If you haven’t read the article on Mamadi Diane from Saturday’s Washington Post you really should before reading this post. If you need the link here it is:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030603170.html
To me there is nothing wrong with this article as it is written, my problem is what happens when you dig deeper into it and discover some rather disturbing information.
My opinion of the coaching staff here is well known by my 3 readers so the content of this article came as no surprise, and this article was not anything to offensive to me. However when listening to a local sports radio show in Charlottesville I head the author of the piece interviewed about his conversations in preparing this piece and 2 major things jumped out at me. The first was the fact that Coach Leitao had no comments about this piece was a bit startling to me, and second the fact that in the interview the author did not seem to think that there would be any ramifications of this piece I think to me demonstrates a disconnect with the Northern Virginia area that this athletic department has.
No one who follows Virginia Basketball is surprised that Coach Leitao and his players don’t get along, just watch them on the sideline. His abrasive style has drawn criticism from many including myself and has destroyed his relationship with quite a few players. What really got me was the fact that the coach has absolutely no comment about this, which to me shows that he doesn’t care. I think Coach Leitao is better suited for the NBA where comments and articles like this don’t matter. You can’t, you just can’t, say nothing about this because it tells recruits, and more importantly their parents that you also won’t care about them. What this article does, which is a point I’ll credit to Adam Gottschalk of wkav, is destroy recruiting in the DC area and probably all over the country as long as Dave Leitao is here. It’s done. Any recruit who is deciding between Virginia and anywhere else is going to get this article in the mail in however long it takes the post office to get it there. Some argued that this was irresponsible of the Post to print without having a comment from coach Leitao but I believe his no comment was the biggest comment he could have given.
The Second big beef I have with this article has absolutely nothing to do with the article at all. In listening to the interview I got the sense that the author did not seem to notice what a big effect this would have on Virginia Sports which I think brings to light a problem within the entire athletic department. His obliviousness on the matter demonstrates the entire northern Virginia region’s obliviousness towards the cavaliers. I listen to sports talk radio more than any healthy sane person should and I don’t think I’ve ever heard Virignia sports discussed, as compared to Tech and Maryland which get all kinds of radio time. This may be a testament to how crappy our teams are but I think it speaks to a lack of effort from the athletic department. It’s no secret that there are a vast amount of UVA supporters in the Northern Virginia area and that some of those supporters have extremely deep pockets so you would think that the Athletic Department would do something to attempt to tap into this resource. The first thing you see when you take the American Legion Bridge into Maryland is a big billboard with Ralph Friedgen on it advertising Maryland’s football team. You barely see anything UVA related anywhere in northern Virginia where I live. I worked in a sports authority over the summer and we had 4 UVA shirts, that’s it, compared to 9000 pieces of assorted Tech and Maryland paraphernalia. I feel like the athletic department has resigned to the fact that UVA is 3rd best in the DC Metro market and that disappoints me greatly. That’s really what this article and the interview that followed demonstrated to me and that’s something that really should change.
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