University of Virginia Library

The Virginia Way

For over a year now the University has
been the target of one attack after another in
the sports columns of the Daily Progress.
Constructive criticism of a college's athletic
program is vital to insure its continued
self-evaluation and development. However,
when that criticism becomes myopic,
pompous, and sarcastic, ignoring the overall
aims–and successes–of the program, then the
attacks need to be revealed for what they are
before someone important takes them
seriously and tries to make the program into
something which no one except the writer
and perhaps a few other
outsiders want it to
become.

The writer in question
is Dave Sparks, who came
to the Progress as sports
editor in the summer of
1971. The fact that the
University had always,
until that point, had a
losing tradition in athletics
upset Mr. Sparks, and he
was not about to tolerate
it.

Mr. Sparks, though,
was not the only man who
saw room for
improvement in our
athletic program. Another
who shared his concern
was Gene Corrigan, who
had taken over as director of athletics the
previous January. And since that time, the
University has had more prosperity on the
fields and courts, mats and courses than at
any time in its history, achieving for the first
time last year a composite 500 record against
ACC competition.

This, one would think, might seem
indicative of a new era for Virginia sports. Of
course, we're not a Nebraska or Southern

California or Michigan, but then who would
want us to be a mammoth institution reputed
only for athletic excellence, thriving only for
the excitement of a Saturday afternoon clash
of brawn, providing a haven for high school
jocks whose college board scores don't total
800?

Dave Sparks.

He said it himself after the Vanderbilt
game. "Virginia has always had plenty of
brilliant students in uniform. What Lawrence
needs is a few more of those students that he
can spell the word
'students' without the
'ent' when they put on
the cleats... If brainpower
was the key ingredient to
win football games,
Virginia and Vandy would
be unstoppable."

We want a winning
football team too, Mr.
Sparks, but not at the price
you are asking us to pay.
If you want to impose
your one-dimensional
philosophy on a
university, go elsewhere
because no one here is
going to listen to you.

Even more damaging to
Mr. Sparks' credibility is
the way he insists on judging the entire
athletic program here by one sport. The
football team may still be floundering, but
what about our nationally-ranked basketball
team, or our NCAA champion lacrosse team,
or our ACC champion baseball team, or our
state champion golf team? Surely these
accomplishments warrant praise for Mr.
Corrigan and his staff, rather than the harsh
chastisements which Mr. Sparks continually
serves up. That Mr. Corrigan is developing the
athletic program here in what Mr. Sparks
terms the "Virginia Way" as opposed to "the
glamor way" is something for which we are
thankful. Mr. Sparks would have only to look
at the records to see that, in the main, the
"Virginia Way," under Mr. Corrigan's
leadership, is working.

But perhaps the trouble is that it takes
brainpower to look at all the facts and
interpret them as they relate to the overall
situation...and if brainpower were the key
ingredient to writing sports columns, Dave
Sparks would be unemployable.