Article with info on Copeland

[davidsmu94]

Bowl snafu not a UVa first
'Blue field' line comes back to haunt Doughty


By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES


Why is it, at times like this, that the name Jim Copeland comes to mind?


An entire generation of UVa fans is probably unfamiliar with Copeland, a former Virginia and National Football League lineman who was the UVa athletic director from 1987-1994.


It has been almost 10 years exactly since Copeland resigned to become the athletic director at Southern Methodist. When he left, he had three years remaining on his contract. In all likelihood, Copeland could have remained as AD because he had the support of school president John Casteen, but the point could be made that he was run out of town.


Copeland had come under fire from the fans and the media, because of -- get this! -- his inability to get the UVa football team in a bowl that corresponded with its position in the ACC standings.


Obviously, some things never change.


There were other complaints with Copeland, most notably his inability to find a successor to men’s basketball coach in a timely manner. Copeland thought he had a commitment from then-Providence coach Rick Barnes in 1990 and was left scrambling when Barnes backed out on him.


If Copeland hadn’t been so convinced that Barnes would take the job, he could have had then-Stanford coach Mike Montgomery. Probably, he also could have had then-Xavier coach Pete Gillen, but, by then, the situation had gotten so messy that Gillen removed his name from consideration.


(A best-case scenario would have been for Copeland to accept Holland’s first proposal, which was for then-UVa assistant Dave Odom to succeed him. When Copeland said he would have to conduct a search, Odom took the head job at Wake and became a four-time conference coach of the year, three times at Wake and once at South Carolina).


All of that had occurred by 1990 and was largely forgotten before an 8-3 Virginia football team had to settle for the 1994 Independence Bowl. That was the year when UVa was 8-2 and ostensibly headed to the Fiesta Bowl before it was beaten at home by North Carolina State, 30-27, on the day after Thanksgiving.


Many parallels can be drawn to this season, when an 8-2 Virginia team went into its final regular-season game with a shot at an ACC co-championship. There was one difference. The Cavaliers were on the road this year, playing a Virginia Tech team that had won six games in a row.


The complaint with Copeland was that he wasn’t a strong enough lobbyist, although his successors haven’t been any better in that area. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember a time when UVa got a better bowl than it deserved, except in 1990, when the Cavaliers got a Sugar Bowl bid when they were 8-1. After spending three weeks as the No. 1 team in the country, UVa lost its final three games and four of its last five.


I’ve always felt that Casteen liked Copeland, appreciated his efforts in the fields of gender equity and fundraising and facilities, and resented the fact that fans and the media virtually demanded that he hire the anti-Copeland, Holland, as his new AD.


Holland made some good hires, most notably football coach Al Groh and, at the time he was hired, Pete Gillen. I’m convinced that I don’t know the whole story behind Holland’s decision to step down as athletic director and become a special assistant to Casteen in 2001 or by his decision this summer to resign that position, only to surface weeks later as the athletic director at East Carolina.


But, enough of Holland. The issue here is with Craig Littlepage and the way that Virginia, in one week, could go from the brink of BCS consideration to the bowl with the sixth choice of ACC teams. Here is the lead paragraph after a 31-10 victory over Georgia Tech on Nov. 20: “Somebody else will have to fantasize about that blue field in Boise, Idaho. Virginia will be preparing for its shot at an ACC co-championship.”


OK, so I was wrong about that, but I doubt anybody was fantasizing about Boise until Nov. 27, when Virginia put out a news release in which Casteen said the Cavaliers could not go to a bowl played during exams, Dec. 13-21, i.e., the Dec. 21 Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, Fla.


Even if you believe Casteen made the right call, why this wasn’t made clear months ago is unconscionable. Littlepage saying that “ego” may have caused him to focus on the No. 1, 2 and 3 spots in the ACC standings is a startling revelation. When I picked records for Virginia and Virginia Tech in the preseason, I had the Cavaliers going 8-3 (and Tech 9-3). You could have made the case then that UVa might be available for the Champs Sports Bowl.


If it wasn’t until 10-12 days before the Tech game before UVa alerted the ACC to a possible ACC break, what took so long? After a 31-21 loss to Miami on Nov. 13, Virginia was 7-2 and faced season-ending road games at Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech. Given the Cavaliers’ road record over the years, couldn’t somebody have seen that UVa would finish 8-3 or even 7-4?


Copeland and I have patched up our relationship over the years (for that, I give him a lot of the credit) but I still think that he could have been a little more proactive on the bowls. Littlepage, who admitted Wednesday that he had left bowl negotiations to the ACC, could -- and should -- have been a lot more proactive.


If he doesn’t think that’s the quickest way to alienate UVa contributors, all he needs to do is ask his predecessors.