The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Alex Whitten & Nic Bell, Co-Founders Cav Lax Elite; State Of Youth Athletics In CVille & Central VA

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Alex Whitten & Nic Bell, Co-Founders Cav Lax Elite State Of Youth Athletics In CVille & Central VA Kids Playing Sports At Same Rate As 20 Yrs Ago? Fuzzy’s Taco Shop Closed; 5th St Station Vacancy Artful Lodger/Livery Stable Building Sold ($5.75M) AlbCo’s Afton Scientific Investing $200M + 200 Jobs Job Cuts Continue To Decimate Central VA Media Jefferson Council Prez On I Love Cville Tomorrow The I Love CVille Network On Vacay (10/7-10/11) Alex Whitten, Financial Advisor and Co-Founder of Cav Lax Elite Boys, and Nic Bell, Head Lacrosse Coach at St. Anne’s-Belfield School and Co-Founder of Cav Lax Elite Boys, joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Wednesday afternoon, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville show. It's great to connect with you through the I Love Seville network on what is finally a day that does not have rain outside. I mean, I woke up this morning and, you know, I'm a positive guy. Glass is half full every single day. I love to be the best version of myself every time I wake up. But this particular morning after what seems like a Noah's Ark deluge felt a little bit different and there

was a little bit more pep in my step. Today's program, I think, is going to embody that statement. We have two guys that our glass is half full with their mentality, with their coaching, with their parenting, and I think you're going to see that in today's interview. We'll welcome in about two minutes Alex Witten, a friend of the program, and Nick Bell, who I can tell will be a friend of the program. He is new to the area, but he is a welcome addition to the central Virginia community Nick Bell Alex is a guy that I think many in our viewing viewing and listening audience know extremely well and I think you're gonna see Alex in his and his best state where he's able to

pontificate on a number of different topics which is right up Alex Whitten's alley which is why I like Alex Whitten today's program will give some props to Mexicali Restaurant on West Main Street. They're a partner of the show. There's 50 parking spaces on site in the building. Mexicali Restaurant, River Hawkins, and Johnny Ornelas are friends at Pro Renata. Love Pro Renata. I mean, I can take my wife and I, our two crazy boys, to a brewery in Crozet. They can play on the playground while I'm drinking IPAs, and she's having IPAs,

and they're eating pizza and ice cream. I mean, it's just fantastic, Pro Renata in Crozet. And, of course, our friends at Charlottesville Business Brokers. We help buyers and sellers of businesses in the Central Virginia community get across the finish line. Judah Wickhauer behind the camera. Take a look at the screen for today's headlines. First, an interview that I'm very excited to do. Judah's studio camera. And then let's welcome the fellows to the program, Alex Witten and Nick Bell. Fellas, thank you kindly for joining us on the show. Happy to be here. Thanks for having us.

Our pleasure. Alex, we will start with you. Introduce yourself to the viewers and listeners of our fair talk show. Yeah, thanks again for having us. Really excited about it. Alex Witten moved to Charlottesville from Connecticut 12 years ago this November. Lovely wife, Diana. I've got three little boys. Moved here originally to take over the head coaching position out at Western Albemarle High School. Spent seven years there, and at the end of the 2019 season, it just became kind of too much with three littles at home and financial practice and just kind of get pulled in too many different directions. So, officially stepped away from that in 2019. Still have been involved in lacrosse, created some,

a few different youth programs post-COVID when the world kind of went downhill. And then that has blossomed over the last two, three years with a spring league and some other developments, training products and programs. And then that ultimately led to Nick coming down a year ago from Connecticut to take over his position at Stab. And then we've kind of connected and built something that we're going to talk about hopefully today. I'm excited for that. Nick, the show is yours. Introduce yourself to the folks that are watching. Thanks, Jerry. I actually forgot to mention this when we talked pre-show, but my first job was actually at Blue Ridge School.

Oh, nice. In Green County. Loved it there. St. George. St. George, correct. I know Blue Ridge well. Yeah, so the director of admission at the time, Tripp Darren, who's now the head of school, was the person that hired me, and we've certainly stayed in touch. It's been really good to reconnect with him since coming back. After two years at Blue Ridge I took a job in New York at Trinity Pauling School which is actually when I first met Alex because one of his former players still goes down as one of my favorite kids that I've ever coached in Jimmy Joe Granito was a New Canaan high school product did his

postgraduate year with us before going to Loyola to start his college career. Big time player. Legit player. Yeah. One of the best ball stoppers in the goal ever. James Joseph Granito, which is how he was often referred to when he got into a little bit of trouble here and there. So six years at Trinity Pauling and then I moved over to Taft School in Connecticut. My wife Ann and I made that move together. We started our family there and TP and then last year moved down with our three daughters to take you know dual positions at St. Ann's Battlefield. So I work in the college counseling

office during the day. She works in upper school admissions and she coaches field hockey in the fall. I coach boys lacrosse in the spring. I will say I wear a lot of different hats, but certainly, you know, my comments are really reflective of an entire experience in lacrosse, not necessarily specific to St. Ann's Bellfield. Very, very fair. Very fair. I appreciate that. Viewers and listeners, these guys know athletics inside and out. They know athletics from being big-time performers themselves, and they know athletics now as coaches and as molders of the next generations of athletes that are going to play collegiately

first at the high school level, middle school level, collegiately in the professional level. I'll get out of your way, Alex, and you set the stage for the viewers and listeners. CAV LAX Elite Boys, the organization. The show is yours. Anywhere you want to go. Yeah. CAV LAX originally started about a decade ago on the girls' side. It was founded by Carrington King and Henry Oakey, both two, you know, Charlottesville legends in their own right. Carrington now is the head girls coach at Stab, but needed an outlet for his daughters. He's got three girls. So 10 years

ago, he started Cadillacs with Henry. And that has morphed into nothing short of really just a powerhouse, not only in Virginia, but nationally. If you look at on the girls' side, I think there's five state championships. There's Division I and II privates, and then there's 6A, 5A, and 4A and under. Well, Stab won it this year, Covenant won it this year and Western Albemarle won it this year so three out of the five state champions came out of Charlottesville not a huge metropolitan area like

a Richmond or a Norfolk or let's say Northern Virginia but they're obviously doing something right and I think their program is based on really based on a solid fundamental principles around coaching teaching and leading and it's and it's showing the results the number of of girls out of that program that

are going to play at not only colleges but top level colleges is really nothing short of remarkable it's awesome it's awesome to see and so when Nick moved here about a year ago, again, our previous relationship was, I wouldn't say too robust, but we started talking about, you know, kind of looking at what I'm doing, look at what he's going to be able to bring to the table to Charlottesville, and does that, were our visions around lacrosse congruent with each other in a way to develop what we have here, which in my opinion has been, you know, like let's just say it's an underutilized sport in this area. We compete at the high school level for publics with soccer. I think Virginia is only one of two states where soccer is a high school sport in the

spring. So you really compete for athletes in that regard. And locally, soccer is, especially youth soccer, is a well-oiled machine. Like, you know, soccer and all those programs, they do a really, really good job of attracting young athletes and talent on boys and girls' side. And they do a pretty good job of retaining them them so they're highly organized and they've been able to really do you know put together some some really good programming and so kids have you know generally gravitated towards that I think for the you know to the detriment of lacrosse but I think what we're gonna do with the Cavalacks program as we kind of slip in behind the girls and

we just you know we're a decade behind them this is our first fall of doing something so you know like anything else there's always a storming stage when you're starting stuff as you try to you know normalize into you know a performing element but I think we're off to a really good start so far a lot of people watching the program will give some props to Logan Wells-Claylow, Vanessa Parkhill in Earliesville, the fabulous Diana Witten giving the heart emoji right now on the show. We've got the TV station down the street watching. John Blair is watching on LinkedIn.

Ginny Hu gave us the retweet. We've got a local newspaper watching the program right now. See some coaches watching the show as we speak. Nick, you go straight into the pressure cooker as the head honcho at St. Ann's Belfield with the varsity program. And I know this is not about the school in any capacity here. This is about your perspective as a coach,

as a dad, as a player, and what you want to do with the community. I've seen firsthand, man. I've been in this community 24 years. I came here as a first year at UVA. While working at UVA, I found a job as a part-time writer in the sports department under Jerry Ratcliffe and immediately got on the prep beat and got to know the John Blairs of the world, or excuse me, the Doug Terrings of the world, got to know the Joe Daughteries,

the Francis Johnsons of the world, the Hunter Prices of the world. Got to know the folks that were really behind the scenes, like driving athletics forward. And I know your program is one of the best of the best. What did you know of Charlottesville and Central Virginia before coming down here, from an athletic standpoint first, and then from a lacrosse standpoint second. Great, thanks. So I actually grew up in Fauquier County, and I went to Highland School there. And we played against the Covenants and St. Anne's

sort of growing up and coming through. And at the time, this is in like the early 2000s, we just were not a well-built program to compete with St. Anne's on a regular basis we had great battles with Covenant um and a lot of the teams that they had in the middle 2000s but um you know I was just a I grew up worshiping you know Virginia Lacrosse um you know driving down 29 with my family to see a lot of games here at clockner and um you know and then i i went um graduated from highland i went and played at brown actually for lars tiffany um for three of the four years that i was there for those don't know

now the head coach university of virginia correct yeah yeah the head coach at uva um and coached in the in new england essentially for England essentially for 12 years after my first two years at Blue Ridge. And actually, I think in my last job at Taft School, I mean, we had really built that program to be one of the best in the country. And I think, you know, there were definitely some people that had questions as to why sort of leave that. When we did, you know, me and my family. And if it wasn't for having a lot of appreciation for what St. Ann's Bell Field lacrosse means in the state and certainly in this community, again, as someone who just has been here and has an appreciation for that, it just meant something, you know, different for me. You wouldn't have done it.

Would not have done it. Yeah, especially with three young daughters right and that would to be fair I mean that was certainly the leading kind of reason for our move we just felt like Charlottesville was going to be a much better place to raise a family you know we have three kids under eight right now two of those three are actually at St. Ann's, and my third will hopefully be next year, as long as she gets in. But, you know, it has to do with my growing up in Virginia, knowing and appreciating this lacrosse here, and really wanting to take this on as, you know, a passion project, and something that

I see as a sleeping giant. Vanessa Parkhill, again, watching. Her son, starting quarterback at one time at St. Ann's Belfield, a standout on the lacrosse field as well. He is just an outstanding, now a grown man right here, Vanessa Parkhill. Crazy to say, I remember when he was winning a Falcon Club award, and I was sitting at the table with her late husband, Gary, and her family to celebrate her son. I'd be remiss not to highlight, I said John Blair earlier, who's watching. John Blake, who's now at Fort CUNY Military Academy, was the football coach at St. Anne's.

I'll throw this to you guys. Seems like such a hotbed man. And I've made this comment in regards from sports and government. I don't understand why we're not emphasizing sports tourism more. I mean, we have the University of Virginia here. Why they're not more regional or national, ODP, big-time tournaments in the area across all sports. You see a little bit of that with soccer, with the soccer facility. But we've got the University of Virginia in our backyard.

You're talking about a perennial power in what used to be called the Sears Cup, which is a measure of athletic prowess across the department, as you guys know. We struggle, yes, in football, but if you look at the department across the board, it's one of the best. North Carolina, Stanford come to mind, of success across the department. I don't see why we're not utilizing that more to drive big-time tournaments, tourism dollars here to the area. I'll throw this to you, Alex. The impact that UVA's national championship success, whether it's soccer, lacrosse, tennis, baseball, swimming. I mean, I could continue.

Golf. I mean, squash the top ten program. I'm a big squash player. How does that impact the next generation of student or kid or athlete that wants to get into whatever sport they see on grounds? So that's a great question. We had Conor Schellenberger at practice on Sunday, and for those that don't know him, he just graduated from UVA this past year,

four-time All-American. The man. Walks on on water I mean yeah he's really really good yeah um and the comment that I made to the group of kids when he was doing a little shooting demo as I was like as good of a player as Connor is he's a better kid and I say kid he's a young man obviously um but he's a great person and one of the things that I said to the guys, I asked Connor this, I said, hey, have any of your teammates ever complained about youth kids coming up and introducing themselves and saying hi to them? And he's like, absolutely not. I think one of the things that Charlottesville has a huge,

it's a huge benefit is that you have access to UVA and not only do you have access to it, but you have access to UVA and not only do you have access to it, but you have access to a great set of role models in the athletic department. And the accessibility of those people is huge. If you go to a game at Klockner, the kids play the game, then they go into the locker room under the stands, and then they walk back through the entire crowd back to their locker room. And they're always there signing autographs and high-fiving guys and taking pictures and stuff like that. So I think that that's a huge thing. If you want to

see some of the best in athletics, you know, you have an immediate access to all of it. You can go to those games. You can meet those kids. You can have even access to those coaches. So it's a huge thing. I'll throw, gentlemen, to you. Questions are coming in. We've got questions about the focus on head injuries coming in, the focus on kids, are they playing sports as much, the screen time question. I knew that was going to come up.

It's coming up all over the feed over here. How about for Nick, with what you guys are doing, what is the next chapter or what's the next progression in the flipbook? How do you guys take it to a level that could potentially surpass, mimic what Sockeye is doing? Because they seem to be, as of now, the gold standard when it comes to youth sports in the central Virginia market. So when it comes to youth sports in the central Virginia market? So I think to answer that question, I mean, historically,

there was a point in time that I can vividly remember where lacrosse in Charlottesville was actually even stronger than it was in northern Virginia, and that was not terribly long ago. We're talking late 90s, early 2000s through the late 2000s. I remember a time, I've been here 24 years covering sports in this community for 21 of those 24 years. I remember a time where lacrosse was more impactful, more engagement, more influential than soccer right here. Correct. I remember a time when, I forget the name of the tournament, when... Dogwood. Yeah. The private and public schools were routinely playing each other early in the season. And, dude, that captivated spring sports. And that tournament folded, which was unfortunate. Yes.

Yeah. And so that is fresh in our mind as we're starting this. say, you know, in speaking for sort of leadership at CAVLACS and sort of what Alex and I have talked about, you know, there are some sports organizations that try to monopolize the market and spread tentacles all over the place. And I think with what we're thinking about doing with our program is we want it to be a situation where every single boy in it feels known, where we actually know their name and can personally invest in them. I don't think that we have any interest in having a tiered developmental model all the way down. If it gets really big and we have the infrastructure to support that growth, we'll explore it. But what's really important for us is that we're just doing a good job with the kids that we have the infrastructure to support that growth, you know, we'll explore it.

But what's really important for us is that we're just doing a good job with the kids that we have. And in this first year, I mean, we started doing some winter clinics last January. We continued playing with a group of kids over the summer, you know, not really knowing as a new program what this would look like in our first year. You know, we sort of launched our tryout and have run these club teams starting this fall. And, I mean, we have just under 170 kids playing out of nothing.

That's awesome. You know, and we feel like right now with the coaches that we have, sort of the space and fields and access to tournaments and things like that, we feel like we're in a really healthy place. And, you know, we get e-mails all the time for people that want to join or hop in or coming from other areas like Harrisonburg or Lynchburg or the Valley. But we're being careful not to get too big too fast. Again, the experience of each boy and the families in the program is what matters the most to us.

And so if that becomes something that resembles soccer, great. Or if it just becomes, you know, six, eight, ten teams in K through 12, whatever it is, then we're fine with that too. Vanessa highlights her son, Lee, and they won the state championship at your program, St. Ann's, in 2015.

There's no pressure over there, Bill. We also, multiple people will say in the Dogwood Tournament, the Nolan Jenkins Memorial Tournament, that is a blast from the past. I was working as a sports writer when Nolan passed away in a car accident, the son of Anita Jenkins, the girls' basketball coach at Albemarle High School. I remember this vividly, having to speak to Coach Jenkins, a friend of the program, about this turn of events. And I still get emotional about that happening.

Thank you for that history there for the viewers and listeners. Multiple people are asking, what age should they get involved? Including one mom, Lauren, who's saying six and seven-year-old, how can they get involved, including one mom, Lauren, who's saying six- and seven-year-old, how can they get involved? A lot of people asking about the challenge with lacrosse. It's the financial barrier of entry, which we'll talk about with you. I just want a basic question. I'll throw it as a topic of conversation. You guys go anywhere you want.

Are kids playing sports to the same clip? We're relatively the same age, the three of us here, as we did growing up. My parents said, dude, you're not inside. You get 30 minutes of TV maybe a day. We're going to supervise what you're watching on TV. You better be outside. You can play soccer. You can play golf.

You can play football, basketball, tennis, but you're not going to be inside. Go out and play. Are kids still doing that to the same clip as we did growing up? No, they're not. I'll speak for my kids. They're not doing it the way that we were doing it. And again, I have to always kind of remind myself that today's very different than, you know, 1985 when I was, you know, my kid back in the day, right? You had, you know, you had to get off the couch to change the channel on the television, right? So, and you had, I think we had like three or four channels until we had cable. So it's just a very different world. And Nick and I were actually on the way over here and we were talking about it. I heard a podcast with a guy, John Eldridge, who's a Christian

writer for men. And he said something that big challenge for today's parents is that you have to make your kid's life more interesting than YouTube. And the screens are designed to keep people's eyes affixed to them. I'm guilty of picking up my phone way too often. And I think for young people it becomes a huge, huge challenge. As far as the comment around the expense of getting into lacrosse, one of the big barriers of entrance is the cost of equipment. I would say, though, that if you're interested in having your son or daughter play, there are ways of not having to shell out $700, $800 for all of the gear. I think I gave probably like 20 items to the program and just gave gloves out to stuff that my kids have outgrown. Played Against

Sports up 29. Local business has got a lot of used equipment. It's kind of hit or miss sometimes when you go in there. But they're really good at putting good stuff on people that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I also don't think that you necessarily need to go drop, you know, you don't have to break the wallet open too much to buy all the brand new stuff for a younger player who's just trying it. A lot of times people have stuff that you can borrow. Like for our program, we have a whole bin of stuff. Like if you want to come in and try it for a couple of days, don't make the investment in it, just borrow it, see if it works. And then if it does, we go from there. You know, Brian Wilberger at UVA has helped tremendously

with using some of the older stuff that, you know, UVA has not yet recycled. They bring stuff out and, you know, kids are just borrowing stuff all summer. They were borrowing stuff. So, you know, it is a challenge. But, you know, kids, you know, I mean, if the worst thing that kids do is turn the TV off and go outside and dig a hole in the ground. That's a success. It's fantastic. Go get dirty.

Go skin up your knees and fall off your bike. You'll figure it out. How many kids do you have? Three. You have three daughters? We have two sons. So together we have eight kids here on set, fathers of eight kids on set. The worst thing, worst is hyperbole here. One of the things that frustrates me the most in life is watching our six year old doom scrolling on YouTube.

Paralyzed on the couch on YouTube. And I am convinced, I had this conversation with my wife maybe once a week, I'm convinced that we will look back 20 to 25 years from now after this generation is Older and impacted by this and we're gonna be like how do we allow our kids to spend hours mindlessly? Surfing content on the internet that we had no idea what they were watching when we saw in real time how they were paralyzed I could be next to our six-year-old love skittles as close to him as him as I am to you, Nick, saying, I got a bag of Skittles here. You want a bag of Skittles here? I got a bag of Skittles for you. And he's so focused on what's on his screen, does not even hear what I'm saying.

I mean, it's like, I sincerely think it's like the 2024 version of digital drugs for our children. Screen time and sports and anywhere you want to go on this topic. Well, I just, I mean, I don't want to beat a dead horse for something that I think is like, you know, very much at the forefront of so many different families' minds. But I would say like relative to our club

and coaching style and philosophy, you know, we were talking about it before the show in a town that does not have ice hockey this is the next best thing and it really is even if your kid is a good athlete has never played before is remotely interested i mean we really believe in designing our training sessions in such a way that's extremely engaging high touch we have we really don't have a lot of patience for long lines and kids standing around. It is a fast-paced, action, running-based sport. And within that, there is still so much opportunity for kids to get involved who are not necessarily the biggest or the fastest or the

strongest at this stage. You can develop a lot. That stick can neutralize an enormous amount of athleticism and athletic instinct. So we really think it's a sport for anybody. We built out our pricing to be as accessible and in line with other youth sport opportunities in Charlottesville and central Virginia. And honestly, we're seeing more kids coming into the program and staying than we are seeing going out. You know, I'll add to the YouTube piece or the screen piece. You know, YouTube and iPads, iPhones, all that stuff.

You took your boys' iPads away. I did. Yeah, I remember you saying that to me. They've been in my office since February. You're that sweetheart? Okay. She's watching. My wife's watching. Is that YouTube actually can be a tool.

Like, I just turned 50. So when I was a kid, you had very little access to material about lacrosse, sports in general. But if you're a new player, you can go on YouTube and type in ground ball drills or passing skills uh shooting drills you can go find a ton of content that's on there now i remember when i was a kid the final four would be aired on i think espn2 and then the finals were abbreviated down to an hour um on on memorial day so you know now you've got ESPN does a tremendous job of putting games, men's and women's games on TV. ESPN Plus shows, gosh, like hundreds and hundreds of games. The Pro League is on the big leagues as well. So you do have a ton of access now to actually informative content that can actually help you as a either a coach or a

player or a parent to try to understand you know a few things about the game that you might not know um you guys got i almost see you guys in some ways as carrying on the the legacy or the torch of some of the godfathers before you um jenny who on twitter highlights al sadler david sloan myron ripley salt david sloan literally getting his eyes checked at University Eye Care right next to us here in the Mackin building. David Sloan, a friend of the program. Again I'll highlight Doug Tering, Tommy Brannick comes to mind. Been here 24 years and had an opportunity to get to know some.

Carrington, I love the content Carrington posted on social media where he's training players. Of course, of the King family, you know, entourage, if you may. Any pressure of, or your thoughts on just carrying on the torch or the legacy of a sport that is so rich in tradition? And I would even say this, and multiple people have put this on the feed here, and I'll be very to the point on this one. There was a time, and I've been here 24 years,

where lacrosse had a lot more options from a participation standpoint. Seminole, was it Calac? Calac. Yeah, Calac. ACAC was doing stuff. I think the Y was doing stuff at one time. I almost saw, it almost saw, not a fizzle, but was it an engagement drop? Do you think that's fair? And you guys are trying to maybe in some ways revitalize, which is, I'll stop talking here.

It's shocking to me that it saw an engagement drop because of Julie's coach Myers at UVA, uh, coach Starza, uh, because of Lars and what they're doing. Like they are perennial powers and that still happen. Anywhere you want to go on this? I would say, you know, to be fairly direct, I mean, lacrosse is a sport in any major market where there are generally pretty well-educated and affluent people getting into it or starting it. There's certainly money to be made in the sport. something kind of similar in that there were a lot of competing entities at the

youth and even the high school and club levels that were pulling kids and families in multiple different directions and I think you know what we are trying to accomplish with this is for it to be a unifying force within the sport in this area and you know I think I mean even when I was interviewing and looking to move down here I was sort sort of like, what is what? Like, where do kids play? What are the clubs that they? What's the brand?

Right, what is the brand? It was kind of like, everyone's like, oh, like Alex does a great job, and they're Seminole, and they do this, and there used to be this, there used to be that. And everyone sort of says the same thing. And I think for a community that is relatively small in terms of population, there was and is a real need to try and consolidate a lot of the lacrosse efforts in town. It feels like every single day I bump into somebody at the grocery store who's like, oh, yeah, I played at Duke, you know, in the mid-'80s. And, you know, I really want my son or my grandson or whatever to get into this. We just don't know where to go. Like, that keeps coming up. We want to be inclusive of all groups in town.

We want to loop in people that are new to the area, people that have been here for a longer period of time, and try and just consolidate what we're doing and try and make the best experience we can for the boys in this town. Yeah, I think also when you look at youth athletics, even our program, Nick and I are kind of the driving engine behind most of it,

and we've got a great group of guys that are all helping out on the coaching level, but it takes a couple of figureheads, in this case, two of us, really to try to drive it, and it takes a village, right? We've got tons of support from a lot of different people, but if you look at youth programming or you're trying to

get something off the ground 95% of the heavy lifting is done by 5% of people and so if you don't have boots on the ground and people really putting time and effort in it's really hard to get it off like when we moved here in 2012 we created the Western Albemarle lacrosse Club, which is a 501c3 status nonprofit. That entity is still in place. Mario Washington, who's a Western Albemarle grad, went to Hampton City. He was my assistant for six years. He's a dear friend of mine. He was elevated to the head coaching position once I stepped down in 19. He's done a tremendous job. He's gone to the state semis several times, obviously with COVID in there for a couple of years,

got a little jammed up, but that 501c3 was run by a small group of people, you know, Mike Riley, Tony Corbett. We had just like a very small group of people that really, I mean, did a ton of lifting in terms of organization and logistics to get that thing going. And I feel like that has kind of stepped away per Nick's comment about what Cavlax Elite is trying to do on the boy side is, you know, tremendous growth is a great thing. It's kind of a good problem to have, but it's still a problem. And one of the things with lacrosse is that you need infrastructure. And infrastructure in lacrosse really is fields, coaching, referees, and equipment. And so, you know, around Charlottesville, you're somewhat limited for fields. I know, like, in Richmond, there's a giant, you know, turf complex with, like, I don't know, 9, 10 fields,

which is a huge asset to the community. We don't have anything like that here. In fact, all the public schools all have one turf field. Stab has got two. So you're somewhat limited from the growth perspective. And again, as local programs look to build, there's really no top-down methodology in many of the high schools around here, from the high school all the way down to K.

So that's really what we did at the Western Albemarle Club. I basically governed all the way down to kindergarten and directed that. And the kids that just graduated, like the Chris Baglios and the Quinn Rileys, those kids started when I was my first year when they were kindergartners. And then now they've graduated

and moved on and they went to the state semis last year and saw some pretty good success. So it takes a village, right? And so a lot of these programs where you see Albemarle historically has been very, very good. Charlottesville was historically really good. And some of those programs have dropped off, but again, that is really more of an infrastructure thing and you've got to get coaches in place. You've got to get support pieces in place. There's a financial element to this where you need support, you need equipment, and you need some expertise in doing it. And literally, the guys that we have working for us are helping us.

They're guys that have been involved in lacrosse. They've gotten a lot from lacrosse. I say this all the time. Besides meeting my wonderful wife, every opportunity in my life has been presented to me because i played this sport he mentions uh the amoral program one time skippered by pat mcadams friend of the program played at washington and lee i believe he was a midfielder standout lynchburg i think was it lynchburg or wno i think it was lynchburg okay lynchburg okay i stand corrected okay uh pat's gonna kill me for that Mike, also a good friend of mine who was an assistant coach under his brother, Pat, right there. You mentioned the system. That's one of the things, and it's not the same sport, Doug Straley, who's now the superintendent of schools, put that system into place, not just at the JV level, not just at middle school football,

but the Pop Warner teams in Louisa were running the same offense that Fisher did on the varsity level. And it was no surprise that Louisa routinely does not just contend for Jefferson District Championships, but regional and state championships, because by the time the athletes get to Coach Fisher, he's now passed, but the varsity program, they know the system inside and out. This question is all over the feed, and you've touched on it briefly. Lacrosse, a sport of affluent, and how do we break that barrier where a sport like basketball is you need a,

you need a ball and there's courts everywhere in the community to play like a pickup game that, that topic to you guys. I mean, we ultimately, what we would love to see with this is more kids playing more kids being coached at a higher level, more kids enjoying sort of the team dynamic and like the, the life lessons that come from participating in in team athletics um and ultimately we would love to see western albemarle be really strong

albemarle get a shot in the arm saint anne's and covenant you know all the schools in our area we really want to see be successful as a result of this i just got the uh the dm it's totally lynchburg i just got jazz sides that it is Lynchburg right there. So Alex was completely right about that. We'll throw this to you. Where's the field, this is on the feed, where's the field space going to come from for what you guys are doing?

So right now, all of our field space is at St. Ann's Battlefield. And really, having the two turfs that we do side by side on the lower school campus has just made it easier to consolidate a lot of our coaching resources. We will use some of the upper school, you know, the upper school grass on Ivy Road for like a play day or two that we'll do this fall. But most everything has been, you know, every single training we've done and every single practice has been on adjacent turf fields. Yeah, I think too, we've been pretty good at maximizing those resources, right?

So turf fields in town are a limited resource. So if you've got, you know. Monticello has one. Monticello, Western, Charlottesville, Albemarle, they've all got one. Yeah. But. Access is the issue, isn't it? Monticello has one. Monticello, Western, Charlottesville, Alamaro, they've all got one. Yeah. But what we – Access is the issue, isn't it? Well, access is the issue because typically you have to go through the county.

If you have a relationship with a head coach like Mario Washington has been hugely helpful. Like last spring he got us access to one of the grass fields behind Western for some youth development. Because he's a guy that sees that if he's involved in the younger levels, then those kids come through, right? But what we have been really successful is, you know, we put 60, 70, 80 kids on a field and we're doing kind of small developmental programming drills with eight to 10 kids in each drill. So we're not taking like a field with 20 kids and we don't have that many sets of feet on the field. We have a tremendous number of kids on one field

just maximizing that resource the best that we can. I love that. How about this from, first let me get to Ginny on Twitter. She says, my husband played, coached and ref lacrosse for decades. He finally had to hang up his stripes this past spring because too many years as a goalie was bad for his knees. Her kids grew up with local greats like Sadler, Sloan, Myron Ripley, and the UVA players stuck their pantries with their kids,

and she stocked the pantries of the UVA players with her kids' favorite snacks. Lacrosse truly makes you feel like a family. She said from an insider's perspective, parents pushing more and more travel lacks is what hurt many local options here in the central Virginia market. Another mom on the feed puts this. Some of the athletes did not make the teams when they went out for them, so they went and created other programs or other playing opportunities which splintered the efforts around here.

So that's an interesting dynamic. This from LinkedIn from John. With a son who plays football, there's heightened awareness for head injuries in all sports. Do your guests have any thoughts on head injuries and lacks and advice to parents who might be worried about potential head injuries? It's a great question. It's a great question. It's a huge question. I played high school football, and I had too many concussions to count.

Wins good to go. Wins good to go. So that might answer a few questions for people out there. But there's actually been, obviously, a huge focus on head injuries with baseline concussion testing before kids even start a season um we're super aware of and most coaches who are worth their salt are going to be very attuned to if a kid does have contact lacrosse is a collision sport um i think the national um presence of u.s lacrosse has done a really a good job of reducing the amount of large collisions

in the sport they've taken that part of the game away when I played back in the day you could I mean you could cut somebody in half and it wouldn't be a it wouldn't be a violation but today there's a real conscious effort on that the number one you know some of the helmet technology that's been put forth with warrior cascade and s vastly improved vastly and and one of the big things with um head injuries is um is when kids kind of turn to the side like i always say this a lacrosse or football helmet can take an impact to the front um from a car and it won't impact you that much but if you turn your head to the side that's where you get some compression today's day and age when you play on turf a lot of those turf fields have like those rubber pellets in the back and i'm sure parents out there have had kids come

home with black rubber pellets in their shoes especially on rainy days and they litter all through the house but what happens is a lot of times kids will fall backwards. And then when their head hits that turf, bang, it kind of pops off. And it's almost like whiplash. So there's a lot of new technology in the helmets now today on the backside of the helmet to try to mitigate that as much as possible. Unfortunately, any time you've got a collision sport, hockey, football, lacrosse, you are going to have elements of head contact. But I think the referee focus and the overall rules focus on eliminating that part of the game as much as possible has taken huge strides in the last, let's say, ten years. Does the organization have a chance to get a true home base of its own? Is that a goal?

Obviously, that's going to cost a boatload of money here. And then multiple people are asking how do they get involved from a fundraising or support standpoint. But just curious of the spot for you guys. I think Alex alluded to it earlier. We're hoping that people listening have really deep pockets and can help us build a mega turf facility. Yes, why not? It's only $20 million, Jerry. Is that much for a turf field?

Not for a turf field, but like the one in Richmond. Typically the way a turf field is, it's about $1.3, $1.4 million for one. If you buy two, it's greatly reduced because all their gear and equipment is already there. Is Dart and Tow an option? Dart and Tow would potentially be an option. But those are grass, aren't they? And you're going to not be able to get on them for a week now with 10 days of straight rain. So, you know,

you're somewhat limited. You know, my oldest is over at Covenant. Covenant's two fields. I mean, you drive by them and they look like they're carpeted. I mean, they're amazing. They are amazing. When it rains a lot, they get wet and unfortunately they go offline. I think now, this is

maybe almost putting the cart before the horse. I think, again, good problem to have, but maybe still a problem. I think we would have to leverage some relationships around town so that we're not necessarily coming in and trying to outlay a ton of money to try to create a lacrosse program. I know that there's the Alliance program up 29 on Polo Grounds North. I think they have extended some offers to host

some lacrosse stuff. They've got grass fields. But I think ultimately that would be, you know, I mean, that would be ideal if you could find even just two fields. But again, ultimately that would be, you know, I mean, that would be ideal if you could find even just two fields. But again, it's a matter of resources to get them in, zoning to get them in, timing and all that kind of stuff as well. I would also say for people that have experience running lacrosse specific clubs, the primary way to bring in revenue for the club is in the event space. So by hosting tournaments where we could potentially have 8, 10, 12, 20, 30 teams playing on 8 to 10 to 15 fields. Because that's what SACA is doing right now. Right. Right.

And so that is something that is not, I would not say it's something that we're terribly focused on right now in this sort of like growth phase. But we've certainly kicked it around already of like what would it look like to get a bunch of teams from all around the state, you know, coming here and playing lacrosse. It's great. We just, you know, you really need parking, vendors. Facilities. Major facilities and fields. So a couple other questions here before we wind down. And we went long with this one because I think this interview is valuable and fantastic and you

guys are great. One mom's asking, is it too early for a six to seven year old to get involved with what you're doing and should or how can I get our son involved? So that question has come through a lot if you go to the Cavlax boys Instagram page there's a link in the bio there for just general program information that we sort of put out there and people will will fill it out where we can talk to them about what we're doing season by season I mean right now we're in our fall club program we're running a k2 developmental program at the same time in the winter we're soon gonna fall club program. We're running a K-2 developmental program at the same time. In the winter, we're soon going to roll out our plans for that. We have a few different options that people can kind of roll into.

We're going to build off of a lot of momentum that I think Alex and others in town have established for a spring league and then continue our club playing in the summer, traveling, playing in tournaments, and doing a lot of coaching and development. So really, I mean, this will evolve into something that is, you know, by the end of this calendar year, a four-season, fully operational lacrosse club where we can take in beginners. And it's also a place where we have the numbers right now. We can actually challenge our higher-level players by separating our teams into experienced and developmental.

That's been really invaluable for us. But it would be go to social media, Instagram, click the link in the bio. That's the best way right now. What do you say to the question, and we knew it was going to come up, the sports specializing, playing one sport year round. When do you do it? Should you do it? What's the age? I mean, you guys play lacrosse at very high levels.

I mean, are you of the mindset to play a different sport every season? I would say, I mean, as someone who's currently a high school coach, I am seeing an increasing number of overuse injuries that come from the repetition of certain athletic movements, and some of those come from lacrosse and other things um i generally think it's a it's a bad thing for athletes to specialize honestly like i mean i think about some of our guys at st ann's i mean you know a third of our

varsity football roster are varsity lacrosse kids i think that's the best thing for them and so we're structuring and we're laying out our program in such a way where kids can and we want to and encourage them to do other things. There will get to be a point in the high school years, depending on what your aspirations are in the sport, in terms of recruiting, when you may

have to lean more into lacrosse than other things, but we don't think that it's healthy for young athletes to just do one thing in lower school, middle school, and the early high school years. Specialization, I'm totally against it, especially at the younger age. I mean, ultimately, when you look at kids, like, let's say, six to 12, right, you want them to have a good experience. You want them to have fun, right? So if they're not out there exploring different things, learning different physical attributes, I mean, like, if you're a swimmer, you're going to have better conditioning than you are if, you know, if you're sitting around. Right? So you're also learning from different coaches, different techniques, different things around different skills. So specialization, in my opinion, you should be able to do a million different things. I always say 15 minutes a day, 365 days a year is 91.25 hours.

So if you look at two hours as the length of a varsity lacrosse program practice, you're getting 46 full practice days by spending 15 minutes a day. So you can go play football. You can go play soccer. You can go play wrestling. And you can find 15 minutes a day, which is 1% of your day, to work on some skill set. It gives you almost 92 hours a year in skill development. This interview, fantastic.

I knew it was going to be good. Exceeded my expectations. And I can tell the viewers and listeners responded favorably. We'll close with how you get involved, how viewers and listeners can support you, how they can get their kids in the mix. I would just reach out, give us a shout. You're going to hear from either Nick or myself. And, you know, the more the merrier. You know, this is something that we see as being a community program. And Nick alluded to it a little bit earlier. There's people from Harrisonburg and Lexington that are coming up. But we want to try to bring in as many great people, bring in as many great kids,

and work to develop those kids not only as athletes but as young men. So if you have an interest, your son has an interest, or you just want some more information, just reach out to us. I love it. I love it. Nick Bell, guys. Alex Witten on the program today. Thank you, fellas. Appreciate it. Certainly appreciate it, guys. We spent 50 minutes with the coaches. We were going to do 20 to 25, but the interview was just fantastic. I think it's a playbook for a lot of parents out there on what to do and what not to do. A couple items out of the notebook.

Thank you, fellas. Thank you, Alex. You guys have a good one. Items out of the notebook that we also wanted to cover today. First programming notes. Tomorrow the president of the Jefferson Council will be on the show. The Jefferson Council, in a lot of ways, looking to shift the narrative at the University of Virginia

as it applies to the single sanction honor code the Jefferson Council would like that to return to prominence the Jefferson Council looking to hold President Jim Ryan and the administration accountable as it applies to freedom of speech diversity, equity and inclusion and potentially a bloated payroll with Ryan, his lieutenants, and administrators.

The Jefferson Council putting things in a spotlight from the saga that's at the UVA health system with the university physicians group and 128 physicians signing a letter of no confidence and kind of putting in the spotlight that medical charts are being changed to maintain performance standards, that fraudulent billing is happening. The Jefferson Council is driving that narrative. They leaked the audio as it applied to the UVA investigator, the administrator, that interrogated a ROTC student, a student in ROT student in rotc and said look should this be you know this type of investigation interrogation being done with a kid that doesn't have his

parents present or an attorney present that was on yesterday's show if you missed it so if you want to see what i think is going to be just a fantastic interview mark your calendar for 12 30 tomorrow as thomas neal will join us from Baltimore, Maryland on the I Love Seville show. One other programming note. Next week, the I Love Seville network off air. We're on vacation with our families. Judah's going to be hobnobbing with pillars in the

Outer Banks, stakeholders and is it Naxxhead where you're going? Duck where you're going? I'm not sure this year. The man is so busy and so popular that he's not even sure where he's going on vacation on Saturday. We, my family, and I are going to be spending time traveling as well. So we're looking for some R&R. We do return back on air, the I Love Seville Network, after being off next week on Monday the 21st with regular scheduled programming.

We'll weave Judah in on a two-shot. There's three pieces of news that we want to get to. First, this one from the food and beverage category. Fuzzy's Taco Shop in Fifth Street Station is closed. I've had intimate knowledge of this for about a month and change now. The business has been on the, it's been for sale on the DL, on the Hush Hush,

but we are business brokers at Charlottesville Business Brokers. And a buyer, difficulty finding a buyer for this particular restaurant, overhead is pretty significant with a space of that size. In a Class A shopping center like Fifth Street Station, Fuzzy's Taco Shop has decided to close down permanently. This will leave a significant vacancy in Fifth Street Station. It was one of the most prominent locations in Fifth Street Station.

You think there's Wegmans. There's what, the Dick's Sporting Goods store and its outdoor component. There's the furniture store. Havarti's, as you fix that center screen for us. Havarti's down the road. You got the movie theater over there. You got Timberwood Taphouse. And then you're probably looking at Fuzzy movie theater over there. You got Timberwood Taphouse. And then you're probably

looking at Fuzzy's Taco right there. So one of the top seven or eight most prominent rental opportunities in Fifth Street Station is now an empty storefront. Fuzzy's Taco Shop, the chain from Texas no more. Second piece of news that I want to get out there, Judah, as you're also rotating lower thirds on screen, is the Artful Lodger livery stable building. If you know downtown mall, the downtown mall, the building right next to the Omni Hotel, home to the Artful Lodger, the livery stable, and a couple of other shops has been sold. The owner, Jeffrey Levin, who developed the apartment complex where the ABC store and Blue Moon Diner are, he developed that just a short while ago. He also was the owner of this building at 218 West Market Street. And he purchased it, as Sean Tubbs has reported, in June of 2020 for $4 million. He sold it in September for $5,750,000. He initially was going to do apartments at the location of the Artful Lodger livery stable and the other shops at 218 West Market Street, West Market Street.

And he pivoted from apartments to a hotel. And the reason he pivoted, he straight up says this in Tubbs' reporting, quote, I just could not make the economics work, who pushed the new zoning ordinance, in some ways ram where Blue Moon Diner is, the ABC store is. The guy owns the University Tire building next to this apartment tower, which has not been developed on West Main Street. He wanted to build apartments in density on the downtown mall. On the downtown mall. On the downtown mall. Spent many years going in front of city council looking for approval to build these apartments on the site of the Arful Lodge or the Livery Stable and the other shops there. And finally he threw in the towel and said the new zoning ordinance does not make this pencil out. The economics do not work. He even went above and beyond.

Went above and put in perspective. Well, so he was going to have, he agreed to build a minimum of eight affordable units on-site or off-site with two more units to be reserved for households making less than 50%. That was above the minimum requirement that he would have to do to build these based on the council agreement.

And unfortunately, it was not enough to satisfy, as the article states, wasn't enough to exit the hotel piece, the hotel development on his own, sells the building for $5,750,000. Remember, he bought it in June of 2020 from $4 million. He purchased it from a good friend of the program and a hell of a foosball player, a guy I've spent many hours across from a foosball table at the Lazy Parrot Grill drinking beers and having a good time and getting into mischief. And now the new buyer is an entity

based out of Glen Allen, Virginia. They plan to pursue a hotel at that location in the shadows of the Omni Hotel. And they're jettisoning an opportunity to build a housing and density and apartments because of the stringent nature of the new zoning ordinance ladies and gentlemen a dagger dagger in the efforts of housing activists in the charlottesville community um you want you want to add something to that i was going to say

the dagger kind of came from them didn't it all right He said, he straight up, the one, I mean, it's no coincidence that Sean chooses to use the only quote from the guy. I could, I just could not make the economics work for residential under the new zoning code. The only quote from Jeffrey Levin, the developer he uses is that one. Yeah. And like I said, he also pointed out the fact that this guy was going to go above and beyond, but it wasn't enough for a city council. And then, I said, he also pointed out the fact that this guy was going to go above and beyond, but it wasn't enough for city council.

And then, I mean, Sean Tubbs always does a great job reporting. And he goes on to talk about some of the other projects that could have been started, and some yesterday we discussed on the program that in Arlington County, Virginia, their revamped new zoning ordinance was demoralized by a judge who found that the lead up to that zoning ordinance did not truly outline the impacts it would have on folks that had single-family detached homes. And this is one of the effects, as I was talking about Sean Tubbs' reporting, and he talks about some of the very few projects that have come about under the new zoning. And one of them is a house getting raised to build a structure with nine units. If they built ten units, then one of them would a house getting raised to build a structure with nine units.

If they built ten units, then one of them would have to be affordable. Right. If you hit ten units or more under the new zoning ordinance, then 10% of the project has to be tied to AMI for 99 years. An absurdity, if you think about it. All right, last item out of the news notebook today. This is a piece of breaking news for you. You will hear about this in Legacy Media.

You will hear about it from us first. Afton Scientific, a biopharmaceutical company in Albemarle County announced today that they're going to invest $200 million and create 200 new jobs at their facility right over the Charlottesville County, Charlottesville City line on Avon Extended. Act in scientific, biotechnology, biopharmaceutical. I've said on this program for years that 8,000 to 10,000 new jobs will be coming

online very soon. I highlighted the $11 billion investment by Amazon in Louisa County. I highlighted the Paul Manning Biotech Institute on Fontaine. Paul Manning funding it to the tune of $125 million. I highlighted Jeffrey Woodruff's Data Science School, the new Data Science School, and the businesses that would spring or birth from the Data Science School to capture the talent matriculating from said school. I highlighted Northrop Grumman, its $250,000,000 facility in Waynesboro, $94,000, the average wage for those working at that $250,000,000 facility in Waynesboro, $94,000, the average wage for those working at that $250

million facility in Waynesboro, eight to 10,000 new jobs in short time coming to the area. And the impact it would have on housing in Charlottesville and Albemarle County in particular, driving in value, where are eight to 10,000 people and all the folks associated with these new jobs coming to the area said most of the hires will come from out of market. Most of them will come from out of market. I have a genuine question for you. Where are 8,000 to 10,000 new citizens who come to Charlottesville and Albemarle County within the next five to six years, where are they going to live from a housing standpoint? What they're going to do is they're going to buy the housing, the limiting inventory that's on the market,

and further gentrify the communities and push middle-class Charlottesville and middle-class Alamaro County to the surrounding counties in central Virginia. It will further increase values. Here's an example of what I'm talking about, a biopharmaceutical company, and this is news to celebrate. If you're investing $200 million right in the urban ring

over the city line on Avon Extended and you're creating 200 new jobs, we should celebrate this. The governor was here today. Governor Youngkin was here to celebrate this $200 million injection. But a piece of collateral damage from this, one of the shrapnels of collateral damage

is 200 new people to the area. We'll see how many are hired within the community. Alright, that's the Wednesday edition of the I Love Seville show. Alex Witten and Nick Bell were fantastic. Thank you to those coaches and gentlemen. Thomas Neal tomorrow, ooh baby, president

of the Jefferson Council. Get ready and giddy up, ladies and gentlemen. And Friday is going to be a pretty fantastic program. Also tomorrow, it's a three-day show for us. Today, y mañana with the Earpies at 10.15 a.m., the I Love Siebel show at 12.30, and Greer Achenbach

in the downtown spotlight at 2.30. We're off next week on vacation, and then back the following week with regular scheduled programming. It's the water cooler of Charlottesville, folks. It's the I Love Siebel Show, the water cooler of Charlottesville, Alamo County and Central Virginia. So long everybody. Thank you.