The Virginia Cavaliers
are the athletic teams officially representing the University of Virginia in college sports. The Cavaliers participate in the NCAA's Division I Atlantic Coast Conference in 25 varsity sports. The athletics program has won 14 NCAA team national championships [1] [2], third-highest total of national titles in the conference after UNC with 32 and Maryland with 20. [3]
The media generally refers to the University's athletic teams as simply Virginia
for short, and the mascot is a mounted swordsman, or "Cavalier." (This mascot is a historical reference to the time when Virginia earned its nickname, the "Old Dominion". The Commonwealth was a hotbed of persons loyal to the English crown, called cavaliers in the days of the English Civil War and Interregnum.) An unofficial moniker, the Wahoos, or 'Hoos for short, based on the University's rallying cry "Wah-hoo-wah!" is also commonly used. Though originally only used by the student body, both terms — Wahoos and Hoos — have come into wide use by the media as well.
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Origins and history
The school colors, adopted in 1888, are orange and navy blue. The athletic teams had previously worn silver and cardinal red, but those colors did not show up very well on dirty football fields as the school was sporting its first team. A mass meeting of the student body was called, and a star player showed up wearing a navy blue and orange scarf he had brought back from a
University of Oxford summer boating expedition. The colors were chosen when another student pulled the scarf from the player's neck, waved it to the crowd and yelled: "How will this do?" (Exactly 100 years later in 1988, Oxford named their own American football club the "Cavaliers", and soon after the Virginia team adopted its "curved sabres" logo in 1994, the Oxford team followed suit.)
When
boxing was a major collegiate sport, Virginia's teams boxed in Memorial Gymnasium and went undefeated on a six-year run between 1932 and 1937, winning an unofficial national championship in 1938.
[4]
Virginia's athletic teams have participated in the
Atlantic Coast Conference since the league's first year in 1953. Its men's basketball team has five times been part of the NCAA
Elite Eight (1981, 1983, 1984, 1989, 1995), twice advancing to the
Final Four (1981 and 1984). The Virginia Cavaliers football team has twice been honored as ACC Co-Champions (1989 with
Duke, and 1995 with
FSU). Women's
cross country won national titles in 1981 and 1982. The
soccer and
lacrosse programs have both been tremendously successful. The Virginia men's soccer team has won five national championships, four consecutively (1989, 1991–1994). The Men's lacrosse teams has won six national titles, while the women have claimed three. Men's lacrosse won national championships in 1952*, 1970*, 1972, 1999, 2003 and 2006 (* denote unofficial); the women's lacrosse team won national titles in 1991, 1993, and 2004.
Basketball
John Paul Jones Arena opened in the Fall of 2006 and is the current venue for the men's and women's basketball teams. At its recent height in the 1980s, the men's basketball team was better than perennial power
Duke and second only to
UNC in that decade's cumulative
ACC standings. The 1990s and 2000s have seen a bit of a slide for the program to the middle of the pack in the conference, but the hiring of new coach Dave Leitao along with the 2006 opening of John Paul Jones Arena have led to a return to prominence, with the 2006-2007 team winning a share of the ACC regular season title and making it to the second round of the
2007 NCAA Tournament. The new arena is one of the three largest on-campus facilities in the Atlantic Coast Conference, with the only bigger arenas belonging to universities with far greater student populations. The previous facility,
University Hall, was the smallest in the ACC until the addition of
Miami (FL) to the conference.
Football
Scott Stadium sits across from the first-year dorms along Alderman Road and is home to the University of Virginia's football program. The press box at
Scott Stadium was a gift from an alumni in honor of Norton G. Pritchett, the admired athletic director at
UVA from 1934 until his death in 1950. Students, fans, and alumni have recently begun to sport orange clothing for the games, a new tradition the current head coach,
Al Groh, has been pushing for since he became head coach in 2000. Many students, however, have continued to wear the traditional sundresses or coat and tie at football games. Several fans have also begun garbing themselves in outlandish costumes in the style of football superfans (such as the Orange Gorilla or The Superhoo). Funding from benefactor Carl Smith created the foundation for the 230-piece
Cavalier Marching Band in 2004, replacing the
Virginia Pep Band in its official capacity at athletic events.
Baseball
With the departure of head coach
Dennis Womack to the front office, the arrival of head coach
Brian O'Connor from
Notre Dame in 2004, and the opening of
Davenport Field in 2002, the UVa baseball team experienced a rebirth. Since the inception of baseball at the University in 1889, the team has only reached the
NCAA Baseball Tournament nine times, once each of the past three decades (1972, 1985, 1996), but most recently six years running (2004-2009). The 2008-2009 season of the Cavaliers saw them through to the CWS(College World Series)with a 49-17-1 record, where they achieved their first ever CWS win.
Soccer
Klöckner Stadium is home to several successful programs, including Virginia men's
soccer. More years than not, the University of Virginia fields one of the best squads in the country, and the program has, by far, the most successful history in the ultra-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference. Since ACC Tournament play began in 1987, Virginia has played in 14 out of 18 ACC Tournament championship matches, winning nine ACC titles (including 2003 and 2004), to go with their five NCAA Tournament championships. The man who built the U.Va. program,
Bruce Arena, compiled an amazing 295–58–32 record before leaving in 1995 to coach
D.C. United to their first two
MLS championship seasons, and later the
U.S. National Soccer Team to their best
World Cup showing since 1930.
2006 season
Women's soccer
The women's team finished the 2006 season 12–8–2 overall, 5–4–1 in the ACC.
| NCAA Tournament
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| Date
| Day
| Opponent
| Location
| Outcome/Time
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| November 10, 2006
| Fri
| West Virginia (1st Round)
| Winston-Salem, North Carolina
| W, 2-0
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| November 12, 2006
| Sun
| Wake Forest (2nd Round)
| Winston-Salem, North Carolina
| W, 2-0
|
| November 17, 2006
| Fri
| Texas A&M (3rd Round)
| College Station, Texas
| L, 2-1
|
Lacrosse
For men's and
women's lacrosse, the Cavaliers play at Turf Field (exhibition matches) and
Klöckner Stadium (regular season & postseason matches). Virginia has won four
NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championships in its history (1972, 1999, 2003, and 2006) playing in
Division I. Including the
NCAA titles they have held six total national titles (1952 and 1970). They also hold the record for the best record in NCAA history going 17-0 in the 2006 season. On March 28, 2009, the University of Virginia men's lacrosse team beat
Maryland 10-9 in seventh
overtime, the longest game in the history of NCAA Division I lacrosse. The women's team has won three
NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championships in 1991, 1993, and 2004.
2007 season
2006 season
Men's lacrosse
In the 2006 season, the Cavaliers broke the NCAA record for the best record going 17-0 and winning the championship, 15-7, over the
UMass Minutemen. Their attackmen
Matt Ward won the
Tewaaraton Trophy and the Final Four
MVP. He also broke the NCAA record (previously held by
Gary Gait with 15) of the most goals in the tournament (16). Five of Virginia's players were selected in the 2006
Major League Lacrosse Collegiate Draft, including 3 in the first round. Matt Ward, Kyle Dixon, and Michael Culver were selected in the first round, with Matt Poskay in the second, J.J. Morrissey in the third. Eight Cavaliers were also picked for the
All-American team (three on the first, and two on both the second and the third).
Women's lacrosse
The 2006 women's lacrosse team were the
ACC champions after going 14-3. They worked their way up to the final against the
Princeton Tigers, but lost 8-7. Two Cavaliers, Tyler Leachman and Nikki Lieb, were selected to be on the first
All-American team. Lieb was also a finalist for the
Tewaaraton Trophy.
Other varsity sports
| Men
| Women
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| Cross Country
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