People and numbers forge the backbone of sports, in these parts rarely more than during 2012. High school, college and professional. Football, basketball and golf. Men, women and young folk.
At every level and seemingly at every turn sports retained its uncanny ability to entertain, surprise and provoke.
From Phoebus High's unusual coaching transition, to the NCAA Championship Subdivision's first 5,000-yard passing season. From the LPGA Tour's second-longest, sudden-death playoff to the ACC's rapid membership changes. From a hospital bed in Newport News to the medal stand at the London Olympics.
So before ratcheting up your New Year's festivities and forecasting 2013, settle in and relive 2012's top-10 sports stories, as chosen by our staff. On Pages 4-5
1. Phoebus' drive for a record fifth consecutive state football championship encountered an unforeseen hurdle in late September when administrators suspended head coach Stan Sexton, 47-2 in three-plus seasons, following a practice incident in which a player was injured. Defensive coordinator Jeremy Blunt took over on an interim basis, and less than three weeks later, administrators made Sexton's departure permanent. Under Blunt, the Phantoms won their next six games to a complete a 10-0 regular season. But in the third round of the Eastern Region playoffs, Lake Taylor mauled Phoebus 54-0, the Phantoms' worse loss in 27 years. The Titans won the Division 5 state title, the first football state championship for a Norfolk school since Granby in 1966. On Dec. 17, school officials removed the interim tag and hired Blunt full-time. "I've known him ever since I was in elementary school," junior lineman Kevin Lyles said of Blunt. "The guys wanted him back. He's the person we need to get back on track and (win) another state championship."
2. 'Twas a turbulent 2012 for Virginia Tech athletics. First, the school fired basketball coach Seth Greenberg and replaced him with James Johnson, a former Greenberg assistant who had just left for an assistant's position at Clemson. Greenberg's late-April dismissal was unusually timed, lending credence to athletic director Jim Weaver's assertion that the decision had little to do with wins and losses ? the Hokies were 16-17 last season, 170-123 under Greenberg, but made only one NCAA tournament during his tenure. In short, Greenberg chafed many in the athletic department, his staff and Weaver included, and his ultimate mistake was portraying assistants' departure as a reflection of Tech's salaries. As much drama as basketball created, it paled to football, which endured a 7-6 season, its worst record in 20 years. Preseason favorites to win the ACC Coastal Division, the Hokies didn't secure bowl eligibility for the 20th consecutive year until a 17-14 victory over Virginia in the finale. They defeated Rutgers 13-10 on Friday in the Russell Athletic Bowl.
3. Old Dominion's final season as a Football Championship Subdivision program was indelible, in large measure, because of sophomore quarterback Taylor Heinicke. He not only led the Monarchs to the national playoff quarterfinals, but also eclipsed Steve McNair's 18-year-old FCS record for passing yards in a season. Heinicke finished with 5,076 and won the Payton Award, emblematic of FCS' top offensive player. His next challenge is to help ODU's transition to the Bowl Subdivision, an upgrade the school announced in May with its move to Conference USA. Watching Heinicke next season against the likes of Maryland, North Carolina and East Carolina will be curious, indeed.
4. When the ACC welcomed Notre Dame as a football scheduling/bowl partner and full member for other sports in mid-September, the conference's membership appeared set for years, perhaps decades. Two months later, charter member Maryland blindsided its colleagues and the league office by announcing its intention to not only leave for the Big Ten but also to fight the ACC's $52 million exit fee. National media and even Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski pronounced the ACC vulnerable to further defections. Many speculated that Virginia also could be Big Ten-bound, a notion athletic director Craig Littlepage quashed. At year's end, and with Louisville secured to replace Maryland, the ACC again appears solid.
5. Francena McCorory and Kellie Wells missed one another by a year at Hampton University, but they were U.S. Olympic teammates last summer, and each returned from London with hardware. A graduate of Bethel High, McCorory won a gold medal in the 4x400 relay; Wells captured bronze in the 100-meter hurdles. "Coming from Hampton University made me so proud," Wells said during an October celebration at HU, "because it shows you don't have to be from a big SEC school with all the money and big budgets. ? Francena and I had that (Hampton) blue and white through our hearts."
6. Less than a month after former Hampton High basketball standout Gary Smith lost his fight with leukemia, the Crabbers won their first state championship in 15 years, defeating Petersburg 64-51. "Make sure you put in that this was for Monstar," Hampton guard Anthony Barber said afterward, using Smith's nickname. For all the emotion of the Crabbers' postseason run, much drama remained for Peninsula District fans. Specifically, where would Barber, Phoebus' Troy Williams and Woodside's Adrienne Motley elect to attend college in 2013? Each chose programs that resided among the top 25 last season. Barber signed with North Carolina State, Williams, who is finishing his prep career at Oak Hill Academy, with Indiana, and Motley with Miami.
7. Saddled with a September date that conflicted with blanket college football and a NASCAR race in Richmond, the LPGA's return to Kingsmill after a three-year absence figured to struggle for attention. Then Paula Creamer and Jiyai Shin staged the second-longest, sudden-death playoff in tour history, a nine-hole ordeal that spilled into Monday morning after darkness prevailed Sunday night. Eight times the pair dueled over the par-4 18th hole, and eight times each made par. Tournament officials shifted Monday's opening playoff hole to the par-4 16th, where Creamer's 3-putt bogey handed Shin her first victory in two years. Both players exited Virginia quickly for the Women's British Open, which Shin won by a record nine shots.
8. The post-spring practice arrival of former Alabama and prep All-America quarterback Phillip Sims spiced Virginia's preseason to wasabi levels, but coach Mike London and his staff never settled on a coherent strategy or rotation at the game's linchpin position. That led to the Cavaliers' 4-8 season and the subsequent transfer of rising senior Michael Rocco, with whom Sims shared playing time. Virginia's 2-6 ACC record relegated it to last place in the league's Coastal Division for the third time in four years and prompted London to dismiss four assistant coaches, including defensive coordinator Jim Reid.
9. If you think college conference realignment is confusing, try wrapping your arms around the structure the Virginia High School League has adopted for 2013 and beyond. Schools will be divided into six classes, strictly by enrollment with no option to play up. Current districts will remain intact for regular season competition but vanish come postseason, when teams will be divided into smaller conferences of 5-8 schools. Locally, the Peninsula and Bay Rivers Districts will include schools from three classes and conferences, with the changes creating heretofore unimaginable playoff pairings such as Phoebus-Grafton and Denbigh-Jamestown.
10. As coach, administrator and ambassador, C.J. Woollum has been the front porch of Christopher Newport athletics since 1984, when he began a 26-year run as basketball coach that included 502 victories and 17 NCAA Division III tournament appearances. After 25 years as the school's athletic director, a tenure than included the Captains adding football, Woollum stepped down in June to assume an emeritus role. Less than two months later, he underwent surgery in Newport News to remove a cancerous brain tumor. Woollum is back home and undergoing treatments, and in late October gave a wry acceptance speech marking his induction into the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame.
Source: http://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt-top-sports-stories-2012-20121230,0,6699541.story?track=rss
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