you rest your head. There’s no telling what the next 20 years will bring—for Best of C-VILLE or Charlottesville—but we can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it.
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
Baseball
The year after their championship-winning season, UVA looked to repeat last year’s success. However, the Cavaliers faced the challenge of a young squad with only three returning seniors going into the 2016 season.
After a rough start against East Carolina, UVA picked up momentum winning eight of 10 games in the first half of March. Then the Cavaliers fell into a slump, losing eight of 11 games between March 26 and April 10, which included a 15-0 defeat against Louisville.
UVA lost to both Clemson and Wake Forest in the ACC tournament and turned their sights to the Charlottesville Regional to qualify for the College World Series. There, UVA defeated William & Mary 17-4, but then fell to East Carolina sending them to a rematch with the Tribe. William & Mary upset the Cavaliers 5-4, ending UVA’s season.
Golf
The UVA men’s golf team began play in September with the DICK’s Sporting Goods Collegiate Challenge Cup. The cup is a challenge between ACC and SEC schools, a competition between the two conferences. UVA led the pack of teams throughout most of the tournament and finished tied for first place with Vanderbilt, helping the ACC take down the SEC for the second time in three years.
In the ACC tournament, UVA finished the first day in third place but then slipped during the final two days of competition. The Cavaliers finished the ACC tournament in eighth place after going six-over-par across the three-day tournament.
Finally, in the NCAA tournament, UVA elevated their play and finished 22nd overall while Derek Bard finished 17th individually.
The women’s golf team dominated the ACC tournament, leading by at least five strokes through all three days. The Cavaliers finished the tournament 11 strokes above Wake Forest, the runner-up.
But the NCAA tournament did not prove to be so easy for UVA. The Cavaliers fell to Washington, the eventual champions, in the NCAA quarterfinals.
Tennis
The men’s tennis squad dominated the 2016 season with a 30-4 record. They finished with an 11-1 record in the ACC although lost 4-3 to Wake Forest in the ACC tournament final.
However, with their eyes pressed on the NCAA tournament, UVA entered the competition as the No. 1 overall seed. The Cavaliers swept opponents Florida and California in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. UVA faced 11-seed Oklahoma in the final. The Hoos made short work of the Sooners as they cruised to a 4-1 victory and an NCAA title.
The women’s team also had a successful 2016 season with a 19-11 regular season record. UVA fell to top-seeded North Carolina 4-1 in the ACC semifinals.
However, in the third round of the NCAA tournament, UVA and UNC met again. This time the Cavaliers conquered the third-seeded Tar Heels 4-2. In the quarterfinals UVA met Vanderbilt, the tournament’s six seed. The Commodores ended UVA’s season with a 4-2 victory.
Despite the loss in team play, senior Danielle Collins continued into the women’s singles tournament as a two seed. Collins defeated five opponents to reach the championship match against top-seeded Hayley Carter of North Carolina. Despite the underdog title, Collins dominated Carter, winning in just two sets. This championship was Collins’ second NCAA singles title in three years, making her the seventh woman ever to win two NCAA singles titles.
Rowing
The UVA rowing team dominated their season, winning the ACC championships and finishing third in the NCAA tournament.
Lacrosse
The typical dynasty of UVA men’s lacrosse broke this year. The team struggled through the regular season, finishing with a 7-8 record, failing to qualify for post-season play. Although UVA has one of the toughest lacrosse schedules in the country, their 0-4 ACC record was shocking to the program. The Cavaliers’ long-time head coach, Dom Starsia, left the program after the regular season and Lars Tiffany, former player under Starsia’s guidance, will take the reins for the 2017 season.
The women’s team performed slightly better with an even 9-9 record. In the postseason, UVA narrowly lost to Duke 9-8 in the ACC quarterfinals. Then, UVA fell to Johns Hopkins 12-10 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Softball
The UVA softball program suffered a tough 18-33 season as the team failed to produce runs. A low-scoring offense was the cause for the Cavaliers’ difficult season. UVA failed to reach the post season, finishing third to last in the ACC. The Cavaliers named Joanna Hardin as their new head coach for the 2017 season.
Swim and Dive
The men’s swim and dive team finished the ACC tournament in sixth place. However, in the NCAA tournament, the Hoos exceeded expectations and placed 28th overall.
A typical contender, the women’s squad dominated the ACC tournament with 1332.5 points and a first-place finish. In the NCAA championship, UVA finished fifth overall while Georgia took home the title.
Outdoor Track and Field
After a typical regular season, the men’s track and field team finished in third place in the ACC tournament. The Hoos then finishing eighth overall with 20 points in the NCAA championship meet.
As for the women’s team, they started out the ACC tournament in first place but slipped to fourth by the end of the tournament, failing to qualify for the NCAA tournament.
UVA Baseball's Justin Novak brings his A-game to the Charlottesville Tom Sox. Photo: Amy Jackson
Justin Novak’s fingers were bleeding. A Band-Aid flapped uselessly from one of the cuts that had been pummeled for nine innings by balls thrown and hit hard to third base. The white knickerbocker-style pants of his UVA uniform were streaked with dirt. The stadium was almost empty and the lights were shutting off. He walked into the pressroom and sat down. He never mentioned his battered hands.
The Charlottesville Tom Sox are a new baseball team. In only their second year, they are still building a local following and an identity. This year they will start the season with an extra incentive for fans to come out and watch games. The Tom Sox will have Novak, a member of the 2015 College World Series-winning UVA baseball team. Wrapping up his second year at UVA, Novak excels as a hitter and a base-runner, and serves as a utility player who can play almost any position on the field. He was forged as a player in Tokyo, in the world’s most disciplined and challenging system of youth baseball.
“Practices from elementary school were from eight in the morning to six at night every weekend, so you’d have to pack a lunch,” Novak says. “Every weekend and Japanese holiday was filled with practice and repetition in baseball, unless there was a game.”
None of the American players whom Novak faces grew up on 10-hour baseball practices. It has produced a rare focus and discipline.
“My dad’s actually an American,” says Novak, in perfect English. “He’s from a small town in Illinois. But he was in the Air Force. So we were stationed in this place called Yokota Air Base until I was in eighth grade. Then he retired from the Air Force and he got a job with the [U.S.] State Department [in Japan].”
In an April 15 UVA home game against North Carolina, Novak played third base. That position is often called the hot corner, because so many balls from right-handed hitters head in that direction. He grabbed ball after ball from the air or off the ground and made perfect throws to get runners out. Each time, the same thing without hesitation. “Playing baseball in Japan, there’s a lot of emphasis on repetition,” says Novak. “Doing something right until you can’t do it wrong.”
Novak came up to the plate in the bottom of the third inning and swung at the second pitch. A line-drive went out to center field. He ran to first base. As the pitcher faced the next batter, Novak began creeping toward second base, preparing to steal. Four times the pitcher threw the ball to the first baseman, attempting to pick Novak off. Four times Novak dove for the base and beat the tag. He advanced to second base on a single and then ran for home plate on a double, barely beating the tag by the catcher, and scoring a run.
UVA baseball dates back to 1889. Its first game was against Richmond College (UVA won 13-4). Baseball gloves were in their infancy and most players still caught balls bare-handed, resulting in badly battered hands. In those days, there was no rotation of starting pitchers or a staff of relief pitchers to step in when a player was worn out. A team had one pitcher who threw every pitch of every game. Injuries were frequent, and most pitchers had short careers as they burned their arms out.
Justin Novak, a member of UVA’s NCAA Baseball College World Series championship team, will likely rotate between second and third base this season for the Charlottesville Tom Sox. Photo: Jim Daves, UVA Media Relations
Japan’s baseball history goes back almost as far as the United States’. An American ex-pat introduced the game in the 1870s. The rules are the same as American baseball, but the culture is different. American baseball has a reputation for being a somewhat relaxed sport. We call it our national pastime, whereas Japanese baseball is seen as almost a martial art and is connected to the ancient samurai concept of bushido, the way of the warrior.
“Japanese baseball is all built on pride,” says Novak. “It’s all internal. Even if you are a small player, you’ve got to be tough. Know the fundamentals.”
“A player like Justin with a story like his, there’s nobody else like him in the league,” says Mike Paduano, director of operations for the Tom Sox. Players from the Japanese system rarely enter the American college baseball system.
The Koshien high school baseball tournaments in Japan are considered every bit as serious as major league baseball is in the United States. “High school baseball in Japan is really, really popular,” says Novak. “It’s televised, just like March Madness over here. They will have the TV on in the clubhouse and all the professional teams are watching their old high school compete in Koshien.” Novak’s Koshien experience has uniquely prepared him for the pressures of playing for America’s top-ranked college baseball team.
“It’s so serious that the coaches blow out the kids’ arms and stuff like that,” Novak says.
High school players may be asked to throw more than 100 pitches in a single day and then brought back to the field to do it again the next day. The intense demands on players at all levels of Japanese baseball lead to a high rate of injuries and shortened careers. Novak may be fortunate for being skilled at playing every position on the field except for pitcher. He arrived at UVA with two healthy arms.
“That’s what we absolutely love about Justin,” says Paduano. “This year, I’ve seen him play second base, third base, shortstop and catch. He’s a heck of an infielder because of his soft hands and his quick feet. I think he’s got a good range. I think between second base and third base is where we’ll utilize him a lot this year. We love his versatility.”
In the game against North Carolina, Novak came up to bat in the bottom of the eighth inning. The bases were loaded with two outs. The stadium erupted in cheers. The pitcher stared at Novak for a long time before a timeout was called. North Carolina’s players and coach held a meeting at the pitcher’s mound. A relief pitcher was brought in to stop Novak and end the inning. Two strikes and three balls were thrown. Then Novak hit a ball foul to stay alive.
On the next pitch, he slammed a ball by third base and a runner scored.
“I felt calm today,” Novak said after the game. “I was seeing the ball pretty well today, which was pretty awesome. When I get into two strikes I actually tell myself in Japanese, ‘You gotta win it. Katsu-sol, katsu-sol, katsu-sol.’ Which is, katsu means win. …Like, ‘I’m gonna win this, I’m gonna win this pitch, I’m gonna win this pitch.’ Growing up through a Japanese baseball system, I picked up a lot of slang. I think in Japanese a lot of the time.”
Novak struggled as a hitter in 2015 with a .100 batting average but is now batting .297. Anything better than .250 is considered good in the major leagues. (Batting .300 means that a player hits the ball on average three out of every 10 times he comes up to bat.)
“I started on opening day last year and I struggled a lot. I only had like six, seven hits, and I hit below .100,” he says. “Going through that struggle I learned a lot about myself. …It’s just really humbling knowing that sometimes you make mistakes and you just have to learn from it. Things don’t go your way all the time. I’ve definitely gotten mentally tougher.”
“I’ve watched Justin in 40 or 45 games this year and last year,” says Paduano. “And what he does best is just go 100 miles an hour all the time and give 110 percent every single time. He has this intensity. You can’t stop him.”
Novak, a rising third-year at UVA, honed his skills in the rigorous Japanese Little League system. Photo: Jim Daves, UVA Media Relations
The Tom Sox represent the return of summer baseball to Charlottesville after decades without either a minor league or summer college team. Long ago, Charlottesville was a big baseball town at certain times of the year. Before highways and planes made Florida accessible, the Boston Red Sox conducted spring training in Charlottesville, starting in 1901. The predecessors of today’s Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins also used Charlottesville for spring training in the early 20th century. UVA’s Lambeth Field hosted all of them, as well as other major and minor league teams that passed through to play exhibition games.
Novak didn’t think he had much of a chance of getting into UVA through the baseball program. “I visited, and honestly I didn’t think I was going to go here because they were ranked No. 1 at the time,” he says. “Surprisingly, they rolled the dice on me. I’m really thankful for the coaching staff for seeing whatever they saw in me. I’m trying to go out there every day and prove them right and just do whatever I can to help the team.”
UVA’s final exercises were last weekend, and the first Tom Sox game starts at 7pm on June 1. Playing at their home field at Charlottesville High School, the C-VILLE Weekly ballpark, the Tom Sox players will have been together for less than two weeks when they begin competing. But, unlike spring training for major league baseball, all the players will arrive fully tuned-up after months of playing college ball.
Three players from the 2015 Tom Sox team will return. A trio of pitchers, Brian Fortier, Josh Sharik and Zach Cook, was part of the inaugural 2015 team that came within one game of making it to the playoffs. And three Charlottesville residents will be coming home from college to play for their local team: Harvard’s catcher, Jake Allen, pitcher Michael Dailey of VCU and Liberty University outfielder Jack Morris.
Fan turnout for the Tom Sox’s inaugural season was solid. “We had usually at least 400 people at most games and sometimes we had a few thousand,” says Paduano. The bleachers were almost always near-full, and picnickers dotted the outfield. Elementary school-aged Little League players ran in packs with gloves, running to catch foul balls and crowding the exit from the dugout to ask for autographs. To a third-grader, these guys are heroes. Real baseball players whom they might see in major league uniforms before long.
When the Tom Sox take the field on opening day, for most fans it is just a baseball game. But for the players, the stakes are higher. The Tom Sox play in the Valley League, an organization dating back to 1897 that fields college players who are driven to hone and demonstrate their skills during the summer. Top-level college players hope to get drafted by major league teams. Otherwise, their playing careers will typically end after graduation. Major league scouts will likely be attending Tom Sox games incognito and looking for young players to sign.
With a batting average above the norm and a set of skills that can put him anywhere on the field, Novak might have a better chance than most at getting the attention of a major league ball club. But he says he tries not to look in the stands during games—his focus is on the game: Katsu-sol.
“That’s the dream, obviously,” says Novak. “That’s the reason why everyone’s playing right now. But I can’t get caught up in all the scouts and stuff like that. You just gotta try to live in the moment.”
Getting into character
One of the Tom Sox mascot interns dressed as Cosmo the Sheepdog and entertained participants at Relay for Life last Friday at Charlottesville High School. The baseball club’s prairie dog mascot will make its debut at the team’s home opener on Wednesday, June 1. Photo: Ryan Jones
On a recent Thursday evening, Joby Giacalone’s enthusiasm wasn’t dampened by the threat of rain at Charlottesville High School’s baseball field. “This is a very exciting time for us,” he told his summer interns, who were sitting in the bleachers with their parents. “We are on the ground floor of something that hasn’t been done before.”
That something is the creation of a mascot for the Charlottesville Tom Sox, the Valley League baseball team that will kick off its second season on June 1 against the New Market Rebels. With a couple weeks to go before the team’s prairie dog mascot makes its home opener debut, Giacalone has his work cut out for him: He will train two high school students in the art of mascotting—something the 54-year-old knows a thing or two about.
In the early 1990s, Giacalone earned his living as Dinger the Dinosaur, MLB’s Colorado Rockies mascot. He also worked briefly as the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets mascot, and was employed for five years as Homer the Dragon by the AAA Charlotte Knights baseball club. After retiring from professional mascotting in 1995, Giacalone moved to Charlottesville, where, in addition to taking an IT job at the University of Virginia, he served as the Cavman coach for several years. He also created Cosmo the Sheepdog, who appears at a variety of local events every year.
Cosmo performed at eight Tom Sox games last season, but “what we’re doing now is developing a character with the goal to teach,” Giacalone says. “I want to show our organization and the fans what having a true mascot—not one who stands around and shakes hands—can do for an evening of fun.”
After each game, he wants every person in the stands to say, “I can’t wait to come back.” According to Giacalone, the Tom Sox led the Valley League in attendance last season, with an average of 675 fans a night.
In addition to introducing the community to the team’s new mascot, Giacalone intends to “create an internship program that will be here 30 years from now; a place where people will come to learn and hone the craft that is sports mascotting. I hope [some of our interns] really aspire to continue to do this—it is not easy, and it’s not just putting on a costume and acting like an idiot.”
A few weeks earlier, Giacalone had set up a mascot recruiting table at CHS, hoping to interest curious students on their way to lunch.
“It smells like a sweaty sock in here,” said one after pulling on the massive dragon head Giacalone brought along. “Now gimme the paws!”
Giacalone complied, and then helped her attach a large dog tail, explaining that “a tail is fun because you can hit people with it.” Once suited up, the potential intern waded unsteadily into the noontime crowd, joyfully whacking anyone who got close with her newly acquired body parts.
“One of the reasons mascots never stop moving is because they’re like a cartoon,” an amused Giacalone explained.“If a cartoon stopped moving, it would just be a drawing.”
And then he opened his computer and shared an image of the Tom Sox prairie dog costume, which is still being fine-tuned. “This is version three,” Giacalone said. “The first one looked way too much like Yogi Bear. A prairie dog is a very unique character, and I knew going in that it would be a challenge in the looks department.” He said he wanted a character that is cute and “cartoony,” but doesn’t restrict the performer in any way: “A costume you can run around in.”
The prairie dog, who is being named via an online contest, will wear a blue Tom Sox No. 3 jersey (think third U.S. president). Giacalone told a small group of CHS students that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, while on their Thomas Jefferson-commissioned expedition, encountered the creature for the first time in Nebraska, and sent a live one home to the then-president of the United States.
Two of those students are now in the stands at the baseball field, listening as Giacalone explains that they will trade off working the 21 Tom Sox home games this season. The duo, who will remain anonymous until the final game when their identities are revealed, will entertain the crowd pre-game, participate in mascot-fan races around the bases and perform between a couple of innings at every game. When not in costume, they will assist the intern who’s working as the mascot that night, as well as learn about other Tom Sox-related jobs, such as ticketing, music and announcing. The prairie dog will also appear at functions and events throughout the year, to “keep baseball in the community’s mind,” Giacalone says.
“I love baseball,” he adds. “Every boy wants to be a major league player when he grows up. And I did wear a major league uniform during major league baseball games. But mine had a tail.”
Equipment manager Chris Moore says organization is key to keeping track of each piece of equipment players use, as well as managing practice and competition uniforms for the 250 student-athletes he assists. Photo: Amy Jackson
In the world of athletics, it’s often the coaches and players who receive the most recognition. They are, after all, the stars on the court or field or in the pool, the ones who are directing the flow of the competitions, making the winning shots or jumping further than their opponents. But they didn’t reach the top by themselves. Behind them on a daily basis is a strong support staff made up of assistant coaches, academic advisors, doctors, athletic trainers and equipment managers, to name a few. Meet five of these behind-the-scenes team members who are currently assisting the University of Virginia’s coaches and helping its student-athletes excel both on and off the field.
Chris Moore
Equipment manager, men’s baseball, softball, track and field, women’s soccer and volleyball
The black desk phone rings: It’s Rawlings again. UVA Athletics equipment manager Chris Moore already spent an hour on the phone with Rawlings employees earlier in the day, finalizing plans for new gray uniforms for the baseball team. The uniforms will be more traditional as opposed to the throwback style players are wearing now. And in about a month the team will switch to a new cream-colored uniform. Moore generally gets two to three calls a day from Rawlings, which he works with on not only designing new uniforms but in helping the company tweak new equipment for UVA’s baseball players to use.
The company approaches UVA, its No. 1 advisory school, with an idea of what it wants to make, then the student-athletes wear-test the equipment in the fall (the final products are issued in the spring). Student-athletes fill out forms electronically to give feedback about each product they test, and Rawlings follows up with Moore to get his overarching opinion. In the past year Moore flew to Japan twice to work with Rawlings on developing new batting gloves and bats.
“From the handle on the grip of a bat to the leather on the palms of batting gloves, it’s good to get our players’ feedback since we’re one of the top programs in the nation,” Moore says. “That way they have a sense of, ‘I helped create that.’ They can’t say, ‘This bat is bad,’ because they helped create that for two months.”
Another job perk other than flying to new countries is traveling with the teams to road games, meets and matches. Moore was in the dugout last year when the baseball team won its first national championship. He said the experience was unbelievable and that the win is still sinking in in a way—after all, there was plenty of work to do once they returned. During baseball season he estimates he works 60 to 70 hours a week between practices, games and everyday duties.
Reminders of Moore’s contributions to the baseball team’s success line a shelf above his desk: a glove Rawlings gave him after the baseball team won the championship and a jewelry stand hand wearing four rings: the largest being the national championship ring.
But baseball isn’t Moore’s only focus. He oversees the equipment and practice and game uniforms for about 250 student-athletes. He stays organized with multiple spreadsheets that track everything from what bat a baseball player is currently using, shoe sizes, jersey and T-shirt sizes (often different) down to which players prefer elastic waistbands in their pants. Moore also devised a labeling system with adhesive stickers on the back of sneakers. The stickers correspond to an athlete’s locker number, so if shoes are left on the field they can be returned. He estimates the track team goes through 500 to 600 pairs of shoes a season. One distance runner can need up to six pairs alone. In the matter of an hour three students stop by Moore’s office: one needs a new shorts size, another asks about getting a different kind of sock and the third wants the sports bra cut out of her singlet. Oftentimes he answers the student-athletes’ questions before they even ask—he can anticipate their needs.
The best part of Moore’s job are the relationships he develops with the players. He loves seeing them grow from 18-year-olds into strong student-athletes. His role is that of a parent or role model, he says, and he keeps in contact with a lot of them after they graduate.
“My biggest thing is that you treat others with respect and you just show these kids the right way to do things and how enjoyable college life can be as a student and an athlete, because they’re never going to get this time back,” he says. “They have four years to excel in the classroom and on the field and, hopefully, win a national championship. As a staff member it’s so gratifying to see that they’ve reached the top level, and they’ll always have that memory.”
Randy Bird
Director of sports nutrition for all UVA teams
Randy Bird, director of sports nutrition for UVA teams, says athletes need to eat a meal or snack every three to four hours to provide the fuel their bodies need for recovery. Photo: Amy Jackson
How did your position as the team nutritionist begin? How long have you held the position?
I accepted the position of director of sports nutrition at UVA in August of 2010. Prior to UVA, I was the sports dietitian at the University of Kansas.
What are some of the more important habits/knowledge you’ve tried to instill in the players?
Food is their fuel. They need to put the best fuel possible into their body. Athletes need to eat a meal or snack every three to four hours to provide the fuel their muscles need and the building blocks necessary for recovery. Athletes need to eat fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. The more stress athletes are under, the more produce they need. In addition, protein should be spaced out multiple times per day (preferably in four or five doses of protein-rich foods).
What are some common mistakes that you see athletes make in their diets?
Skipping breakfast. Inadequate consumption of fruits and vegetables. Inadequate fluid intake. Recovery after training and competition is not taken seriously.
What are some things you look for when conducting an athlete’s nutrition assessment that can make an immediate impact on performance, health or recovery?
The primary factors I evaluate are normal hydration habits and total energy intake. Performance and health can be compromised if the athlete’s activity does not match the primary factors. Hydration affects performance quickly, so that is one of the first things I evaluate. If athletes under fuel during the day, they tend to overeat at night. This leads to decreased muscle recovery and increased fat storage.
Are food sensitivities something you are evaluating more often with athletes?
This is definitely an area that is getting more attention. As athletes are diagnosed with intolerances, we devise a plan to properly fuel the athlete and meet their micronutrient needs while avoiding problem foods.
How would you like things to continue to develop in the future in terms of what players put in their bodies?
I really like how athletes are becoming more food-focused. Athletes shouldn’t worry about what supplement to take until they have built their foundation on the right food and hydration strategies.
How can non-athletes embrace your ideas to live healthier lifestyles?
Realistically, everyone should be eating the same types of foods. The general public just needs less of it. Most are marginally active when compared to our athletes. So, the general public doesn’t need to consume the total number of calories that our athletes consume. However, the general public should focus on the types of food athletes eat and the patterns should be the same.
Blair Moore
Athletic trainer, women’s lacrosse
Blair Moore, with women’s lacrosse, says athletic trainers become moms away from home for the student-athletes. She’s on call 24/7 to help the players. Photo: Amy Jackson
No matter how talented a student-athlete is, injuries at the collegiate level are common. In her 12th year as the athletic trainer for the UVA women’s lacrosse team, Blair Moore most often sees ankle sprains, ACL tears and hamstring and quad strains.
“I’ve always loved sports, however, I’m not very talented,” she says. “So I knew I always wanted to do something that kept me close to athletics.”
Moore is in charge of injury prevention and rehabilitation treatment for the team, taking care of anything from a sore throat to a concussion. Practice days, which eat up a lot of Moore’s time, are when she takes care of details that never cross most fans’ minds.
“Starting at 1, we start getting girls ready for practice,” Moore says. “That means taping ankles, getting girls heat if they need it, stretching with them, getting them warmed up before practice. Then we practice for a few hours and then we’ll come back and it’s ice tubs, more stretching out, dealing with any injuries that came up in practice.”
Moore notes that in addition to these responsibilities, she is on call 24/7 for her student-athletes and accompanies them to the doctor or the emergency room at any hour.
“It is very rare, but probably two months ago I had a girl call me at 10pm with severe abdominal pain and we talked through it, and I asked her what she ate and when the pain started,” Moore says. “I called a general practice doctor and talked it through with him, called her back and talked to her again until the pain started to subside. We’re still the person that they call, whether it’s athletic or not.”
Moore jokes the athletic trainers take the place of “moms away from home,” overseeing every aspect of the athletes’ health.
“I talk to our nutritionist probably every day about food for a student-athlete,” she says. “If a student-athlete gets injured, I’m calling over to the academics office to make sure that they can get in touch with faculty in the classroom. …Even in just the equipment room, we’re talking with them about helmet fit.”
Although injuries are never a desirable outcome for a student-athlete, Moore says that helping a student rehabilitate after an injury is the most satisfying part of her work.
“There’s always some doubt in the students: Will I be able to go back? Will I be as good?” Moore says. “And to see the will in some of these student-athletes to face that adversity and overcome it is really rewarding, and that’s why I continue to do it. Seeing someone get back to play and be sometimes even faster or stronger than before is incredible.”
Adam Brooks
Assistant director of academic affairs, men’s tennis
Adam Brooks, assistant director of academic affairs for men’s tennis, says staff’s first priority is not winning championships but helping develop players for the future and where they want to go in life. Photo: Amy Jackson
In the world of college sports, it’s often easy to forget about the student in student-athlete. With multiple practices and games every week, it can be hard to imagine these young athletes also strive to excel in the classroom. But Adam Brooks, the assistant director of academic affairs for the Virginia men’s tennis team, knows full well how much academics factors into these students’ lives.
Growing up with a father who coached Division III football and baseball at Bluffton University, Brooks knew he wanted to stay involved in the world of college sports. After obtaining a teaching license and completing graduate school at the University of Akron, Brooks started work at the University of Virginia in 2009 with men’s tennis.
“I was kind of thinking of how I could blend these two fields,” Brooks says of the job search. “Education and sports, how can I put those together? And this seemed like a perfect fit.”
Despite the backseat that academics seems to take in college athletics, Brooks says the men’s tennis program at UVA is “all in.” When the team lost its first ACC match in almost 10 years February 15, breaking a 140 consecutive game-winning streak, the entire tennis staff discussed the loss at its regular 6:30am Tuesday meeting.
“I think it makes an academic coordinator feel important to be included in those conversations,” Brooks says. “For me, personally, it helps to hear the trainer talk about how a certain student is doing on the court because if he gets injured then I can know how that’s going to affect him academically. We all really want to know what’s going on with every aspect of a student-athlete’s life.”
Brooks’ main responsibility is to ensure that the men’s tennis players meet the eligibility requirements of the NCAA, such as minimum GPA benchmarks, but he stresses that the department’s goal is much higher than the minimum.
“Our own office goals are much more than graduation and much more than eligibility, and that’s definitely a benefit to working with the men’s tennis program,” Brooks says. “Our first priority is not winning championships, but developing these guys for life. We want to make sure that they know who they want to be and where they want to go in life.”
The NCAA requires an athlete to have a 1.8, 1.9 and 2.0 GPA by the end of their first, second and third years respectively. In addition to these benchmarks, athletes are also required to meet UVA’s graduation requirements, which include completing 120 credits and a major.
Although Brooks meets with many players weekly to make sure they are on track for graduation, he notes that head coach Brian Boland keeps the team highly self-motivated.
“Tennis had the highest men’s team GPA this past year [3.37] when they also won the national championship, and they also had the highest GPA in the athletics department that year,” Brooks says. “These guys are getting it done and that’s Boland—he’s not going to be okay with a guy who’s striving for eligibility requirements, someone who’s barely meeting a 2.0.”
With a high-achieving group, Brooks says he focuses more on getting to know his student-athletes and counseling them on how to approach issues in the classroom. Among other things, Brooks sets up organizational calendars with first-year students, holds mock office hours for students who are not sure how to approach a professor and helps students identify classes that interest them.
“I found a position at one of the best universities and towns in the country and one of the best tennis institutions in the country,” Brooks says. “The culture and the staff…we’re all of one mindset, and it makes it such a great culture to be a part of.”
Henrik Wiersholm
UVA men’s tennis player
An average day for Henrik Wiersholm looks like this: eat, sleep, tennis, repeat. As a second-year on the Virginia men’s tennis team, he has two practices a day and often travels for matches on the weekend.
He is usually out of the house by 8am and doesn’t get back until 12 hours later, when he finally gets started on his homework. If he’s lucky, he might squeeze in some time to hang out with friends.
His days on the road, though, are even longer—he often doesn’t eat dinner until 9:30 or 10pm. You won’t hear Wiersholm complaining about his busy schedule, though.
“I think that there’s a structure to what we do that makes it so that there’s not any time to procrastinate, you know?” Wiersholm says about his allocated homework time. “You have to put in the work. …Other students, when they don’t have that structure that a student-athlete has, they’ve got all sorts of time to do their homework and then it becomes a little bit different.”
Although Wiersholm admits that finding time for homework can be tough, he wouldn’t change anything.
“I love team practice,” Wiersholm says. “We come out, play points, compete against each other and, I mean, I love competing, so that’s the part of tennis that I like the most and the part of my day that I like the most.”
Daily schedule
7am: wake up
8 or 9am: individual practice
10am–3pm: class
3:30-6:30pm: team practice
and workout
7pm: eat dinner
8pm: start homework
11pm: go to sleep
Dr. John MacKnight
Professor of internal medicine and orthopedic surgery, primary care team physician and medical director of UVA sports medicine
Dr. John MacKnight, primary care team physician and medical director of UVA sports medicine, says one way they get injured student-athletes back in competition quickly is by working with them multiple times per day, so players derive the benefits of aggressive injury management and physical therapy from the moment they are hurt. Photo: UVA
How do you keep athletes healthy/get them back playing after an injury?
From a health standpoint, we focus on lots of preventive strategies. Great sleep quality, adequate hydration, well balanced, energy-rich diet. Adequate preparation physically involves consistent, well-devised training routines that ensure adequate strength, flexibility, balance and stamina to accomplish their athletic goals. No question that optimizing those parameters not only helps to prevent injury but speeds return from injury.
Are there any innovations used here?
The realm of strength and conditioning and injury prevention is always evolving and there are myriad theories about how best to accomplish those things. Core stabilization activities and a focus on functional muscle development that is unique for each sport (as opposed to just making everyone big) are really big concepts right now that clearly work for most athletes.
How do you get them back on the field/court so quickly?
We have the ability to see and work with our athletes multiple times per day, so they derive the benefits from aggressive injury management and physical therapy essentially right from the time they are hurt. Although some injuries require a fixed amount of time to resolve, regardless of what we do for them, many lesser injuries can be handled more quickly and can result in a more rapid return to sport without compromising the health and safety of the athlete.
What’s the first thing you do when assessing a player?
The first assessment is always about severity of illness or injury. Does this athlete have any features that make their presentation a true emergency? In the absence of that, which would warrant immediate intervention and transport to the hospital, I take a systematic approach to the history of the injury or illness, perform a focused physical exam of the affected area and decide upon immediate management as well as the athlete’s suitability to continue sport on that day.
You oversee all student-athletes on UVA’s 25 teams. Is there a player’s recovery story that stands out to you?
Two stand out this season. [UVA men’s basketball guard] London Perrantes’ return from appendicitis and [UVA football wide receiver] T.J. Thorpe’s return from a broken clavicle. Both are testaments to great care by my surgical and orthopedic colleagues and to the improvements in surgical techniques, which have allowed for far faster recovery times than in the past.
How many doctors assist a team?
We have an extensive staff of physicians who care for our athletes. It really does take a team of physicians to meet all of the needs of the student-athlete population. At UVA we have three primary care sports medicine physicians, four sports medicine-oriented orthopedic surgeons, subspecialty orthopedic surgeons, a team cardiologist and a host of other specialists who help us meet the varied demands of our athletic population. On game day, there are generally three to five physicians present to provide game management.
What is your area of specialty when you’re not with the teams?
I am a general internist and see primary care internal medicine patients in a separate clinic at the Fontaine Research Park.
Have a look at what's happening around town in this week's Living Picks. Photo: Ryan Jones
Nonprofit
Jimmy Miller Bracket Breakfast
Ralph Sampson, Barry Parkhill, Antonio Rice and Jay James return for the third annual bracket breakfast, which gives you the inside scoop on college basketball and benefits Piedmont CASA.
Monday 2/14.$125, 7am. Omni Hotel Ballroom, 212 Ridge McIntire Rd. bb@pcasa.org.
Health & Wellness
Sugar Hollow Three Bridges 5K and 10K
Sponsored by the White Hall Ruritans, the race starts on Sugar Hollow Road and is followed by a pancake breakfast. Proceeds aid in therestoration of White Hall Community Center in Western Albemarle.
