Emotional Tony Bennett says farewell to Virginia Basketball
Posted on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, 5:54 pm
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By Jerry Ratcliffe
Photo: UVA Athletics
It is a sad day for college basketball, hopefully a sobering moment as another one of the sport’s greatest figures cashed in his chips for a simpler lifestyle away from the maddening pressures of today’s game.
After years of wandering in the vast desert of the sport, Tony Bennett made Virginia basketball relevant again, put the Cavaliers back on the national map. More importantly, as the great “Blue Eyes” sang to perfection, Bennett did it his way and was a role model for everyone who dribbled a ball.
Never — maybe Wooden — have we witnessed a guy who could turn the worst adversity into a blast of sunshine and hope for the future as Bennett did in 2018. He came to Charlottesville 15 and a half years ago to test himself against the Blue Bloods of the ACC and raised the bar, taking UVA basketball to places it had never been, and reached the pinnacle with a national championship in an unforgettable run in 2019, yes, a year after the UMBC nightmare.
But the winds have since changed with the introduction of out-of-control NIL and transfer-portal dizziness that has driven many legends of the game, Wright, Krzyzewski, Saban, Boeheim, and now Bennett at only age 55, out of play.
In an emotion-filled press conference on Friday morning — in the same room he was introduced as the future of Wahoo Basketball in 2009 — Tony Bennett choked back his feelings, voice cracking as he laid out his reasons with the candid honesty we’ve come to expect.
“I’ve been here for 15 years as the head coach, and I thought it would be a little longer, to be honest, but that’s been on loan … it wasn’t mine to keep,” Bennett said. “It’s time for me to give it back.”
Only three weeks before the season opener, Bennett nearly broke down when he said:
“That’s probably the thing that has choked me up the most and the hardest thing to say is, when I looked at myself and I realized I’m no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment. If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be all in. You’ve got to have everything. If you do it halfhearted, it’s not fair to the university and to those young men.”
His team, his coaching staff, administrators, fellow UVA coaches and others filled the room to witness the farewell, a day that everyone affiliated with Cavalier basketball dreaded would come, but knew it was inevitable. Bennett was never going to grow old in the sport, but is the youngest of all the legends to walk away, the burden too heavy.
“The game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot,” Bennett said.
While athletic director Carla Williams shared that she and Bennett have been talking about the end for three years now, she continued to believe that he is the right man for the job and tried to no avail to convince him to stay.
Bennett thought about calling it quits after last season, a grinding campaign with “the newest team” he had ever had, filled with transfers, a jigsaw puzzle that seemed to be missing offensive pieces, a team that he squeezed every bit of life from to finish respectively with a hard ending, another postseason upset loss in the first round.
It was the dreaded transfer portal though, coming on the heels of the season, that added a final spark in Bennett’s mind, as Virginia landed a potentially dangerous team that whetted the coach’s fierce competitiveness one more time. The addition of local standout Chance Mallory further excited Bennett’s desire to go around one more time.
Still, with the season approaching, he just didn’t have the fire in his belly that had become so familiar when past Octobers signaled a fresh start, a new beginning, a challenge.
When he and wife, Laurel, took a fall-break vacation to the Tide’s Inn down on the Rappahannock, Bennett realized it was the end. He called Williams, who was on a fundraising trip on the West Coast, to inform her of his decision Wednesday morning. Two days later, Bennett was handing over the reins to longtime assistant Ron Sanchez, a loyal lieutenant who had blindly followed him coast to coast from Washington State to Charlottesville.
Bennett so hoped to arrange it that one of his associate head coaches, Sanchez or Jason Williford, would succeed him, and Sanchez, who left for Virginia for a short stint at Charlotte, likely got the nod because of his head-coaching experience.
Williams noted after the press conference that Sanchez will serve as the interim head coach and that after next season, Virginia would conduct a national search. Certainly that decision will be based on Sanchez’s performance this season, and he could have the interim tag removed.
“I didn’t have a lot of time to process,” Bennett said. “There are some things that I went through. I am at peace, and as I said, when you know in your heart it’s time, it’s time. Will I miss the game? Do I love the game? Absolutely. But I don’t think I’m equipped in this new way to coach, and it’s a disservice if you keep doing that.
“I’m very sure this is the right step. I wish I could have gone longer. I really do, but it’s time. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think we had the right group of young men and the right staff to lead them forward.”
Bennett conferred with his dad, Dick Bennett, a legend in the sport, and who also walked away from the game without regrets. His father told him to follow his heart, but that if he wasn’t “all in,” then it wasn’t fair to his players and the game.
While he’s hanging up his whistle, Bennett insisted he would be around Virginia basketball, but wouldn’t be a looking-over-the-shoulder kind of guy. He and Williams have discussed a role in the athletic program, perhaps a fundraiser, an advocate in helping fix college basketball, something impactful, although he jokingly tagged his next assignment as “a part-time with long vacations” kind of deal.
Certainly he has earned it.
It is a sad day for college basketball. Hopefully someone out there who can make a difference is paying attention.
