2009.03.15
Food for thought
At 9 a.m. church today, I was greeted by staunch UVa fan and graduate Jim Bowden.
He asked me, "Do you know what the record of UVa's spring sports teams is?"
I was trying to collect my thoughts when he added, "men's sports teams ... it's 40-0."
I'm guessing he was talking about baseball, lacrosse and tennis. Men's rowing is not an intercollegiate sport at UVa and the golf and track-and-field teams compete mostly in invitationals and dual meets.
"Would you trade [the 40-0 record] for a NCAA Tournament bid in men's basketball?" I asked him.
"No," he responded.
So, there's one guy who's into the non-revenue sports. I'm into the non-revenue sports, myself, but Virginia can't take much pride in its athletic program until the football and men's basketball are at least at a Top 25 level.
"You look at the quality of the coaches Virginia has in those other sports," Bowden said, "and wonder what would happen if they had the equivalent in football and men's basketball."
To each his own!
Comment by Nelson — March 15, 2009 @ 7:52 pm
Tech should start concentrating on those other sports too. Tech is never going to win a championship in football and basketball so they might as well concentrate on something esle. The only problem is Tech probably can't win at those either.
Comment by Greg — March 16, 2009 @ 8:33 am
How good would we (UVa) be in baseball, tennis, and lacrosse if the 347 schools that are Division 1 in men's basketball also started fielding baseball, tennis, and lacrosse teams, and giving out as many scholarships in each one as UVa does? On the other hand, UVa's football stadium is 40,000-seats smaller than those of many stadiums!
Comment by Nelson — March 16, 2009 @ 9:27 am
I hate nitpickers, Nelson, but I must be one and point out that there are far from "many" stadiums that seat 40,000 people more than Scott Stadium does. That would be 102,500 if my math is correct, and outside of Michigan, Southern Cal, Tennessee and Penn State I don't believe any others are that large.
Comment by Ron — March 16, 2009 @ 10:38 am
I believe that O-ho-ho State has a pretty big stadium in Columbus, and N_tre _ame (no O, no D) also seats a lot of a--es!
But I wasn't aware that Scott Stadium had more than 60,000 seats - a lot of them must be empty on Saturdays, huh? 'cause everybody is out watching Lacrosse , tennis, what have you!
Comment by SKEPTICAL OBSERVER — March 16, 2009 @ 11:55 am
There might be a lot of schools with 40,000 more people in the stands than Virginia will have if it doesn't start winning.
Of course, if Al Groh doesn't have a winning season next year, chances are he's gone.
Comment by Doug Doughty — March 16, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
I'll believe it when I see it... When we got our ass handed to us by DUKE - what more could/should it take????
UNC didn't even allow Bunting to get back to Chapel Hill before they had his office packed up and sitting on the curb waiting for him (when they deemed that losing to US in a shutout was the last straw)...
Coaching does not entirely make up for a complete lack of talent - but it is REQUIRED if you want to win... How long did it take roy williams to straighten out UNC's bball mess? Or Butch davis to right their football program? As far as I know, the only thing that changed in those situations was THE COACH....
10-4
Chester
Comment by Chester — March 16, 2009 @ 2:59 pm
Official capacity is 61,500 but it can hold up to 64,000. Unfortunately attendance is heading in the opposite direction. This is Groh's make or break year.
Comment by Wokisan — March 16, 2009 @ 6:13 pm
Excuse me Greg, was you saying something. I wasn't paying attention to what you said, I was busy buffing up 3 ACC football championship trophies and our recently aquired Orange Bowl trophy.
Comment by cws260 — March 17, 2009 @ 11:45 pm