If you have visited the site since last night, you may notice a new menu tab that says “Plans”, which signifies we have finally finished our original plans for the website. Our original intent was to put up a front end of content as soon as we could, then a month later install the back end, which allows people to login, subscribe and make changes to their information within our system. It also will control access to the different areas of the site. Subscribers got an email last night explaining how to use this, but I’ll repeat it for those […]

When you start a business, there are several milestones that make you step back and go “cool.” One is when you print the company’s first business card. Another is when the company website goes live for the first time. And then there’s the day that a big box arrives at the office, you open it up, and inside are the golf shirts with your company logo that our Marketing and Advertising Director, Wendy Peery, had been working on. Jerry just sent me a picture of them, and while Hootie is entirely too humble to post a picture online, I’m not. […]

As mentioned last week, we are going to try to bring regular features to the site, including Hootie’s Wayback Machine and my look at business and media in the ACC. Another one we’re considering is a regular look at good old-fashioned number crunching involving statistics of UVA and the ACC, examining trends in anything from football stats to school finances. Our first look will involve the USA Today annual survey of the financials of major college sports programs, which was released earlier in the year. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link for it. Through 2017, the state of […]

Although it’s only been a little more than a week since we’ve gone live, you should start seeing the site evolve into more regular features such as Hootie’s Wayback Machine, as we want to make sure we’re producing not only the news stories involving University of Virginia sports, but perspective, commentary and analysis of those things that also affect UVA sports. I won’t be getting the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour, but in addition to Hootie’s Wayback Machine, we will also be having a regular column on business and media as it relates to UVA and the ACC. […]

WHITE SULFUR SPRINGS, W.Va. – Steve Marino is the seasoned warhorse of Virginia golf. No Cavalier golfer has remained on the professional level longer than Marino, who has been earning a living since 2002. I remember writing a story on Marino once he earned his PGA Tour card 16 years ago. He was getting ready to make his debut at an event in Hawaii.I’ll never forget what he told me. “I don’t want to be a one-and-done guy,” Marino said. “I don’t want to play for a year and then vanish. I want to be making a career out of […]

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. – It was late March and even though Denny McCarthy had not yet made a cut in his rookie year on the PGA Tour, the former University of Virginia golfer felt like he was playing well. Then the Corales Puntacana Resort Club Championship in the Dominican Republic came along. McCarthy carded two sub-70s rounds to open the tournament and finished fourth, not only making his first cut but making his first substantial payday ($144,000) in the process. He’s been solid ever since, missing only one cut and earning almost $400,000 heading into this weekend’s Military Tribute […]

One of the features that will become regular on JerryRatcliffe.com is “Hootie’s Way Back Machine,” when I climb into our company’s time machine and visit a memorable moment in Virginia sports history. For anyone unaware, yes, my nickname is Hootie, something I’ve had long before the Blowfish came into existence. So here is the first installment. Come along with me, but as our friend Rod Mullins in the Southwest corner of the state reminds us, remember that we have to hit 88 mph on the keyboard before the flux capacitor will start. And try not to interact with yourself or […]

Earlier this week, David Teel of the Newport News Daily press wrote this piece on the ACC Network, set to launch in 2019. It noted Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel had told the university’s Board of Regents last week that his department’s share of Big Ten revenue was $51.1 million in 2017-18, with $52.1 million projected in 2018-19. That’s a stark comparison to the ACC’s $26.6 million divulged in its most recent federal tax filing, according to Teel. Wow, I thought. The gap just keeps getting bigger and bigger between the Big 10 and the ACC. Wow, I also thought. […]

For the 12th straight year, the University of Virginia finished in the top 25 of the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup. The final standings, which consist of how each program finishes in NCAA postseason play, were revealed Saturday. UVa ranked 21st out of 292 Division I schools, which was good for fifth out of the 15 Atlantic Coast Conference schools (Florida State was 9th, Duke 11th, UNC 12th and N.C. State 15th). Notre Dame (22nd), Virginia Tech (28th) and Louisville (30th) also cracked the top 30. Although it was the school’s lowest finish since coming in 26th overall in 2006, Virginia […]

A week ago, I reunited with an old friend to talk about a new life. Dave Scarangella and myself had worked together in the mid-1970s as we began to carve out careers in the newspaper business. Although we had kept in touch, we hadn’t seen each other in a while, and so upon our meeting at the Black Bear Bistro in downtown Warrenton, well, it was like old times. I had just lost my job after 36 years of covering University of Virginia athletics amongst other sports and was exploring the next step. Dave, who had been semi-retired after successful […]

Every great tale usually has a backstory. And as I was reading Jerry’s post about how this site came to be in such a small amount of time, I thought maybe some folks would like to hear some of that backstory. Jerry and I are not only life-long friends, but we’re writers and story tellers. So much so that when he called and asked if I wanted to get together and have lunch, the next obvious question was where. He lives in Charlottesville and I live in Ashburn, so we looked for a town somewhere in the middle. Warrenton was […]