Pollard was born to be a Wahoo at some point
Posted on Wednesday, Jun. 18, 2025, 11:17 pm
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By Jerry Ratcliffe
Photo: UVA Athletics
This sportswriter first met Chris Pollard in 2012 when he brought his Appalachian State baseball team to Disharoon Park for an NCAA regional.
During an interview with the young Appy coach, he revealed that he had grown up a Virginia sports fan and had great admiration for how then-UVA baseball coach Brian O’Connor had built a national power. A native of Amherst, just south of Charlottesville, it was only natural that someday coaching the Cavaliers would be a dream come true.
On Wednesday afternoon, Pollard was introduced as Virginia’s head coach. Dream job accomplished.
“Without question,” Pollard said when I asked him about those long-term visions. “It’s a full-circle moment for me and certainly my parents.”
Pollard takes over a UVA program that has made 18 NCAA tournament appearances in 22 seasons under O’Connor, including three trips to the College World Series in the last four years.
Sitting in Disharoon’s Fieldside Club, Pollard described his love for Virginia athletics as a youngster and beyond.
“I grew up in the ‘80s watching Terry Holland coach Ralph Sampson and I can remember being at my grandmother’s house and UVA getting bounced in the NCAA Tournament,” Pollard recalled. “They ran a little highlight montage on WSET (Lynchburg television) and I went and sat in the basement. I was so disappointed.
“Fast forward, when I went to Davidson as an athlete (Pollard was a pitcher for the Wildcats, 1993-96), Terry Holland was the athletic director. That was incredible. I still remember my dad when I made my official visit, getting a chance to interact with Coach Holland.”
In between those moments, Pollard was an excited youth baseball player who attended (former UVA coach) Dennis Womack’s baseball camp.
It was almost like he was born to become a Wahoo at some point in his life.
While his coaching career took him from Pfeiffer to Appalachian State to Duke, his love for Virginia and Charlottesville never wilted.
Pollard talked at length Wednesday about the love he has “for this part of the world (Central Virginia),” and how he cherished driving Amherst, Nelson and Albemarle counties, which he considers some of the most beautiful places on the planet.
“It’s not hyperbole to say this, Steph (his wife) and I would come up and visit family, and for years the holiday gift was, ‘Hey, we’ll keep the kids, you guys go up and have a weekend in Charlottesville or spend the night in Charlottesville. So it just grew our love of this incredible city.”
While retirement is in the distance for him, Pollard and his wife had talked about Charlottesville as a final destination for when that day comes. He and his two sons are avid outdoorsmen, they love fishing, kayaking and mountain biking. Chris and his dad used to float many of the area’s rivers back in the day.
After that 2012 regional, Pollard returned to Charlottesville to pick O’Connor’s brain about how to build a championship program from a coach who would become not only a mentor, but also a close friend. He took copious notes about every aspect of Virginia baseball and applied those to his program.
Pollard and his Duke baseball team were in a bus a few weeks ago when news broke that O’Connor was leaving Virginia to take over the program at Mississippi State. He texted O’Connor congratulations and O’Connor texted back. They agreed to catch up when the dust settled, and when news broke last week that Pollard was coming to Virginia, he received a similar congratulatory text from O’Connor.
About those notes, Pollard said his main takeaway was attention to detail, something that was huge with O’Connor and has become a blueprint for Pollard’s programs.
“We call it Omaha standard attention to detail, right?” Pollard said. “Everything matters. Our guys hear me say this all the time, ‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’
“Certainly that was one of many factors that caught Virginia athletic director Carla Williams’ attention. Introducing Pollard, she described him as “the perfect person to lead our baseball program into this new era.”
Pollard is a winner, an intelligent coach who recruits great talent and develops that talent.
The new Wahoos skipper is bringing his Duke coaching staff with him, so that is one hurdle cleared, meaning that his biggest challenge now is to build his roster. Several of his former Duke players have already transferred to Virginia in addition to at least three previous Blue Devils high school commitments. Numerous UVA players entered the transfer portal, some of which have followed O’Connor to Starkville, but some, like third baseman Luke Hanson, have elected to stay. Pollard will reach out to other players in hopes of retaining some of the players in the portal.
“I had no sort of preconceived notion that any one player from Duke would make the journey to UVA,” Pollard said. “I was excited about the opportunity, once guys went into the portal, to have conversations and to sell them on what the opportunity at the University of Virginia is all about, the unique combination of a world-class university still playing baseball in the ACC. But the easy part is, all those guys have been to this incredible facility just a couple of months ago.
“So they had hit in the Zimmerman facility. They had trained in the weight room, and knowing that you have that unique, elite combination of academics and athletics and this facility to train in in order to become the best version of yourself. It didn’t take a lot of arm-twisting.”
Pollard said that the UVA players that didn’t enter the portal need to understand that he and his staff are here to support them no matter what they decide to do, that the program is behind them. He has made it clear to them that there is real opportunity here. He’s met individually with them in his office at Disharoon and over the phone in hopes to earn their trust.
“There’s no bias in place,” Pollard said. “It’s everybody gets to go out there on the field this fall and earn it, and that’s a really cool environment if you really like to compete.”
