John Wynne held two forums yesterday to give members of the University community a chance to bring specific needs and concerns to the attention of the Special Committee on the Nomination of a President. Photo by: Bennett Sorbo

The Special Committee on the Nomination of a President organized two forums yesterday during which University community members discussed the search for University President John T. Casteen III’s successor.

John Wynne, chairman of the search committee and rector of the Board of Visitors, said the forums’ goals were to collect any suggestions or concerns that the community wanted to bring to the committee’s attention. Wynne said the purpose of the forums was “to learn what [the Search Committee] doesn’t know,” he said, adding that, “The Board of Visitors is [at the University] part time. We need to hear from people who are on Grounds full time.”

At the forums, attendees were asked to think critically about the opportunities and challenges they see the University facing in the next ten years, the qualifications and personal leadership characteristics that the next president should possess and any other considerations that the committee should bear in mind as it initiates the search process.

The first forum, held at Newcomb Hall was attended mostly by students and faculty members, including students from several groups representing minority groups on Grounds. Representatives from the Minority Rights Coalition said that though the University has made a lot of progress since its founding days, a lot more still needs to be done on Grounds about diversity issues.

Seth Kaye, Co-President of Queer and Allied Activism, said the University should make more of an effort to recruit faculty from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.

Neal Fox, a co-chair of the Minority Rights Coalition, added that “these issues need to be brought to the forefront in this search.”

Some members of the student body, meanwhile, said they hoped the University’s new president would focus on reducing sexual violence on and near Grounds. Amanda Perez, a member of the Latino Student Alliance, said the next president needs to “create more initiatives to prevent sexual assault from happening.”

Third-year College student Nana Amoah brought up the University’s need to create opportunities for students outside of the classroom, noting that “the learning environment extends outside the classroom.”

Globalization was another issue at the forefront of yesterday’s morning discussion. Dean of African-American Affairs Maurice Apprey said students need more international experience.
“The world is shrinking,” he said.

Chew-Mee Kirtland, a 1981 Darden graduate and parent of a current University student said the next president “needs to be able to deal with a global economy that is becoming more challenging.”

Additionally, many feel that the next president should have the political savvy to further the Univerity’s mission. Mary Chee, a student in the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, said she believes the next president should make the University a “major player in the international arena.”

At the second forum, located at Zehmer Hall, University staff and faculty offered up other ideas. Attendees brought up a variety of concerns, including those related to the recruitment and retainment of new faculty, as well as restructuring efforts.

A number of faculty members were concerned about restructuring the faculty make-up of the University. Stewart Gamage, Director of the Morven Project, said the next president will have to understand what can be done to make restructuring even better.

Chee also noted that a large percentage of faculty members are getting ready to retire and said the next President should take this opportunity to recruit innovative faculty.

“This is a great opportunity to propel the University,” she said.

Susan Chisholm, a faculty member from the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, noted that the next president needs to be able to attract the best faculty and the best students.

“How do we get these people to come to U.Va and stay here?” she asked the committee.

The University’s staff also let their voices and concerns be heard.

“Staff members do many things that hold the University together,” said Carey Reinicke, an employee with the School of Continuing Studies. She added that the next president should show “new initiative to attract staff members that will hold the University’s mission.”

Nancy Iverson, the assistant dean of K-12 education, was the last to speak at yesterday’s second forum, addressing the personal attributes needed of the University’s eighth president.

He or she “must always at heart be committed to the pursuit of knowledge,” she said.

The Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2009 survey of full-time master of business administration programs reported a 64 percent increase in applications from 2008, compared to the 80 percent increase seen from 2007 to 2008, said Sam Silverstein, manager of media and public affairs at GMAC.
Although the raw number of applications increased, the percentage increase declined, he said. Silverstein noted that the flattening trend is most likely linked to the recession.
“When you continue to go through a recession, it is probably logical for people to think to lay low and keep a job and work hard,” he said.
He also said many MBA program applicants tend to be international students applying to schools in the United States, and that it has become more difficult for international applicants to study here now.
“These restrictions are making it tougher to both come here and it is harder to get U.S. government permission to stay in the U.S. and work,” he said, also citing the high cost of studying abroad.
“People who may have been able to afford to go to business school a year ago see it is now not affordable,” Silverstein said.
Though application increases on average fell short of previous years’, Darden School Admissions Director Sara Neher said Darden’s full-time MBA program enrollment remained mostly static, decreasing slightly to adjust for the current student body’s size. She also said the size of Darden’s incoming class did not shrink because of the economy.
“We were purposeful in attracting a smaller class” to prevent the overflow problem the MBA program experienced the previous year, she said, referring to 2008, when 333 students were enrolled, three more than the desired maximum. The larger-than-usual size of last year’s class meant that admissions officials had to carefully plan how many offers to extend in 2009. This year, Neher said her office reduced the number of students to 309 to make sure the school had room for both first- and second-year MBA students.
Meanwhile, both Virginia Tech and the College of William & Mary experienced increases in applications received. Melanie Johnston, associate director of marketing and recruiting MBA Program at Virginia Tech, said Virginia Tech’s full time MBA program saw a 40 percent increase in applications from 2008. She explained that “in the past three years, Virginia Tech has become slightly more aggressive in recruiting.”
At the same time, though, enrollment figures at the Blacksburg school dropped from 65 students enrolled last year to 54 this year.
Priscilla Case, William & Mary’s director of MBA admissions, said her school experienced a 10 percent enrollment increase from the previous year, admitting 121 students in 2009 compared to 102 in 2008. Case, however, attributed the increase to a newly constructed business school building, which may have helped the school dodge the flattening trend seen elsewhere across the country.
Despite these differences, all three schools reported an increase in the quality of their incoming classes. Neher noted that this year’s first-year class possessed higher grade point averages compared to previous years’, as well as Graduate Management Admission Test scores that averaged about 701 — eight points higher than 2008’s.

The Law School recently opened a new office to assist Law students seeking a judicial clerkship after graduation, expanding an already prominent multitude of career services.
The office seeks to answer students’ questions and help them find clerkships that will give them experience in their desired career, said Ruth Payne, director of career services for clerkships and programs. The school opened the office as a result of a perceived increase in demand for judicial clerkships — one-year internships that allow new lawyers to work one-on-one with a judge, Payne said.
“I think a judicial clerkship is an excellent transition from the academic setting of law to the more practical application of being in a firm or practice,” said Kevin Donovan, senior assistant dean for career services at the Law School.
This practical experience could partly explain why demand for clerkships is increasing, Donovan said. Additionally, the market for legal services might be smaller in the current economy, so clerkships may be a more attractive option than going straight into practice, he added.
In general, clerks tend to do a large amount of legal research and writing, Payne said.
Depending on the clerkship, however, other tasks may vary. For example, clerkships with trial justices can provide considerable courtroom experience, while clerkships with appellate judges are more research-based, Payne said.
Overall, the University has been successful in placing its Law students in judicial clerkships in the past, Payne said, but the new office should build on these efforts.
“In some ways this office is just a recognition of the fact that Virginia has a very strong clerkship program and we want to put resources into it to make sure we continue to have a strong … program,” Payne said.

Even though classes were not in regular session, Student Council stayed busy planning for the 2009-10 academic year during the summer months.
Council worked with officials from the Student Activities Center and Student Activity Fund to create an appropriations system that members hope will be more efficient in allocating the $600,000 Council has set aside this year for contracted independent organizations. Council President John Nelson said the new system should be “easier to follow and easier to understand.”
To help guide CIOs through the revised appropriations process, Council Vice President of Organizations Colin Hood also said the Appropriations Committee has been working on a series of short educational videos.
“We’re just educating people so all the [funds] are spent efficiently,” he said.
Hood noted that appropriations hearings will be changed and the Appropriations Committee will be more stringent in reviewing CIO budgets.
“We’re re-adjusting hearings to be more user-friendly,” he said. “If they don’t do their budget correctly, we’re not going to accept it.”
One thing that remains a concern for Council is funding — especially in light of the current recession. Council will meet for the first time this semester next week, but is already planning ways to overcome several financial hurdles.
“In years past we would get $50,000 in non-[SAF] funds from [the University] Bookstore every year,” Nelson said. “This year … they really can’t promise us any money. The bookstore is just doing much worse than expected because of the economy.”
He added that Council is working to help its committees create budgets that better reflect what they need, as well as eliminating non-SAF funding from their budgets. He is, however, confident that the committees will be able to ride out dwindling sources of non-SAF funding.
“We’re looking both at how we can get funding and how we can eliminate non-SAF funding in our budget,” Nelson said. “Fortunately, we’re going to be in a position where, because of the planning, it won’t be a problem for our committees.”

I was disheartened to find out a few weeks ago that the Virginia football team was picked to finish fifth in the ACC Coastal Division by the members of the media who gathered in July for the ACC Media Days.
But with the landslide, four-game losing streak the team ended 2008 on, the large number of questions surrounding this year’s team and the strength of the rest of the Coastal Division, it was unlikely that Virginia would be picked to finish much higher.
There are many reasons to believe the Cavaliers will suffer through a losing record this year. There also are, however, reasons to be hopeful.
First, some stats. The following list consists of Virginia’s average offensive yards per game during each year of coach Al Groh’s eight-year tenure: 2001-345; 2002-357.1; 2003-385.9; 2004-423.4; 2005-366.2; 2006-257.2; 2007-330.4; 2008-299.8; average from 2001-2005: 375.5; average from 2006-2008: 295.8; average for all eight years: 345.6.
Notice the big drop-off from 2006-2008? Well, I don’t want to point fingers or anything, but those are the three years during which Mike Groh was the offensive coordinator. He certainly was not the entire reason that Virginia suffered through two 5-7 seasons in three years. I’m not claiming to know everything when it comes to the football team’s woes and this is only a correlation, but, looking at the entire body of work of Al Groh’s offenses, they were the worst three in terms of average yardage.
The 2007 team that eclipsed 330 yards per game and went 9-4 was probably helped by a monster defense anchored by All-American defensive end Chris Long. It could be argued that Al Groh’s defenses, which have been consistently strong, were what managed to pull the 2006 and 2008 teams to respectable 5-7 records.
Now, Mike Groh is no longer the offensive coordinator and the program brought in spread offense guru Gregg Brandon to take his place. Before arriving at Virginia, Brandon was the head coach at Bowling Green for six years. Before that, he was the offensive coordinator and assistant head coach under current Florida coach Urban Meyer for two years at the same school.
Now, here is a list of the offensive yards per game of the offenses Brandon was involved with at Bowling Green: 2001-383.9; 2002-448.9; 2003-496.9; 2004-506.3; 2005-427.7; 2006-345.8; 2007-402.5; 2008-359.8; average for all eight years: 421.5.
The worst Brandon offense was still as good as Al Groh’s average offense for his entire career at Virginia, and the average Virginia offense cannot even get a whiff of the best Bowling Green offense. The Cavaliers may have had offenses from 2001-2005 that were better than ones from 2006-2008, but they were by no means great. The Hoos made a great hire in Brandon and he can get the Cavalier offense back to its 2001-2005 level of production — and possibly higher.
Just looking at the numbers, it’s not too hard to believe that the Virginia offense will start looking like its old self in 2009. Al Groh has the chance to show everyone that the subpar offenses from 2006-2008 were neither products of his coaching nor oversight, but rather the product of an offensive coordinator who was just not ready to lead an entire offense.
It seems as though Virginia fans have grown accustomed to bad offenses and solid defenses under Al Groh, but that has not always been the case. In 2001, Al Groh’s first team went 5-7 but compiled more yardage than 2007’s 9-4 team. Granted, Al Groh was able to work with a couple great starting quarterbacks — Matt Schaub (2001-2003) and Marques Hagans (2004-2005) — but the offense got better and better each year, with the exception of 2005.
Al Groh teams at Virginia have had good offenses. With a solid backfield consisting of senior running back Mikell Simpson, senior quarterback Jameel Sewell (fitting Hagans’ style of a scrambling quarterback) and cornerback-turned-quarterback Vic Hall (fitting Hagans’ in both style and stature) available for playing time, Brandon has some versatile tools to use. Sure, he may not be able to duplicate all the success of his Bowling Green offenses — at least not right away — but I’d be willing to bet our offense will see a major improvement this year.
Pair Brandon’s offense with a stout Al Groh defense, and there’s reason for optimism this season.

Sophomore defender Katie Carr did not start a single game last season, but this fall, she could be asked to step up into a more pivotal role for the inexperienced Cavalier backline. Photo by: Jason O. Watson

Sophomore goalkeeper Chantel Jones will return this season as Virginia’s prodigal goalie after representing the United States at the U-20 World Cup — good news for a team that missed her presence between the posts. This year, however, the task of defending the Cavaliers’ net will come with an additional challenge.
In her first season as the Virginia keeper, Jones posted 71 saves, averaging an impressive 0.41 goals allowed per game. As she takes up her mantel this year, though, Jones will need to step up to an even greater level because she will be without the veteran backline she had in 2007.
All four starters that comprised the Cavalier defense used up their last years of eligibility in 2008, leaving Jones to captain a defensive squad that is mostly untested.
“Our backline was one of the best backlines in the conference,” sophomore defender Katie Carr said. “Losing them is a new change. It’s hard getting used to playing with a whole new line.”
Nikki Krzysik, Alli Fries, Sarah Senty and Alex Singer made up the starting defense for a Virginia squad that held opponents to a stifling 5.1 shots per game — less than one-third of the total shots Virginia averaged last season. Of the four defenders that played almost every minute of every game in 2008, three are now playing professionally.
“They are all very quality players,” Jones said. “Having them play together for four years just made them that much better,”
Last season, leadership of the defense fell primarily on the shoulders of Krzysik. The two-time All-American started all but four games in her four years on the team. Jones now needs to pilot the Virginia backline using her experience working with Virginia coach Steve Swanson.
“I’ve been working really hard over the summer and in the past with [Swanson] about leadership roles and how to approach people and how to be a better leader,” Jones said. “So I guess I’m taking on the load that [Krzysik and the other seniors] left. But it’s no problem for me — I’m happy to do it.”
Losing four starters could make forming a formidable backline more difficult. Without a single returning starter, the defense will see many different looks as Swanson shuffles his players around. In addition to mixing and matching different groups of defenders, Swanson plans to capitalize on the versatility of certain midfielders and forwards as well, giving them a chance to play on the backline.
“It’s a long process; it started last spring,” Carr said. “We had a whole new backline in the spring and now we have some incoming first years that are helping us out too. It’s just all about adjustments.”
There is, however, a solution to the backline’s weakness: time.
“If you look at the way our defense has been run the past four years ­— those lines didn’t change,” Swanson said. “There wasn’t a lot of turnover at all in those guys. We graduated a lot of players that had a lot of game experience.”
Although its lack of experience may hamper the Cavalier defense at the outset, Carr believes that team cohesion can only improve with game experience.
“I think the reason the backline was so good last year was because they had played together for four years,” Carr said. “The oldest [people] in the backline right now — we’re sophomores. I think we will have many more years to get to that level.”
Though it has meant a trial by fire for many of the young athletes on the team, the openings on the backline also provide a chance for freshmen like defender Morgan Stith to prove themselves.
“I was so happy to be able to start that last game,” Stith said, “I think all the defenders … have really big shoes to fill.”
Furthermore, as Virginia works its way through the season, Swanson is ready to harness an in-game adaptability to challenging situations.
“Maybe we can use [the many options we have] to our advantage though,” Swanson said. “Maybe we have a couple looks and players that can offer us different things. We have to take time to sort that out a little bit … I imagine through the course of the non-conference season we are going to try to give people opportunities and try to look at different combinations and see how things look.”
Coming off of a 1-0 loss to Penn State last week, the Cavaliers’ young backline will look to continue gaining experience against Liberty Friday.

Athletes talk about team chemistry and camaraderie like chefs talk about adding ingredients in appropriate proportions. And, speaking from outside the locker room, I won’t deny that these qualities make up a factor that goes into winning and losing in sports.
But frankly, I always thought that it was mostly hogwash.
Maybe part of it is that even as an amateur, I’m beginning to turn into your stereotypically cynical sportswriter. But I played sports in high school, so I also reference personal experience. I played on teams divided that won, and teams that were just smitten with each other that always found a way to lose. I’ve played with guys who I never knew whether I could count on, yet we still found a way to win — and vice versa.
Then, I covered the 2009 Virginia baseball team — and I was born anew.
Why? Because this group’s accomplishments just don’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense for a team that starts three, sometimes four freshmen to make the program’s first trip to the College World Series. It doesn’t add up for a bullpen to return two players who pitched significant innings in 2008, have both those pitchers blow up midseason, and then post a 1.45 ERA in the postseason run to Omaha.
Believe me, I’ve considered other possibilities — namely, that the Cavaliers, ranked No. 5 in the nation at season’s end, have the No. 5 class of talent. But truly, they don’t. You tell me that freshman standout pitcher/first baseman Danny Hultzen was projected in the second round of the 2008 MLB Draft, and I’ll tell you that sophomore pitcher Kevin Arico went from throwing 14.1 innings in 2008 to being the team’s lights-out closer in the last two months of the 2009 season. You tell me that freshman third baseman Steven Proscia already has the physical stature of a big leaguer, and I’ll tell you that freshman second baseman Keith Werman, at 5-foot-7, 140 pounds, would make more sense as the coxswain for the club rowing team than as a .400-hitting second baseman — which he was.
So how does a team that starts six underclassmen position players and two of three underclassmen in the weekend pitching rotation end up at the College World Series? This group, as O’Connor and players repeated throughout the season, was as close as could be. Even on day one of the spring season, when everyone was predicting a season of growing pains, O’Connor said he had never coached a more tight-knit group in his six years with the program.
“They just showed a toughness and a level of character and pride that I haven’t been a part of,” O’Connor said.
As the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Here are a few morsels — some examples of individuals who came through when they probably shouldn’t have.

Coming through, and again
It’s the bottom of the 10th of Virginia vs. Arkansas at the College World Series, an elimination game for both teams. The score is tied at 3-3; the inning before, the Cavaliers had grounded into a bases-loaded double play, with the hitter Hultzen getting thrown out at first by a quarter of a step. A half inning before that, the Cavaliers had led 3-1 and had the Razorbacks down to their last strike, before a two-run bomb knotted the game at three.
Back to the 10th. Standing on second base is Shane Halley, who was inserted in the ninth as a defensive replacement in left field; he found himself on base for the first time since April 5. Stepping into the box is one of Virginia’s three freshman starters: Proscia.
A deer in the headlights? Far from it. Proscia lines a single up the middle, one that potentially could score Halley. But, the inexperienced baserunner Halley makes a crucial error: his first step is back to second before he breaks for third as the ball skips into centerfield. Third base coach Kevin McMullan raises his hands in frustration on one side of the diamond, and Proscia mimics him on the other side. Had Halley been running on contact, Proscia probably would have been the hero.
But he wasn’t — and neither were the next two hitters, who struck out to leave Halley stranded. Another shot to the gut for Virginia, and a blow to the head for Proscia.
Skip to the bottom of the 12th. After Virginia already left too many stranded runners to count, Arkansas put one of its own across in the top of the 12th — a backbreaker. Leading off the bottom of the inning is — you guessed it — Proscia.
Let me put myself in Proscia’s shoes. Here are the possible mindsets that I would have taken to the plate:
1. I should have had a walk-off RBI-single two innings ago. If Halley had been going on contact, I’d be a hero. What the hell else am I supposed to do!
2. Wait a minute … It’s the 12th inning of the College World Series, and I’m standing at the plate at Rosenblatt Stadium in front of 20,000-plus. A year ago, I was hitting for Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J. Abort!
What did Proscia do? How about a double down the left field line.
Like eight other Virginia runners, though, Proscia was left stranded. But, the point stands: In the face of adversity, with 21,383 people in attendance plus a national television audience watching, with the image of Halley standing on third still burning a hole in his mind, the freshman from New York came through. Again.
“That kid grew up an unbelievable amount this year,” O’Connor said.
No kidding.

Filling Werman’s big shoes
One of Omaha’s favorite sons in this year’s College World Series was another Virginia freshman: the aforementioned would-be rowing coxswain, Keith Werman. The left-handed Werman was inserted into the starting lineup in the NCAA Tournament against right-handed pitching, and responded by hitting .435. Every time he was asked to come through, he seemed to do it.
But that was only against righties. Against lefties, O’Connor played the matchups, putting righthander John Barr in Werman’s slot.
And, as Virginia prepared for its third game in Omaha against Arkansas, O’Connor knew that the Razorbacks would likely start lefty Drew Smyly. Despite the hot-hitting of Werman — he was 6-for-9 in his first two games in Omaha — O’Connor stuck with the usual plan, sitting Werman and playing Barr.
“We wouldn’t [have been] in Omaha if it wasn’t for John Barr,” O’Connor said. “The guy got some big hits for us.”
Werman, poor kid.
But what about Barr? Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. You have yet to appear in the College World Series. Your debut is going to be filling the spot of not only the hottest hitter in the lineup, but also a Wahoo favorite. If you go up there and whiff three times, you will look bad on a national stage, you’ll make your coach look bad for playing you and you’ll be that hated guy who inadequately filled the shoes of Cavalier fans’ favorite little man.
Of course, Barr came through. He went 1-for-2 with a run scored against Arkansas — a pretty important run, considering it was a 3-3 stalemate in the ninth.

These truly are a couple of morsels. There isn’t the space to describe some other moments that had me convinced of Virginia’s togetherness and that O’Connor said had him convinced that Virginia had a legitimate shot to get to Omaha. Like the six-run ninth that propelled the Cavs to an 11-10 win on the road at Georgia Tech. Or the ACC Tournament, during which the Cavaliers trailed by at least two runs before fighting back in three of their four wins en route to their second ACC Championship in school history. All of this with six of eight starting position players being underclassmen.
There have been times the past year when I subtly crossed my arms to cover the sabre on my Virginia sweatshirt. Like when the football team was smacked by Duke 33-3. Or when the men’s basketball team did just about anything.
You’re not supposed to be emotionally involved with a team you’re covering. But in the press box at Rosenblatt Stadium, I have never rooted so hard for a Virginia team to come through. Nothing has made me prouder to be a Wahoo than watching O’Connor’s boys play ball in 2009.

Senior Dominic Inglot finished his career at Virginia as an NCAA doubles champion. The title marked the third consecutive year the Cavaliers won an NCAA individual championship. Photo by: Bennet Sorbo

Junior Michael Shabaz’s strong play helped steer the Cavaliers to victory in the NCAA doubles championship. He and partner Dom Inglot emerged as Virginia’s top team in the postseason. Photo by: Bennet Sorbo

Michael Shabaz is by all accounts an impressive tennis player. His no-holds-bar serve is difficult for opponents to return effectively, as they instead frequently scuff the ball into the net or launch it into the stands. Although serious and driven on the court, the Virginia sophomore loves to make jokes with his doubles partner, senior Dominic Inglot.
“We were joking about it the whole year — winning a national title in doubles,” Shabaz said. “We just felt like we were one of the most talented teams out there.”
Although Inglot may have injected a bit of his British humor into the conversation, it is hard to imagine him being amused by the serious prospect of winning a doubles title.
Putting aside the unlikely scenario in which Shabaz and Inglot laughed at the thought of achieving such a goal, the doubles tandem made the dream a reality when the pair defeated No. 2-seed Davey Sandgren and John-Patrick Smith of Tennessee in the Ncs in May.
“Both did not play their best tennis in the singles championships but continued to battle and persevere,” Virginia coach Brian Boland said. “They started off the year as our No. 2 doubles team and continued to get better … They deserve so much credit for showing such confidence and resilience, especially under the circumstances they were under.”
After dropping the first set, 5-7, against Ole Miss’ top doubles team in the round of 32, the pair’s title chances were on the verge of slipping away. The Cavaliers took the second set, 6-3, though, and secured the victory when Shabaz served out the match to take the third set, 6-4.
“That first match was as tight as could be,” Shabaz said. “We broke a 4-all set, and I think once we won that, we kind of felt like our draw was wide open after that ,,, We kind of felt like we could just run with the title.”
The doubles tandem cruised through the next two rounds against Texas Tech and Pepperdine, winning each match in straight sets to wind up in a semifinal matchup against the North Carolina duo of Clay Donato and Taylor Fogleman. The two teams already had squared off three times previously this season, with the Tar Heel tandem taking the regular season and NCAA Regional matches, 8-5 and 8-3, respectively. The lone victory for Inglot and Shabaz came in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament, during which the pair snatched an 8-3 victory en route to a 4-0 rout of the Tar Heels .
“When you play somebody over and over, both teams have a feel for each other, but at the same time it’s a guessing game — who’s going to throw something different at each other,” Shabaz said. “They were probably the best team that gave us a run for our money.”
The Cavaliers’ eventual 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory set up a rematch of the National Indoor Championship semifinals with Tennessee’s Sandgren and Smith, the No. 2 doubles team in the country, which Virginia bested in the fall.
For the third time in the doubles championships, however, Virginia fell to a one-set deficit, needing to grab two sets in a row to win.
“Going in to [the match] we felt good, but they came out on fire,” Shabaz said. “They took care of us in the first set.”
Shabaz believes the three-set format, different from the eight-game pro-set used in team competition all year long, favored the Virginia duo.
“The better team usually wins in a longer match,” Shabaz said.  “We felt like as long as we could hang around in the match, we felt like we had a great chance of winning it in the third set.”
The Cavaliers capitalized on the tournament format, taking the final two sets against Tennessee, 7-6, 6-4, to clinch the championship.
“We kept holding serve [in the second set],” Shabaz said. “We both felt like if we could just somehow squeeze the tiebreaker out that we’d win the match in the third set because we were getting better as the match progressed. Dom came up with a couple of huge returns, and I came up with some big serves, and once we got to the third set, we felt really good, and that was pretty much it.”
Shabaz also said he and Inglot felt poised to contend for the championship the entire year, and that this confidence helped carry the team in times of need.
“Going into doubles, it was one of those things that, deep down, me and Dom knew we could do it,” Shabaz said.
Virginia made its presence known in the singles championships as well, as sophomore Sanam Singh knocked off several top-seeded players, including No. 1 Arnau Brugues of Tulsa in the quarterfinals, to advance all the way to the final four.
“[Sanam] made a great run,” Boland said. “When you make the semifinals as a second-year, you’re playing at an incredibly high level. That’s a guy that spent most of the year playing [No.] 2 and 3 [on the team] and was in the 20s and 30s in national rankings … Making the final four shows how much he improved.”
Both Singh and Shabaz will return for the Cavaliers next season, but Inglot graduated in the spring and is currently participating in what Shabaz described as the “Collegiate Olympics” in Belgrade, where he is representing his home country of England.
“Dom is going to be incredibly successful — he’s a two-time ACC Athlete of the Year,” Boland said about Inglot’s potential future as a professional tennis player. “He’s just a tremendous student-athlete. I have no doubt that if he puts his mind to it, he can be a great professional tennis player.”
Shabaz agreed.
“Dom is definitely going to give it a shot,” he added. “When you put that much time and sacrifice in tennis your whole life, you might as well give it a shot. And with his game, he definitely has the potential to be an excellent pro.”
Shabaz, meanwhile, also will seek to jumpstart his professional career, hoping to qualify for the doubles tournament at the U.S. Open in August. And with the likes of Shabaz, Singh and other top athletes returning this fall, aspirations in Charlottesville already are running high as the Cavaliers look to continue their recent history of success on the courts.

Virginia women’s basketball coach Debbie Ryan announced yesterday that junior forward Kelly Hartig has transferred from the University, citing academic reasons. Hartig started in 32 games last season, averaging 1.4 points and 2.6 rebounds per game. She will attend University of Colorado-Denver this fall, where she does not plan to continue playing college basketball. Her older sister Jayna, a redshirt junior, will stay with the team.
—compiled by Andrew Seidman

On August 21, all active undergraduate and graduate students at the University received a pointed e-mail from studentsystem@virginia.edu. The message instructed students to log into their Student Information System accounts and check for any holds on their records. If any such holds were in place, students could follow specific instructions on the site to resolve the problem. The e-mail further warned that any blocks not resolved by Friday, August 28, would result in the students’ enrollment being terminated for all classes.
Clearly this type of message must carry high importance as it requires certain students to take swift action. The Student Systems Project staff determined that this need for high priority was best conveyed with a slightly ominous, all-caps message that read “CLEAR HOLDS OR LOSE CLASSES.” After reading the first sentence of the e-mail, it becomes clear that the directive was intended for a general audience and does not necessarily imply that the recipient has an administrative or financial hold. Nevertheless, the nature and ambiguity of the subject line appears to have set off a mild panic among some students. At the very least, it’s not a particularly reassuring welcome back for the academic year.
The SSP staff had two goals in mind when the e-mail was sent out. The first was simply to ensure that all students with holds corrected them quickly. The second, broader objective was to introduce students to the SIS interface and to highlight its differences from its predecessor, the Integrated Student Information System. As SSP Director Susan Barr explained in a phone interview, “SIS provides significant detail on what holds a student may have, and what should be done to address the holds, in comparison with the information that was available in ISIS. We wanted to be sure that all students were aware of this new feature.”
SSP staff clearly had students’ interests at heart when deciding on a format for the message, but the dual intent appears to have obscured their meaning. A simpler solution would have been to send out two separate e-mails — one targeted specifically for students with holds, and one addressed to the student body in general. This capability exists, and in fact Barr pointed out that a second e-mail notice was sent out yesterday only to those students with remaining holds. Such a notice that zeroes in on the students who must take immediate action seems more potent than a general memorandum distributed to everyone. Ultimately, the SSP staff wanted to ensure that all students reviewed their SIS accounts; this was most certainly accomplished. The main problem with the singular approach is that many students needlessly became preoccupied with finding blocks that did not exist, rather than taking the time to review the systematic differences between ISIS and SIS.
Of course, an entirely capitalized subject line in an e-mail and a slightly muddled message are not terribly threatening things. The alarm among those students in compliance quickly subsided. Still, as one of the first correspondences that first-years received from University administrators, such messages are subject to greater scrutiny. Many observers of e-mail etiquette consider using all-caps to be the written equivalent of shouting at the reader. That is something that all students, faculty and administrators should be mindful of when aiming for professional exchanges with others.