Former UVA assistant coach Danny Wilmer dies at 77

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Danny Wilmer, who served on George Welsh’s Virginia football staff from 1984 to 2000, died peacefully at home on Wednesday after a long illness.

Wilmer, who would have been 78 in April, spent the last few years of his life at his 55-acre spread just off of Rt. 250. A native of Buena Vista, Wilmer was a longtime football coach and a history buff.

While he was a superb coach of UVA’s offensive tackles and tight ends at the beginning of his career under Welsh, he went on to become the Cavaliers’ defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator.

It was the latter that carved out Wilmer’s reputation, as he was heavily involved with recruiting a majority of the standout players that helped elevate Virginia’s program into one of the most consistent winners in America over the Welsh era.

Name an All-American or an All-ACC player at UVA, and Wilmer was responsible for luring them into the Cavaliers’ fold. Shawn Moore, Herman Moore, Tyrone Davis, Ray Roberts, Thomas Jones, Terry Kirby, Chris Slade, the Barber Twins, Anthony Poindexter, Marques Hagans, Antoine Womack, Mark Dixon, Tony Covington, Ty Lewis and tons more were all products of Wilmer’s recruiting magic.

In 1983, Welsh asked some of the sportswriters who covered Virginia’s beat who they believed to be the best recruiter in the state. It was a unanimous reply from the writers that it was Wilmer, then an assistant coach at James Madison University.

Welsh recruited Wilmer to help Virginia raise its level of talent so that it could compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and man, did Wilmer deliver.

While at JMU, where Wilmer recruited future NFL stars Gary Clark and Charles Haley (five Super Bowl rings), he was in charge of the Dukes’ offensive line.

Wilmer played college football at East Carolina, where he was a tight end and middle linebacker during his career with the Pirates. He earned a degree in Geography and Urban Planning and later earned his Master’s degree in administration from Western New Mexico University in 1975. During his time at WNM, he was a defensive coordinator on a team that set 13 school records and three conference records.

He also played middle linebacker for one season in the Canadian Football League for the Edmonton Eskimos.

Wilmer went on to coach high school football, track and baseball in High Point, N.C., and at Stuarts Draft High School in Virginia, where he led the team to its best record at that time (9-1) and into regional play for the first time in 1979.

Over his final days, Wilmer was visited by a number of coaches from Virginia, JMU and Fork Union Military Academy, along with former players who wanted to say goodbye. It was extremely important to Wilmer that he spend the last stage of his life at home and that was made possible by his step son Brian and daughter-in-law Whitney, who rented out their own home and moved in with Wilmer.

The family is planning a celebration of life at a later date.