Teel: Inside Virginia baseball's courtship of Brian O'Connor (2024)

As a rookie coach in 2004, Brian O’Connor guided Virginia’s baseball team to its best ACC record ever. The Cavaliers matched the program record for victories and hosted an NCAA regional for the first time.

Just as O’Connor foreshadowed during two in-person interviews for the position.

Yes, he was that bold. Yes, he was that confident. And yes, he’s still delivering on his vision.

“I’m just so proud because I don’t think we missed anything,” O’Connor told The Times-Dispatch as Virginia prepared for Friday’s clash with North Carolina at the College World Series, the Cavaliers’ seventh CWS appearance on his watch. “It just has all come to fruition.”

O’Connor and the Virginia administrators who hired him — then-athletic director Craig Littlepage and his top deputy, Jon Oliver — relived the search this week, from the written playbook O’Connor presented during his interviews to a July 4 job offer.

But our backstory begins years earlier and includes a chance encounter with John Grisham.

‘He just knew everything’

O’Connor’s first trip to the commonwealth came in 1990 when, after his freshman season at Creighton, he played summer ball for the Harrisonburg Turks in the Valley League. Selected by Philadelphia in the 29th round of MLB’s 1993 draft, he returned to the state, pitching for the Martinsville Phillies of the Appalachian League.

But O’Connor’s first exposure to UVa baseball was at the South I Regional of the 1996 NCAA tournament in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was an assistant coach under Paul Mainieri at Notre Dame, and the Fighting Irish split two games against Dennis Womack’s Cavaliers.

Five seasons later, Notre Dame traveled to Florida for a regular-season tournament. So, too, did Charlottesville’s St. Anne’s-Belfield School, and the Saints’ traveling party included Grisham, the best-selling author whose son played for STAB.

But the Board of Visitors rejected the task force’s report, and soon thereafter donors pledged $5 million to overhaul what The T-D’s Jeff White called a “decrepit baseball stadium.” The new complex opened in 2002, and following the ’03 season, Womack retired from coaching and moved into administration.

Still at Notre Dame and renowned as a recruiter, O’Connor immediately emerged as a candidate. Among STAB and UVa baseball’s most generous benefactors, Grisham encouraged the courtship.

“As a guy who just loves baseball, he was emphatic in his belief that you could win at the University of Virginia,” O’Connor said.

Littlepage called Mainieri, whose effusive praise of his associate head coach led to Littlepage meeting O’Connor at a hotel near the Cincinnati airport. Tucked under O’Connor’s left arm as the two shook hands was a binder that contained his blueprint for UVa baseball.

O’Connor shared the contents with The Times-Dispatch this week: eight-page job descriptions for each assistant coach, a five-page discipline policy and a one-page pyramid for success, the base of which includes traits such as talent, responsibility, confidence and loyalty.

Most striking are the goals for his first season.

Win 75% of nonconference home games and 55% of those on the road; win 65% of ACC home dates and 50% of those on the road. The plan also aspired to win the ACC regular-season title and average at least six runs per game while allowing no more than five.

The postseason aims were beyond ambitious for a program that had earned three NCAA tournament bids in its history: Win the ACC tournament and national championship.

“He just knew everything,” Littlepage said, “putting staff together, designating recruiting regions and priorities, scheduling, practice, academic attention. I thought, ‘He just has this thing nailed in terms of understanding what it takes to be successful at the University of Virginia.’”

Still in his files, O’Connor’s flight itinerary shows he jetted to Charlottesville on June 24 for a second interview. There, binder again in hand, he met with Littlepage, Oliver and senior women’s administrator Jane Miller at the McCue Center.

O’Connor had interviewed a year earlier with Michigan and “was incredibly disappointed” when he didn’t land the job. His presentation to the UVa group was designed to not only sell himself but also to gain assurances that the university’s “investment in the program was going to increase commensurate with the success we have on the field. That’s all I cared about.”

“I basically walked them through this plan,” O’Connor recalled, “and I said, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’

“I didn’t do it to impress them. I did it to say, ‘If you all aren’t willing to do this, then I am the wrong guy for you.’”

Oliver was sold.

“His visit, supported by one of the most thorough and succinctly written plans for success I have ever seen, made the hire a no-brainer,” he said. “Coming off the decision to not cut baseball (scholarships) in 2001, we weren’t (sure) how effectively we could provide resources in a timely fashion.

“We were transparent with Brian about this, and I distinctly remember Brian saying that he would still find ways to be successful and that as we experienced success it would be easier to get support, and he asked us to support him when that happened.”

Mutual loyalty and trust

Littlepage offered the job to O’Connor on July 4, announced his appointment four days later and introduced him at a modest news conference. Virginia baseball was such an afterthought that The Times-Dispatch ran an Associated Press account on Page 5 of the sports section.

O’Connor and his staff — associate head coach Kevin McMullan has been with him from the start — quickly elevated the Cavaliers to the forefront.

Their inaugural team finished a half-game behind first-place Georgia Tech in the ACC standings at 18-6, the .750 winning percentage then a program best. The Cavaliers averaged 7.1 runs per game while yielding 4.5, easily surpassing the benchmarks set in O’Connor’s playbook.

With a 44-15 overall mark, they matched the school record for victories. Virginia went 0-2 in the ACC tournament and 2-2 in the NCAA regional it hosted, the first of 14 consecutive NCAA appearances, 18 overall, for the once-dormant program.

The Cavaliers have since won three ACC regular-season titles and two league tournaments. Most memorable, they’ve claimed nine NCAA regionals and the 2015 national championship.

Thanks in large measure to supporters such as Grisham, Robert Hardie and Phil Wendel, Disharoon Park has become a premier facility, attracting raucous sellout crowds and eventual major leaguers such as Sean Doolittle, Chris Taylor and Josh Sborz.

“But the thing that impresses me most about Brian O’Connor as a coach is his loyalty,” Littlepage said, recounting instances of O’Connor declining overtures from other schools and wanting only raises for his staff in return.

In turn, O’Connor applauds Virginia’s loyalty to him. As the Cavaliers have continued to win, the university has continued to invest in the program, evident again Thursday when UVa and O’Connor announced a contract extension that runs through 2031.

Such trust and alignment are often elusive in sports.

“I am forever grateful to Craig Littlepage and Jon Oliver and Jane Miller — Jane was my direct boss — because, and this is pretty rare in this world anymore, (they) actually lived up to what they told me they were going to do,” O’Connor said. “And (current athletic director) Carla Williams has continued that commitment.”

Virginia’s seven trips to the College World Series, in O’Connor’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, no less, are the second-most nationally in the last 15 years behind Florida’s nine. He and former Florida State coach Mike Martin Sr., and former North Carolina coach Mike Fox are the only men to steer ACC programs to at least seven CWS, and among that group, only O’Connor has won the national title.

Moreover, at age 53, and with three Omaha appearances in the last four seasons, he shows no signs of slowing down.

“This started with a serious plan,” O’Connor said. “They knew I was incredibly thoughtful about what needed to be done. I was reasonable, and as we won everybody started to realize, man, we’ve got a chance to build something pretty special here.”