Fraternity members may suffer from a stigma that they serve run-of-the-mill beer, but Armand Cognetta, a fourth-year College student and Sigma Nu fraternity brother, may challenge that stereotype.

As a matter of fact, this chemistry and biostatistics major brews his own beer on his front porch.

“I’ve been brewing since I was 18,” Cognetta said. ”My dad bought me a brewing kit for Christmas.”

His mother was less pleased with the gift. It was not the underage drinking that concerned her, he said, but rather the fact that the kit “made a mess in the kitchen.”

Even away from home, though, Cognetta could not make a mess — at least, not immediately — given that dormitories and their policies are not exactly conducive to the activity. Once he moved off Grounds during his second year, however, he began to pursue his passion once again.

Cognetta then teamed up with Tucker Moore, a 2009 Engineering School alum and fellow fraternity brother, to create the Jefferson Brewing Society.

The Brewing Society became an official contracted independent organization just more than a year ago but had low membership until this fall. Membership swelled to 65 after tabling at the Fall Activity Fair, Cognetta said. The increase was no doubt aided by the big neon sign sitting on the group’s table that read, “BEER,” he added.

Currently, the club mainly focuses on teaching student members how to brew beer, though it hopes to expand into the larger Charlottesville community in the future.

Cognetta said he eventually wants to give brewery lessons, which he believes would be a popular Christmas present from wives to their husbands.

Though many Brewing Society members are Cognetta’s fellow Sigma Nu brothers, Brewing Society Vice President Eric Bankert said he considers the group fairly diverse and does not think there is a stereotypical person who would join it.

The only common factor Bankert said he would settle on was the obvious common interest in brewing beer and “not just drinking it.”

The Brewing Society has even attracted international students. Third-year College student Sam Beaver became interested in the club because he grew up in Britain, where he was surrounded by a number of small micro-breweries.

“The Brits take a little more pride in their beer,” Beaver said, but he nevertheless came to America without having tried brewing himself.

Bankert said he sees the Jefferson Brewing Society as proof of the motivation of University students.

“I have some friends at other colleges who brew their own beer, but not in a club,” he said. “It says a lot about our school [that if] you’re interested in something, you can do it.”

When the weather is nice outside, Cognetta holds club meetings on his front porch and shows them how to brew a batch of beer, explaining the science along the way.

The club usually picks a store-brand beer upon which to model their brew. At times, they have made beers that tasted better than the models themselves, Cognetta said.

Bankert agreed with Cognetta on the beer quality.

“We’ve made some [beer] better than what we can buy in the store,” he said.

Overall, the club focuses on the science of beer and does not revolve around drinking it, Cognetta added.

“Beer is not just for getting drunk,” he said. “It’s educational.”

In fact, members younger than 21 are not allowed to drink any of the beer they make, meaning that the Brewing Society is not a club created just to get free beer.

For his part, Cognetta takes beer-making so seriously that he explains the process in a way that makes it difficult even for a sober person to follow his deep understanding of the science behind brewing.

Cognetta said he wants to pursue beer-making as a career and that he plans to open a brewery eventually. He looks up to University graduate Charlie Papazian, who he said is a very famous home brewer who also founded the Association of Brewers. Although Cognetta has yet to get in personal contact with Papazian, he has friended him on Facebook and said he hopes to invite him to visit the club in the future.

This title may seem a tad bizarre, even silly, but it is how I describe myself. Ridiculous as this extended metaphor is, it nevertheless assisted me with my acceptance to the University.

I am a 5-foot-1-and-a-half, Italian girl, who is incredibly proud of her heritage and is a family-oriented fanatic. Coincidentally, one of the most tantalizing Italian dishes is shrimp and spaghetti. In case you’re still completely unaware of where I’m headed: I’m the shrimp, and my friends and family combine to create the sauce, while the noodles are the environment where I now live.

Just follow me here. Each shrimp is cooked in its shell for the tender juices to be soaked up. I have marinated in the sauce of my loving friends and family, and it has shaped me into a tasty young shrimp. For that, I am most lucky and grateful. Without them, there’s no question that I’d be a different, unsavory crustacean.

As I was packing up to return to the wonderful town that is Charlottesville at the end of Winter Break, I came across a scrapbook I made for my English class last year. Beginning to skim through this piece of nostalgia, I re-read surveys my friends had taken, as well as a letter to myself, a letter to my future grandchildren and a timeline of my very young life, among many other artifacts. Thankfully, a spark was ignited. Although it’s a new year, a new semester and a new beginning, I realized that it’s all right to wade through fond memories.

Reminiscing about the good, old days, I pondered the various paths I’ve chosen that have led me to where I am and who I am today. My BFFs have increased in number from a sturdy one to a solid three! My family has encouraged me to just be me and has assured me that everything happens for a reason, despite how awful it may seem at the time. A few of my past teachers have assisted in the molding of my decisions and quite possibly my future career choice. Without my sauce, I don’t know where I’d be. I sure wouldn’t be wearing orange and blue so proudly today. As I hung out with everyone during break, it occurred to me that I had never accorded them much significance in my at-times rickety and bumpy life.

We are all individual shrimp — some are meatballs — that have been thrown into a giant pot filled with a diverse, unique sauce. This may be a new year, a new semester, a chance to reinvent yourself in college, but that doesn’t require abandoning your original family recipe. Adding a few spices or a few shrimp and removing some unpleasant meatballs can be necessary at times — a healthy change. But keeping the original recipe stowed away in that old-school recipe book with its various stains is just as necessary.

I’m not, by any means, encouraging anyone to dwell on the past. Wallowing in unfortunate times can cause depression, or worse — being stuck in the moment of which U2 infamously warns us. Instead of always looking to the future and worrying about what’s next, which classes will stand out on your applications for grad school or which New Year’s resolution you will blow off in February, I’m encouraging you to pause so that you can appreciate what’s happened already and how you got there. After all, it’s vital to happiness.

There may not be any time like the present, and the future may be calling, but the past has already left a voicemail. Fantasizing about where your path will lead you is grand, but glancing back occasionally isn’t bad either. Flipping through that recipe book on a rainy day is worthwhile and delightful. So to all of you shrimp — and meatballs — out there, remember: You’d be nowhere without your old sauce.

Mary’s column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached at m.bruno@cavalierdaily.com

All the Christmas trees have been taken down and the last of the New Year’s confetti has been swept away. Winter Break has reached its end and been replaced by early-morning walks to class and late-night papers to write. For many first-year students, the start of spring semester is a landmark. Like Chimney Rock on the Oregon Trail, it lets us know we’re almost — OK, more than — halfway finished with our first year of college.

That being said, for first-year students who were hit by trucks, the start of second semester also signals a fresh start — the beginning of a new set of classes that won’t be sullied by nerve pain and endless trips to Student Health. Even before I returned to Grounds, I told myself that this semester would be better. Easier. Definitely less painful.

Nevertheless, once I had moved in again, picked up my textbooks and waited for the first day of classes to come around, I was worried. I felt it was like a one-year anniversary of an accident, even though it was only a one-semester anniversary and the day of the week wasn’t even the same. My fretfulness felt more like superstition than anything — it was unfounded, unnecessary, absurd. Lightning never strikes twice, and I was hoping the adage would hold true for white GMC pickups.

The morning of the first day, I put on my pearl necklace — the same one that broke during the accident and has been soldered back together. I packed my bag, took a deep breath and walked to chemistry class, checking both ways many, many, many times before I crossed the street. Jaywalkers looked quizzically at me as I waited for the little white walking figure to light up, even though the intersection was clear and there wasn’t a car in sight.

I felt like I held my breath the whole day, or at least while I was in transit: walking to the dining hall, walking to the gym, walking back to my dorm. In the middle of the afternoon, I picked up the severed pedal I kept on my desk and looked at it, spun it once and put it back. I looked at my watch and waited for it to hit 4:23, the time that the police believe I was hit.

My parents had preemptively asked that I call at the end of the day to verify that I was indeed alive and ambulatory. In any other situation, I would have laughed, but in this case, it seemed logical, reasonable. I found myself counting the hours until I’d be safely back in my dorm room — if I could get through the first day unscathed, I knew the rest of the semester would be fine.

Once I was safely ensconced in my dorm room — and had called my parents, who congratulated me on making it through the day without significant injury — I took off the pearl necklace and studied it for a minute. The three black pearls had hit the pavement hard in the accident and they each were scarred with little marks reminiscent of my healing road rash scars. I traced the thin chain, and the barely noticeable bump from the soldering iron made me think of the callus forming over the three healing fractures.

As I tucked the pearls back into their box, I watched how they took the fading sunlight from the window and reflected it back softly, scratches and all. There was hope. The sun would rise tomorrow. My second semester was just beginning, and now that I was healed, there was so much more to do: club meetings to attend, places to go, people to meet. Things are looking up.

Courteny Hartnett’s column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached at c.hartnett@cavalierdaily.com.

Following three months of research, University demographers from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service have added and corrected information about Virginia addresses for the 2010 U.S. census.
“We hope that our participation will help ensure that there is an accurate count for Virginia,” Cooper Center Statistician Susan Clapp said.
University researchers participated in and received funding from the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Local Update of Census Addresses” program, which encourages local governments to provide up-to-date information about area addresses. The University project particularly focused on housing quarters, a category that includes nursing homes, dormitories, correctional facilities and other kinds of group-living arrangements. The Center collected data on 3,000 such housing quarters.
Researchers gathered data from various agencies and universities across the state and then compared that data to the previous census bureau list, Clapp said. During the process, missing addresses were added, and corrections were made to addresses that needed to be updated, she said.
The survey’s results can impact Virginia’s future, as census data is used to distribute congressional seats and to determine the size and boundaries of voting districts for the General Assembly. Census data also is used by the federal government to determine the amount of funds that go toward individual states for education, transportation, public safety and other programs.
Nevertheless, even a more accurate set of results would not likely impact Virginia’s congressional representation during this census round, said Qian Cai, director of the Demographics and Workforce section at the Cooper Center.
“I really don’t think [Virginia’s] going to get one more seat,” Cai said. “It’s not going to have that big of an impact. [More] importantly, it’s getting accurate content and better content, and that will help the funds coming to communities.”
More accurate data will provide a better foundation for the next census in 2020, as well, Cai said.

University employees have raised $932,000 in donations toward the 2009 Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign, a statewide fundraiser for local charities. The 2009 total surpassed the University’s initial goal of $675,000, said Jim Fitzgerald, associate director of the University Community Relations Office and chairman of the 2009 campaign. The University’s contribution is almost 26 percent of the statewide figure, which is expected to be around $4 million, according to a University press release.

The past year’s donations were just less than the record-breaking total of $936,000 donated during the University’s 2008 campaign, Fitzgerald said. It is possible that the 2009 campaign’s total could surpass that figure as donations continue to trickle in, Fitzgerald said, but he is doubtful that it will.

The 2009 campaign received 3,500 individual gifts, compared to 3,881 in 2008, Fitzgerald said. He attributed the decrease in individual gifts to a decrease in the University’s employee pool, which was caused by the University’s hiring freeze even as employees continued to leave through attrition. Nevertheless, the average contribution per gift was substantially greater during the 2009 campaign in comparison to the 2008 campaign, he said.

A committee of University leaders set the initial goal of $675,000, which they based on the current economic climate and size of the employee donor base.

Having raised money since 1997, the CVC occurs annually throughout the Commonwealth between mid-October and the end of the year, University CVC Administrator Careen Waterman said.

University employees from all sectors — including staff, faculty and administrators — contribute to the campaign and can contribute to nearly 1,300 different charities, Waterman said. To donate to the campaign, employees pledged a certain amount or organized events such as auctions and bake sales, she said. Every cent of the donations goes directly to the charities, she said.

Overall, Fitzgerald said he was very pleased with the 2009 campaign’s numbers.

“There are so many obstacles and reasons for employees to not support [the CVC] and it is easy for them not to, yet they continue to dig deep in support of their favorite charities,” he said.

—Jamie Dailey contributed to this article

The $47 million Student Information System was implemented at the University nearly a year ago to streamline student information and to improve the course registration system, said Carole Horwitz, director of communications for the Student Systems Project. Many students and faculty members, though, still consider it more of an annoyance than a technological advancement.

The case against the system

Among the least popular features of SIS is the way it handles waiting lists.

“The waiting list system is barely functional and barely adequate,” Physics Prof. Louis Bloomfield said. “To get students in the labs, there may be 15 sections and there’s no way to feed the students into the system strategically. They have to go on waiting list for each individual section and students can’t drop one lab without dropping the entire course.”

These problems often result from the order in which students are assigned to waiting lists, said Alexis Andres, assistant dean for Student Operations and Systems. It is also common for students to have negative holds or time conflicts that prevent the system from automatically enrolling them in the course, he said.

“If you’re trying to get into a discussion that is full, you’re not going to be able to get in and you’ll lose your spot on waiting list on the lecture because you have to submit that [combined] request from the beginning,” Andres said. “There are lots of students before you who chose that same combination.”

Students often do not know the difference between an automatic waiting list system and a restricted, instructor-permission class, and course action forms can make the course registration even more frustrating, Andres said.

“In some situations, professors sign course action forms, which is detrimental to the students using the waiting list,” she said. “The course action form is taking spots that would be taking students on the waiting list.”

But even when students manage to enroll in and complete classes, SIS sometimes does not recognize that they have taken the course. Fourth-year Engineering Student Iberedem Ekure said he has noticed that SIS often overlooks credits that contribute toward majors, especially when those courses belong to different departments.

“SIS did not correctly perform my electrical engineering academic audit,” Ekure said. “It listed requirements I had fulfilled as [if they were still] outstanding and dumped classes that I took [as electives] that don’t count toward any requirements box.”

The glitch is especially disconcerting to those with majors or minors from two different schools or departments, Ekure said.

“Another friend who is both in the Engineering and Commerce Schools had his engineering major listed as a minor on SIS, preventing him from doing an academic audit for his engineering program,” Ekure said.

Transfer students run into roadblocks with their credits, as well. Second-year Nursing student Bridget Vaughn, who transferred to the University from James Madison University, said she had a particularly hard time with SIS to organize her transfer credits.

Alleviating problems with the waiting list and academic auditing systems is Student Operations and Systems’ top priority, Andres said, adding that fourth-year students with pressing academic audit issues should come to the department’s office to address their problems as soon as possible.

It is not only students, however, who have encountered problems with the system. Physics Prof. Craig Dukes said he and a number of faculty members had great difficulty entering grades through SIS this past semester.

“For a lab with 465 students, it was really a mess,” he said. “It was difficult to even know if the correct grades were up for students because we got error messages … Having to go through that for every student, one by one, with a slow piece of software … takes forever.”

Assoc. Media Studies Prof. Siva Vaidhyanathan said the system has proven to be inefficient when it comes to advising sessions with students, as well.

“The interface itself is state-of-the-art for about 1993,” Vaidhyanathan said. “It’s profoundly unhelpful. When doing advising, it’s terribly confusing to determine which screen means what. Too much information rolls out on one particular screen and you have to scroll down to the end to do basic advising audits.”

Moreover, SIS presents course descriptions in a condensed format that could be detrimental for both students and faculty, Bloomfield said.

“SIS is inferior to ISIS,” he said. “Academics evolve with time, so faculty who want to teach a new topic or the most recent thing they’re interested in … have trouble attracting an audience because the only thing they can put out there that students can see … is a title, and even that is hard to get to show up in SIS.”

He noted that this may hinder new faculty members from establishing themselves and filling up courses.

“The chances that a student will get far enough along in the system to find the class and recognize it as something that might interest them is so low,” he said, “that these innovative classes are under-subscribed and run the risk of failing and collapsing.”

Going with the flow?

Andres — who is also a University alumna — said she understands how much of a struggle it can be for students to adjust to a new system but noted that many of the University’s peer institutions — including the University of Michigan, James Madison University and Stanford University — use the same system.

“This is not something that somebody thought of one evening and thought to implement the next day,” Andres said. “A lot of people and effort went into making the decision.”
Vaughn, who transferred to the University from JMU in the fall, said the two systems are essentially the same.

Just because other universities use the same system, however, does not make it a good one, JMU sophomore Jordan Gilmore said. Students there have had similar complaints about their university’s “e-campus,” Gilmore said, adding that she personally finds the search interface cumbersome.

“You first find the class you need, then you add it to your ‘shopping cart,’ then you have to click ‘checkout’ and then there is one last step to confirm your registration,” she said. “If you know that there are three steps total, it isn’t a big deal, but I know a lot of freshmen who add a class to their cart, and by the time they realize that they’re not done, some of their classes have filled up.”

The system, however, does have convenient aspects, she said. For example, it allows students to set up their preliminary schedules before their assigned registration periods.

Falling short of advertised expectations?

“In theory, SIS is supposed to integrate all the essential functions for managing student enrollment, grades and degree audits … And it’s supposed to work well with Collab, but at this point, it’s not really useful for any of those things,” Vaidhyanathan said. “It’s built badly from the bolts up.”

Frustrated with SIS, Bloomfield created his own schedule of courses as an alternative, which has grown in popularity with both faculty and students since its debut last year.

“It presents everything in a concise, readable format, instead of a sort of industrial format,” Bloomfield said. “It’s fast, you can bookmark pages — and you can have more than one page open at once.”
Dukes, who uses Bloomfeld’s unofficial system instead of SIS, said he did not see the necessity of overhauling the old system.

“We didn’t see huge problems with the old system, or problems that couldn’t be tweaked for a lot less than what this new system cost,” he said. “$50 million … That’s a huge amount money for a system that just isn’t very good.”

Vaidhyanathan echoed Dukes’ sentiments and noted that current faculty and staff members at the University possibly could have built a better system that was truly tailored to the unique needs of the University.

“Lou Bloomfield created Lou’s List by doing some simple coding that allows his Web site to scrape data from SIS a couple of times a day and offers a user-friendly, quick view of which classes are open,” Vaidhyanathan said. “Why couldn’t we actually pay someone here to do that?

But a system built and implemented by individual universities is not the norm, Horwitz said. It is neither efficient nor desirable to have a team of system designers at each university, as it would be difficult to adapt to yearly changes in restrictions from the state and federal government. Systems available on the market, meanwhile, streamline student information and make it accessible to various departments, from enrollment to finances, she added.

“All universities are shifting away from these homemade systems into these enterprise systems,” Horwitz said. “They give you the flexibility to build the system according to needs of the University … You get those upgrades from the vendor.”

Nevertheless, Vaidyanathan said he thinks the system is neither worth the headache nor the money.

“It’s not worth a dime,” Vaidhyanathan said. “We really should get that money back. I’ve looked at six universities, and this is by far the worst student system I’ve ever seen.”

More of an impediment than an innovation?

“We basically have to conform to it because it won’t conform to us — that’s the big, macro problem,” Vaidhyanathan said.

He also contrasted SIS’ shortcomings with Collab’s successes, though Collab does have its own faults, he said.

“The great thing about Collab is that people at U.Va. can go under the hood and fix [problems] when we ask them,” Vaidhyanathan said. “SIS is supposedly designed to actually serve the needs of the University community and be flexible and adaptable because things change. If in 2009 and 2010 we’re just now getting used to this 1993 user interface, how many changes will we have to go through in 10 years? It’s a terribly backward system.”

Vaidhyanathan said the system simply does not cater to the needs of this or any university.

“It’s not saving anyone any time,” Vaidhyanathan said. “Every time that we complain about an issue, we’re told SIS can’t do that, or SIS wasn’t designed for that, and we can’t change that now, which makes me wonder: Who’s in charge here, the computer or the university?”

Bloomfield expressed similar sentiments about the rigidity of the system.

“[SIS is] meant for a world in which nothing evolves and nothing changes, and people take the same classes year-in and year-out and don’t want to go shopping for new classes,” Bloomfield said. “It’s more suitable for a high school where you’re a 10th grader and you’re going to take 10th grade English, math and social studies, but at a research university, it’s just a huge impediment to innovation.”

Easing the frustrations

But Horwitz’s office spent a year researching the systems available and SIS proved best able to meet the requirements of the University, she said. These needs were defined by staff, faculty and students in random surveys, Horwitz said, and SIS seemed more capable than any other system on the market.

Less than one-third of the survey pool responded, however. About 670 students of the 2,500 that were surveyed responded to the Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies, she said.
“It was over the holidays, so students were probably less likely to respond,” she added.

Horwitz’s office organized drop-in sessions at Newcomb Hall and various libraries on Grounds prior to SIS’ launch to ease the transition from ISIS, Andres said, but attendance was poor. Moreover, there are several online resources that address questions about the system, but many students may be unaware of them, she said. Additionally, both Horwitz and Andres emphasized that they are working closely with an advisory group of students from all of the University’s schools to identify and prioritize areas for improvement.

“The SIS Advisory Group is … dedicating many hours to helping us identify and prioritize enhancements that will make SIS work better in areas that need improvement,” Horwitz said. “The University spent over a year, engaging hundreds of people in the University community … Hundreds of people continued to work with the project over the years to set up and test the system to meet needs specific to U.Va. This is a process that continues.”

As a result, the Student Systems Project still is working to make SIS fit the University, Andres said, noting that feedback and user concerns are welcome.

“Everyone is invested in getting a system that works well and does what we need it to do,” she said. “It’s not any good if we have a system that people don’t feel comfortable using or don’t know how to use, and that can be a frustration on the people who worked hard to bring the system to the University.”

Despite the frigid temperatures and falling snow, John Paul Jones Arena hosted a heated thriller Saturday afternoon, as Wake Forest handed the Cavaliers their second home overtime loss on the year, 64-61.

“That was a hard-fought game,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “Defensively, there was a lot of slugging going on.”

Both teams were held to just 55 points in regulation, with the Cavaliers shooting a languid 33.8 percent from the floor throughout the game — the same percentage they managed against the Demon Deacons Jan. 23.

Neither team distanced itself from the other during the contest, leaving the results uncertain right up until the final possession.

Down 64-61 with only 20 seconds remaining in overtime, the Cavaliers inbounded the ball from their side of the floor. Landesberg missed a hesitant, off-balance jumper with 10 seconds to go, and junior forward Will Sherrill snagged the offensive board. An easy two would have given the Cavaliers the chance to tie or win on their next possession, assuming they could foul Wake immediately following the Deacons’ inbounded play.

But Sherrill dribbled back to behind the three-point arc and hurled up a prayer — which would have tied the game with six seconds left — but it failed to strike the rim. It never had a chance.
“We drew up a play — our timing was off on it,” Bennett said. “We were looking for a three, and if it wasn’t there, [we hoped to] attack and get a score. Will made a great hustle play but lost track of the time … I wish we had gotten a cleaner look than that.”

Landesberg led the team with 28 points on 8-of-19 shooting and 10-11 from the line. Junior forward Mike Scott, who scored 10 points, was the only other Cavalier to break double digits.

“Sylven was certainly terrific with his ability to score,” Bennett said. “They are really stacking the deck on Sylven, and when he’s making that next pass, we are getting some looks … But it wasn’t enough.”

Though Virginia led the Deacons for a good chunk of regulation, the team struggled to deal with Wake Forest on the front court. The Deacons obtained 46 rebounds to just 34 by the Cavaliers, a deficit that was particularly wide on the defensive end, where the Deacons nabbed 30 compared to Virginia’s 19. Big man Al-Farouq Aminu brought down 10 boards for Wake Forest and blocked three Virginia shots, including two during overtime.

Senior guard Ishmael Smith also helped to dizzy the Cavalier defense, playing during 44 of the game’s 45 minutes and finishing with 15 points and five assists.

“He’s just so fast,” Landesberg said. “He can get pretty much anywhere he wants on the court. And when he gets there, he’s very unselfish … That’s what makes it so difficult: he’s able to score and find the open man.”

With the win, Wake Forest has vaulted ahead of the Cavaliers in conference standings; Virginia has fallen back into a tie for fourth with in-state rival Virginia Tech.

The Cavaliers now will prepare for a Wednesday night road showdown with Maryland, which leads the Cavaliers by two spots in the ACC race.

It was a test. A test of Virginia’s ability to compete with the elite teams in the ACC. To determine which version of the pack-line defense reigns supreme in the conference. To see if the Cavaliers’ stud defensive freshman could contain ACC Player of the Year candidate Ishmael Smith the second time around. But above all, Saturday’s game against Wake Forest was a test of loyalty.

“I told the guys, I said, ‘If we really have fans, they’ll come out in the snow,” freshman guard Jontel Evans said. “You see today, we had a lot of fans out there, lot of people rootin’ for us.”

Evans wasn’t the only one who appreciated the support. Before the game started, Athletic Director Craig Littlepage addressed the fans. After declaring that Virginia is “gonna win the regular season in the ACC,” — no pressure, guys — Littlepage thanked the fans for trudging through the snow to support coach Tony Bennett’s team.

I believe the last time Littlepage addressed the student body in a similar manner was when he apologized for the, um, let’s just say, less-than-desirable product his football and basketball teams were putting out onto the playing field last year. And that message may have been communicated through a highly structured e-mail designed to avoid 100 different potential lawsuits.

So I’d say this personal encounter was a step in the right direction for Littlepage.

His employees have adhered to the party line: Before the Virginia Tech game, football coach Mike London made an appearance on the Jumbotron, introducing himself to the fans, demonstrating his support for the basketball team and imploring the students to get loud — though I think London will come to learn that Virginia fans don’t need much motivation to get pumped for a bout with the Hokies. Men’s tennis coach Brian Boland followed suit the next home game against N.C. State. And the trend continued Saturday, when men’s lacrosse coach Dom Starsia looked out at the crowd with an intense face that assured you — if you were ever uncertain — that Dom Starsia is a lacrosse coach and said, “Lacrosse season is coming, but let’s get behind coach Bennett and his boys. Go ‘Hoos!”

Maybe it’s easy to rally behind a team that had continued to flirt with first place in the ACC through its first seven conference games — but that’s neither here nor there. Bennett has proved his team will contend, so I think those appearances were more than just gimmicks. I think they were genuine attempts to unite the University community around a good cause.

What’s more, the University couldn’t have been more generous by inviting students who didn’t have tickets to come to the game. The Public Address announcer took it a step further early during the first half when he welcomed fans to move from their cozy abodes in the nose-bleed section to the lower concourse to fill the empty seats.

The result? I couldn’t tell any difference between the atmosphere created by the 5,988 people in attendance during Saturday’s game and the one made by what was surely a sold-out crowd during the Tech game. And that’s saying something.

Thoughts from Littlepage’s most popular employee: “I wanna say thanks to the fans that came with the weather — that was unbelievable,” coach Tony Bennett said. “That meant more to me and our team than you’ll ever know, and I’m beginning to understand more and more what Virginia fans are about, that they would come out in that weather and support us and cheer like they did. It was a home-court advantage because of them, so I say thank you to them and sorry we didn’t do our part. We battled hard, there’s no question.”

Ish Smith wasn’t too happy.

“It kind of bugged me,” Smith said, “kind of made me mad when the announcer said that everybody could come down, because that made the crowd even more raucous.”

From the opening tip, JPJ was electric. Senior forward Jerome Meyinsse’s shattering dunk off an Evans floating pass through the lane that gave the Cavaliers an early 9-4 lead. Sophomore guard Sammy Zeglinski’s three from his favorite spot on the court — the Wachovia sign — which gave Virginia its 28th, 29th and 30th points with 4:49 left in the opening period, already doubling its first-half scoring output in a blowout loss in Winston-Salem Jan. 23. Even the missed dunk by Wake freshman center Tony Woods at the end of the half. All of these plays drew massive eruptions from the stands.

The crowd was even more alive during the second half, despite Virginia’s dreadful display of offense: 6-of-28 from the field ain’t gonna cut it.

The Cavaliers relinquished their five-point halftime lead but they kept crawling back. And for each bucket, forced turnover or solid defensive possession, there was a face-painted student jumping up and down, trying to imbue the team with new life, begging for a response.

So it was truly a team effort — the players, the fans and administrators. But every team has its leader and, if you ever had any doubts, Sylven Landesberg proved himself worthy, even in a loss. The numerous and-one drives when Virginia had nothing else going offensively. Two high-pressure free-throws with 2:26 left in the game to cut the deficit to one. A quick move through the lane that resulted in a goaltending violation by Al-Farouq Aminu, tying the game at 55 and eventually sending it to overtime. His 28 points carried the team — three more at the end might have propelled Virginia to victory.
But Ish was just as good, if not better. Apart from the bonehead that is Chas McFarland, who picked up a technical foul midway through the second half, Smith kept his team in order. He was Ty Lawson without a jumpshot, dazzling through the lane, blowing by Evans (at times) and scoring at will. He is, quite simply, an impossible matchup.

(A quick aside on McFarland: What precipitated that foul? My brother goes to Wake, so I asked him the general consensus on McFarland: “He’s not worth writing about.” But I digress.)
The 64-61 loss notwithstanding, the pieces are in place for success in Virginia. Take it from Wake coach Dino Gaudio.

“I am going to tell you something — Jontel Evans is as good a defender we have had on Ishmael Smith in a long time,” Gaudio said. “That kid can really guard, he is a really good defender.”
So even though this may not be the year Virginia wins the regular season in the ACC or makes its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament in the post-Singletary era, I think it’s safe to say that basketball is back at Virginia. Evans said it best.

“Coach just keeps telling us to fight, never back down, never give up, just keep fighting … At the end, either we win or lose, we’re still a team — we’re still a family.”

After Saturday’s game, I think you could say the same of the University community, too.

Holding onto old recruits can be worrisome for schools undergoing a coaching change. And so when Mike London signed on as Virginia’s new head coach, he and his new assistants immediately went to work confirming recruits who had signed with former coach Al Groh. Only one of Groh’s 12 recruits decommitted from London’s squad, and 23 new high school students have signed with the Cavaliers since London’s arrival — including 17 during Wednesday’s Signing Day.

“I had a chance to talk to [recruits] on the telephone, visit with them out at their schools,” London said. “It kind of reiterated and bolstered all those decisions why they chose [Virginia] in the first place.”

Four of London’s signees are quarterbacks and are expected to compete for the starting job during training camp. Included in this group is the highly-touted Michael Strauss, who comes to the Cavaliers from Gulliver Preparatory located in Miami-Dade County, Fla. Strauss, London’s first new commitment to Virginia, led his team to the state championships as a junior and threw for 2,714 yards and 28 touchdowns during his senior campaign. The incoming quarterback already is attending classes at the University and is expected to begin practicing with the team this spring.

London also signed the highly-touted running back Kevin Parks, who hopes to contribute immediately to the Virginia running game, which averaged only 99.1 yards per game and 2.9 yards per rush last season. Throughout his high school career, KP — as London refers to him — rushed for 10,895 yards, ran for more than 100 yards in 55 games and earned a plethora of personal accolades, including Old Spice Red Zone National Player of the Year honors.

“I think KP is a phenomenal talent, and better than that, a great young man with a great family,” London said. “Everyone looks at his on-the-field accomplishments: rushing yards, Parade Magazine All-American, National Player of the Year awards, MVPs, All-Star games. Even more than that, he’s a great young man [with] an infectious smile. He’s going to be one of those guys that’s going to rally people around him because of his demeanor and his ability.”

The one knock against Parks may be his small stature. But the Virginia coaching staff believes Parks will be able to use his size to his advantage, as it will allow him to more easily sneak behind his linemen and find gaps in which to run.

“He’s 5 feet 8 inches-and-a-half on his tippy toes but he plays like a giant,” London said. “Can’t wait to get him out there and show people what he has.”

Meanwhile, Morgan Moses will try to bolster the offensive line, which is losing senior Will Barker. Moses, a 6-foot-6, 347-pound offensive tackle, was rated as the sixth best player at his position by ESPN.com and the best run blocker in June 2008 Rivals.com rankings. Moses also considered signing with Ohio State and LSU before ultimately deciding to join the Cavaliers.

“He’s a great young man,” London said of Moses. “[He was] very highly recruited. Teams [were] still talking to him, trying to get him to change his mind up until the last hour. I think his parents decided this was the best fit for him; this was the best place, surrounded by a great group of people, coaches, administrators, academic support people.”

The tight end position, London hopes, will remain strong, as the Cavaliers have produced successful pro stars, such as Steeler Heath Miller and Cowboy John Phillips, in past seasons. Signees Zach Swanson and quarterback Jake McGee have the potential to contribute at this position, especially in terms of the run block.

Overall, London expressed that he is looking forward to what the team will bring this season.

“Excited about the opportunity. Excited with the young men that are going to be members of this program,” he said. “They sound like they’re ready to go.”

The men’s tennis team dropped its first regular season match since 2006 in a 4-3 loss on the road against Kentucky this weekend.

The No. 2 Virginia men’s tennis team fell to No. 14 Kentucky 4-3 in Lexington Saturday, ending the program’s 63-match regular season winning streak that began in 2006.

The Wildcats (6-1) swept the three opening doubles matches to take a 1-0 lead and split the six singles matches to notch a 4-3 upset victory. Though sophomore Drew Courtney evened the score at one match apiece with a 6-2, 6-1 victory against sophomore Graeme Dyce, Kentucky quickly retook the lead with two singles victories, including No. 29 Alex Musialek’s 6-4, 7-6(5) upset of junior Michael Shabaz, who was ranked No. 2 in the nation. Freshman Jarmere Jenkins and senior Houston Barrick kept the Cavaliers (4-1) afloat with 7-6(4), 7-6(3) and 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 victories, respectively. With the match tied at three, Virginia’s hopes were left in the hands of No. 28 Lee Singer in the No. 6 slot. The senior lost in straight sets, however, sealing the defeat.

Virginia rebounded later in the day with a 6-0 sweep of Eastern Kentucky. Coach Brian Boland rested his starters, allowing his younger players to gain experience.

—compiled by Andrew Seidman