UVA great Crotty: Orange Bowl can raise Cavaliers’ profile in the college football world

By Jerry Ratcliffe

John Crotty looked a little out of place strolling around Charlottesville on a miserable weather day Monday, in his bright Orange Bowl blazer and Miami-tanned face a bit out of the norm.

But Crotty felt right at home. A long-time member of the Orange Bowl committee, the former Virginia and NBA player loves Charlottesville and his alma mater. He’s back in town quite often — not only as a member of the committee, but to visit his two daughters who are also presently Wahoos.

Crotty was here to push the Orange Bowl to Virginia fans, to get the word out about what a good time awaits in South Florida for the Cavaliers’ bowl date with the sixth-ranked Florida Gators.

“To me, it’s a natural for fans to come to the Orange Bowl,” Crotty said. “This is the biggest Tier-One bowl game they’ve been to in years (UVA’s last major bowl was the Sugar Bowl that capped the 1990 season), and it’s the first time ever making it to the Orange Bowl.

“I’m sitting here in 30-degree, freezing cold rain right now, and why everyone wouldn’t want to come down and support their team in our beautiful, 78-degree, no-humidity weather right now is beside me.”

Crotty, a McDonald’s All-American out of New Jersey, chose Virginia over North Carolina (where his dad played) and a host of other schools to come to Charlottesville, where he was a gritty point guard from 1988-91. Crotty is still UVA’s all-time assists leader with 683, and had a record 13 games with 10 assists or more (the closest to him is Ty Jerome with five).

Presently the principal in the Miami office of Avison Young (real estate), Crotty is also the color analyst for the NBA Miami Heat’s television network. That’s why he wasn’t able to be at Sunday’s official Orange Bowl invitation ceremony at UVA — he was calling one of the Heat’s home games.

The former Cavalier guard has visited Virginia football games for years as a member of the Orange Bowl committee, many of those visits coming during the somewhat-recent leaner years for the program. Did he ever imagine that he might have the pleasure of one day hosting his alma mater for the big game?

“Actually, I did,” Crotty said. “The beauty of being part of the Orange Bowl committee is that my ACC relationships continue to flourish, something that I bring to the table. As a UVA alum, my hope was always to have the Cavaliers here, and this year it all came together.

“They won the Coastal, and it’s incredible that seven different teams have won the division over the last seven years, with Virginia being the last. They’re a team ranked in the Top 25 with Clemson moving on [to the College Football Playoffs], so it worked well in their favor.”

Crotty explained that the ACC is partners with the Orange Bowl, which is contracted to take the highest-ranked ACC team, other than a league team headed to the playoffs. Virginia fit perfectly into that slot, and so did Florida. The Orange’s spot opposite the ACC representative goes to the highest-ranked remaining team between the Big Ten, SEC, or Notre Dame. Florida’s Gators, ranked No. 9, were automatic.

“Florida has some very, very fervent alumni, so UVA is going to have to really make an effort to show up and get down there and support their team,” Crotty said. “Florida has a huge fan base in our neck of the woods in South Florida.”

Wayne Schuchts, a former UVA quarterback (1982-83) who also serves on the Orange Bowl committee with Crotty, is delighted — just as is Crotty — that the Cavaliers are headed to the Sunshine State.

Crotty talked about that at length during his visit Monday.

“I’m so happy to see UVA coming down to Florida for a multitude of reasons,” Crotty said. “First, I love the school and I’m happy for the football program because I know Coach Mendenhall has put in a ton of time and energy, and that there’s a lot of people that have wanted to see the team back to this level.

“Selfishly, I have a lot of friends and family that are going to come down to experience the team and the atmosphere the days before the game. That’s going to be really fun for me, for them to come down and see where I live. All that’s going to be very special.”

Crotty praised the work of Bronco Mendenhall in turning the program around in only four years, something many UVA fans thought would take much longer.

“Every year his team gets incrementally better, and this is a big jump to make it to a Tier-One bowl,” Crotty said. “It can really, really jumpstart a program playing in our game.”

Mendenhall didn’t attend Sunday’s informal Orange Bowl invitation because he was out recruiting, which blew Crotty away.

“He’s already out recruiting, which is amazing to me,” he said. “Playing in the Orange Bowl can be something he can point at to bring in new talent, and something you can use to inspire your current players to get them to duplicate the effort and work harder to stay at this level.

“It can also get the fans engaged to the point where they’re following the team everywhere, because it’s such a high level of play.”