CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When Tony Elliott walked into his first workforce assembly at Virginia in late 2021, he promised to develop the mannequin program, one constructed on excellence within the classroom and on the sector. He did it whereas taking a look at a illustration of all he and his workforce must overcome: His gamers had been sitting on white plastic folding chairs contained in the indoor follow facility, as a result of its outdated soccer constructing didn’t have a gathering room large enough to suit everybody.
Elliott got here from Clemson, the place the soccer facility, which opened in 2017, featured all the things from a king-sized weight room to an in-house barber store to state-of-the-art coaching tables and restoration areas. However when he arrived at Virginia, the power he inherited had no fashionable facilities. Each assembly room was too small. There was no diet house — meals had been handed out of a trailer after follow. No gamers lounge, both, nor house for help workers. It regarded and felt each bit like one thing from 1991, which is, in reality, the yr it was constructed.
That, nonetheless, didn’t cease Elliott from promoting his imaginative and prescient. Neglect concerning the folding chairs. Neglect about having no place to eat. Neglect about what you considered Virginia soccer. This might be a brand new period. He wholeheartedly believed. So did the gamers who opted to remain and play for him.
Gamers like Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry. Gamers like Devin Chandler, who transferred in from Wisconsin.
At the moment, all the things Elliott spelled out in these early days is on full show. No. 19 Virginia (8-2) is off to its finest begin since 1990. Regardless of shedding to Wake Forest final week after quarterback Chandler Morris was knocked out of the sport, the Cavaliers are nonetheless within the combine within the ACC championship race. They face a must-win sport Saturday towards Duke (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) and are hopeful Morris will be capable of play.
A brand new $80 million, 93,000-square foot soccer operations heart opened final yr, with spacious workforce assembly rooms and a big eating room that includes a chef who labored at a Michelin-rated restaurant in London. The 14,000-square foot weight room is sort of as giant because the previous 15,000-square foot facility.
Displayed prominently as you enter the constructing are the Nos. 1, 15 and 41 jerseys that belonged to Davis, Chandler and Perry, who had been shot and killed on a constitution bus after returning dwelling from a category area journey to Washington, D.C., three years in the past.
When Elliott walks previous these jerseys, he thinks about what might have been. Some days he thinks about their funerals. He thinks about their households. He thinks concerning the lives they need to be residing.
Elliott thinks about Chandler, who would have been in his sixth season this yr, residing out all the things that was promised on his recruiting go to, celebrating a magical season along with his fellow seniors.
He thinks about the place Davis and Perry could be in pursuing their post-collegiate goals, maybe standing on the sideline in Scott Stadium rooting on their former teammates, possibly storming the sector after they beat Florida State in September.
What would they consider their workforce?
Would they be proud?
In a current sit-down interview with ESPN, Elliott acknowledged for the primary time that he significantly thought-about retiring after their deaths, unwilling to just accept burying three younger males, uncertain the right way to elevate his workforce when he had no concept the right way to elevate himself.
“There have been days that I needed to be like, ‘I am unable to do it anymore.’ I haven’t got to do it,” he says now.
Elliott knew he could be navigating a path no different coach had ever charted: Conserving his promise to construct that mannequin program amid unprecedented tragedy. He had unwavering help from the college administration. However greater than that, he had its promise to lastly spend money on Virginia soccer.
Three years after shedding Chandler, Davis and Perry, Elliott is properly on his strategy to delivering on the guarantees he made.
“It is a gorgeous factor to look at, and it’s inspirational,” Virginia athletic director Carla Williams stated. “I am impressed to see how they’ve proven up on daily basis because the tragedy. It is very rewarding to see the success, and it simply provides to the willpower to see it via.”
AT THE TEAM’S first assembly in January, Elliott had all the brand new gamers go across the room, introduce themselves and clarify why they selected Virginia. When it was Morris’ flip, he obtained up and bluntly stated, “I got here right here to win a convention championship.”
“That is the kind of chief you need, and that is when nearly all of the room realized if now we have a pacesetter who’s that vocal, it is time to do our half,” stated senior kicker Will Bettridge, who has been with this system since 2022.
A couple of weeks later, Morris reiterated that sentiment in his first interview with reporters at Virginia. “I did not come all the way in which to Virginia as a Texas boy to win 5, six video games,” Morris stated. “I need to win the convention championship.”
Reflecting on these feedback, Morris advised ESPN: “Speaking to everybody affiliated with this system, you noticed buy-in, a hungry program, everybody desirous to get this factor rotated. I knew there was a whole lot of help there, and we would be able to exit and get the playmakers and people who we would have liked.”
Elliott and his gamers had no drawback with Morris being so daring within the media. All of them agreed with him.
Williams and Elliott had been working for years to incentivize funding in soccer. Bronco Mendenhall, who was the top coach at Virginia from 2016 to 2021, stated throughout his time there that Virginia had the worst amenities within the ACC. He was not unsuitable. The small constructing was a hindrance on the recruiting path. Getting a brand new facility funded was paramount. As soon as it was constructed, Williams and Elliott moved on to goal No. 2: monetary funding in this system itself, going all-in on income sharing, NIL and enhancing the help workers.
Income sharing opened up a brand new world for Virginia. With athletic departments capable of pay pupil athletes as much as $20.5 million, Williams and Elliott got down to persuade donors how essential it was for Virginia to play the sport its blue-blood soccer counterparts could be enjoying. The outcomes quickly adopted.
Virginia made its strongest portal push beneath Elliott within the December 2024 window, armed with a big monetary funding that it didn’t have beforehand, thanks largely to a multimillion-dollar transformative reward from an nameless donor. The college referred to as the donation “the biggest one-time money contribution and the biggest non-capital reward to Virginia soccer in program historical past.”
That allowed the Cavaliers to signal Morris and 16 different gamers, bolstering expertise and depth at quarterback, receiver, defensive again and the offensive and defensive traces. Williams stated Virginia was strategic in its construct towards this second: First the soccer operations heart, then help for constructing the roster and help workers.
“Luckily, we had a number of key donors who imagine in the identical issues we imagine in,” Williams stated. “They imagine in the way in which that we attempt to do issues. They imagine in long-term, sustainable success … the sources are large. The oldsters who’ve been central to supporting this system did that earlier than they noticed the outcomes, and that is essential.”
Although Elliott had posted three shedding data in three seasons at Virginia, all people contained in the constructing knew that the inspiration of this system was being strengthened. The longer term might actually be totally different. Throughout the nation, applications equivalent to Indiana and Vanderbilt had been holding their very own towards the blue bloods.
Why not Virginia?
“How did the soccer colleges turn into soccer colleges?” Elliott asks. “They decided, after which folks purchased in, and so they created a tradition. That is actually what it takes. Virginia has all the things that it wants.”
TONY ELLIOTT’S MOTHER died in a automobile accident when he was simply 9. He was driving in a van together with her, his sister, stepbrother and stepfather when it hit one other automobile and flipped over. Tony, his sister, stepbrother and stepfather survived. He discovered his pregnant mom immobile subsequent to the van in a pool of blood. Elliott compartmentalized what occurred. He was nonetheless only a child. He did not totally comprehend that he would by no means see his mother once more.
He poured all the things he had into soccer, a spot the place he might neglect about not having his mother, and ultimately turned a large receiver at Clemson. After graduating, he spent two years as an engineer at Michelin North America. However he missed being across the sport, and he began work as a volunteer coach at an area highschool. He believed that one of the best ways he might assist others was via soccer.
Elliott ultimately turned top-of-the-line assistants within the nation because the co-offensive coordinator and playcaller at Clemson, serving to the Tigers win nationwide titles in 2016 and 2018.
Because the Tigers stored profitable, Elliott stored getting calls about open head teaching jobs. For years, he turned them down. He needed to attend for the college that felt proper: a faculty with a robust educational profile that may additionally give him the flexibility to construct a program the way in which he needed and an opportunity to quiet down and lift his household. And that is what Virginia supplied.
Then, 11 months into the job, Davis, Chandler and Perry had been killed. Operating again Mike Hollins was shot making an attempt to assist his teammates and was hospitalized. This time, Elliott had no selection however to confront the tragedy. It took many years for him to totally grasp shedding his mom, which he described as “a present and a curse,” in an interview with ESPN in 2015.
“I used to be listening to a whole lot of, ‘Every part you went via in your previous, coping with your mother and the adversity of your childhood, because of this you are right here,” Elliott stated. “I did not need to hear that within the second. That was 30 years in the past. I’ve already achieved what I wanted to do with that. I am on the opposite facet.
“I might get upset at instances when folks would say that, as a result of it isn’t what I needed to listen to. I need to be like all people else. I needed to listen to the simple factor, like, ‘Hey, it isn’t your combat. You do not have to do that. Go begin over. Go do one thing totally different.'”
He significantly thought of strolling away. It was not the primary time the thought crossed his thoughts. In 2018, former Clemson operating again CJ Fuller died at age 22 from problems associated to a blood clot. Then, after former Clemson operating again Tyshon Dye drowned the next yr on the age of 25, Elliott thought-about leaving the occupation. Dropping Davis, Perry and Chandler in the course of their school careers, with a lot life left to reside, despatched him spiraling. Too many younger males misplaced too younger.
“I simply stored considering, ‘I am unable to spend money on these younger males and visualize what their lives could possibly be like after they’re 30 years previous, after which, increase, they’re gone. It is too exhausting,” Elliott stated. “Even in these moments when you have to communicate at these funerals, you do not know what to say, and now you are doing it once more.
“It was not essentially operating from the state of affairs as a lot as, ‘I simply do not know if I can do that anymore.'”
Elliott and Williams talked at size within the weeks and months that adopted.
“He is not the one one which contemplated that, and once you care deeply about younger folks, and one thing like that occurs, it is regular and human to combat the urge to stroll away,” Williams stated. “That is the place for me, and I am positive for Tony, too, religion kicks in as a result of there’s a greater image. There’s a goal.”
Virginia canceled its remaining two regular-season video games in 2022. Gamers started to hit the switch portal. However others opted to remain, together with Bettridge, offensive linemen Noah Josey, Jack Witmer and McKale Boley and defensive deal with Jahmeer Carter — all starters right now. In all, 24 gamers on the 2022 workforce stay part of this system.
“Loads of guys possibly thought that we had been damaged, and thought that it was going to have an effect on us, nevertheless it really introduced us collectively, and it made us even stronger,” Bettridge stated. “I need to be often called somebody who carried that legacy, and never somebody who jumped ship when issues obtained exhausting. As a result of exhausting instances do not final, however robust folks do.”
The months handed, and Elliott tried to construct a roster, whereas determining his personal path ahead. Quickly, it could be time to return to follow, to ascertain a brand new regular. That first day again on the sector was exhausting. However he obtained the affirmation he wanted as he watched his gamers return to soccer for the primary time in 4 months when spring follow began the next March.
“If God requested us on the entrance finish: That is what you are strolling into. Do you continue to need to undergo that door? No person would join that,” Elliott says. “So, God has to place you in that state of affairs.
“I did select to come back right here. Once we pray for issues, we have got to take all the things that comes with it, and that is after I obtained it. Once we obtained again on the grass, that is actually when it hit me like, ‘All proper, that is proper the place you are alleged to be.’ Now, get out of your emotions and go concentrate on what it’s good to do for everyone else.”
The self-reflection additionally modified Elliott as an individual and as a coach. He says he’s extra empathetic, a greater husband and a greater father. After the tragedy, Elliott made positive to open up along with his gamers extra. There was no disgrace in speaking about emotions.
“My methodology of coping with the issues that I handled after I was youthful, it is in all probability not probably the most wholesome and the best, nevertheless it was what you probably did,” Elliott stated. “You did not discuss it a lot, you simply sucked it up and also you went via it. However instances are totally different. I am looking for that stability of old-school/new-school simply to have the ability to attain and assist.”
Nor was there disgrace in admitting the way in which he approached his job in Yr 1 was merely not going to work.
“Once I first got here in, younger, overzealous, not understanding the job, simply making an attempt to do all the things so quick, and not likely recognizing the place all people else was at, simply making an attempt to inform all people to come back meet me the place I’m,” Elliott stated. “I now meet them the place they’re, and say, ‘Let’s elevate collectively.'”
ELLIOTT HAD A quote from Corridor of Fame coach Invoice Walsh positioned on the wall within the weight room of the brand new soccer facility:
Champions behave like champions earlier than they’re champions; they’ve a profitable normal of efficiency earlier than they’re winners.
At Clemson, Elliott noticed a program remodel from an underachiever to a perennial nationwide title contender. However he and Williams each knew the repair at Virginia wouldn’t be fast; the Cavaliers hadn’t gained a convention title since 1995.
Elliott refused to run gamers off. Anyone on scholarship who has needed to stick with this system has all the time been allowed to remain.
There have been glimmers of hope within the first couple of years: a ranked win over North Carolina in 2023; one other over Pitt in 2024. One-score losses usually bled into extra losses. Final season felt like Virginia was on the verge of a breakthrough after a 4-1 begin, however the Cavaliers completed with losses in six of their remaining seven video games to complete 5-7. Outsiders might have thought that was sufficient to place Elliott on the recent seat. However Williams by no means thought-about making a change. She knew Elliott was making an attempt to do one thing harder than simply profitable soccer video games.
“If you see individuals who care deeply exhibiting up on daily basis, when all the things round them is pushing them to not present up, for me — that requires endurance,” she stated. “I perceive how troublesome it’s to concentrate on a sport once you’re traumatized by tragedy.”
All of the whereas, Elliott was serving to construct a basis for what was to come back. So when offseason exercises started in January, the seniors who had been via the ups and the downs, and the lack of their teammates, took possession. The switch gamers got here in and slot in so properly that it was exhausting to inform who had been at Virginia for a number of months, and who had been there for a number of years.
“Everybody we introduced in from the switch portal, that they had the identical aim coming right here — to win a championship,” stated Carter, a sixth-year senior. “I feel that showcases the tradition change of this system.
“As a result of possibly a number of years in the past, you in all probability would not have heard that coming from anyone from UVA. Now right here we’re. That may really be completed.”
The turning level got here on a Friday night time at dwelling towards Florida State. Strolling into the stadium, Elliott felt at dwelling, enjoying in an enormous nationwide highlight sport, the stakes excessive. It was similar to issues had been seven years prior at Clemson.
Virginia pulled out a 46-38 double-overtime victory, the followers storming the sector virtually immediately after the ultimate play ended. Virginia had misplaced so many shut video games since he arrived, however Elliott by no means misplaced religion that night time that his workforce would win.
Bettridge sat on a bench along with his mother and father and girlfriend and allowed himself a second to absorb the scene.
“It was emotional simply to appreciate what we have been via in 4 years right here, and simply to see what’s succesful, and to know that there is extra,” Bettridge stated.
The next week, Virginia performed one other extra time sport, this time beating Louisville thanks to 2 defensive scores. Elliott texted Perry’s mother, Glad, after the sport. “We had just a little particular assist,” he stated.
Perhaps so. However Virginia can be serving to itself this season, making performs after they matter most to tug out three extra time wins, changing into one in all solely eight groups in school soccer historical past with three extra time victories in the identical season.
“There’s been groups up to now right here that I have been part of that discovered methods to lose,” Josey stated. “This workforce is totally different. This workforce finds methods to win. This workforce finds methods to grind it out, tooth and nail, no matter it needs to be. Once we’re in these moments the place in previous years we’d have faltered, we’re not this yr. That is the large distinction.”
Now that Virginia has made the funding, there isn’t any turning again. During the last two months, the college has acquired one $1 million donation and one other nameless multimillion-dollar dedication.
Says Williams: “You’ve got improved the personnel, you have improved the working finances, you have improved the amenities. You’ve got dedicated to rev share and NIL. When you cease, then you definately’ve wasted years of constructing.”
There isn’t any stopping so far as Elliott is anxious. With every day and every win, there are all the time reminders about how far they’ve come, and the way a lot they’ve misplaced. Elliott has made it a degree to inform all incoming gamers about Davis, Chandler and Perry.
The three gamers are honored yearly at a house sport designated “UVA Robust Day.” This yr, on that day, Virginia beat William & Mary 55-16. In his postgame information convention, Elliott famous the 55 factors are probably the most Virginia has scored in a sport since a 55-15 rout of Abilene Christian in November 2020. Davis and Perry every scored a landing in that sport.
Josey thinks about them each time he runs out of the tunnel. He drops to a knee and prays for them and their households. When Bettridge traces as much as kick towards the closed facet of Scott Stadium, he sees a extra everlasting reminder: 1-15-41 on the video ribbon board. He makes use of that as his goal level as he traces as much as kick, a reminder he’s enjoying for one thing greater than himself.
“I am hopeful that we’re bringing pleasure and hope and just a little little bit of peace to their households,” Elliott stated. “I imagine that when now we have success, they’re proper there with us.”