The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Will Driscoll Joined Jerry Ratcliffe & Jerry Miller Live On "The Jerry & Jerry Show!"

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

“The Jerry & Jerry Show” headlines: Will Driscoll Interview On The Jerry & Jerry Show Driscoll, Executive Director, VA Sports Hall of Fame Stories & Insight From VA Sports Hall Of Fame UVA Hooper Ryan Dunn Entering NBA Draft How Does Dunn News Impact Next Year’s Team? Dunn Announcement Puts Pressure On Portal Why Has Tony Bennett Not Secured Transfer Yet? Virginia Football Spring Game Is This Saturday Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Will Driscoll, Executive Director of The Virginia Sports Hall Of Fame, joined Jerry Ratcliffe & Jerry Miller live on “The Jerry & Jerry Show!” “The Jerry & Jerry Show” airs live Tuesday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to “The Jerry & Jerry Show” on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Tuesday morning. Thank you kindly for joining us on the Jerry and Jerry show. It's great to be with you. We are in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, less than two miles away from the John Paul Jones Arena, Scott Stadium, and Thomas Jefferson's University. We have breaking news this morning on the Jerry and Jerry Show with Ryan Dunn surprising some of Wahoo Nation by declaring for the NBA draft. Mr. Dunn, a projected first-round draft pick. His offensive production needs some work, but that seven-foot-two wingspan, that athletic ability, that leaping ability has Ryan Dunn entering the NBA draft. We'll talk Ryan Dunn with Jerry Hootie-Rackliff, the Virginia Sports Hall of Famer on the Jerry and Jerry Show, right after an interview with Will Driscoll, the Executive Director of the Virginia Sports Hall of

Fame. Judah Wittkower is the director and producer. If you can go to the studio camera, welcome the star of our show, Jerry Hootie Ratcliffe. And then we've Will Driscoll into the mix. Hootie, quite a guest we have on Skype this morning. It's a joy for me to welcome Will. He's the executive director of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and every time I see him I know I light up with a smile because he's such a positive guy and he

does such great work for the Hall of Fame he's really made a difference in that organization he's trying to spread it all over the state. You know, there was a feeling for years that it was just located and focused more, I guess, on the Tidewater area of the state. And Will has done a great job in including making it a very inclusive organization for the entire state of Virginia.

It's something to be really proud of. He is a hardworking guy and driven man. I'll tell you, I've known him for more than a year, and every time I'm around him I just just feel energized about, uh, with his positivity and his, his drive. And, um, well, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us this morning. Well, thank you, Jerry. And I'll have to have to bring you on as my PR person. I love that intro. Thank you so much. You're happy to be here than's more than deserved. And I think anybody that's had contact with you would confirm that analysis. And I know this is a special week for you.

The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame will have its, I guess, its 51st class this coming Saturday in Henrico. I'll get you to give us the details in a moment. And it's a fun-filled weekend. this coming Saturday in Henrico. I'll get you to give us the details in a moment. It's a fun-filled weekend. I was part of the festivities last year. I was so fortunate and blessed. Gosh, what a great weekend it is for anybody involved. I was treated like a king, as were the other inductees. It's a moment in my life that I'll never forget. It was definitely the highlight of my career and such a blessing, and Will is right in the middle of it. Just tell us, Will, a little bit about this weekend's festivities, and if anyone anyone is interested you may be sold out i'm not

sure well so the the one benefit to moving it this year so for those who don't know this is actually the first time we'll be hosting the annual induction events outside of hampton roads our home is still in hampton roads we love our home here in hampton roads it's where we've been based for over 50 years but to your point point, as you mentioned earlier, we've been very focused on expanding our reach, expanding our visibility, expanding awareness, increasing engagement and outreach. And so this year's 2024 induction events will be hosted in Henrico County at the new Henrico Sports and Events Center that opened back in December. And so because of that, we don't have space limitations. Now, you know, we're not at a 2,000 person event. We're not a 1,000 person event,

but we're not sold out yet. Although ticket sales will stop tomorrow because at some point, our staff does have to get up to Henrico County from Virginia Beach. So we're going to stop our sales tomorrow, but we've been over the moon with the response that we've received from not just the central Virginia community, but really the Virginia sports community. Our class this year touches all corners of the state. And so we're seeing a lot of people that maybe haven't engaged with us in the past from the northern Virginia area, from out in southwest Central Virginia, out where you all are, that are going to be coming to this event because of their connections to the inductees. And it's just a really exciting time. It's very busy.

You know, it can be stressful sometimes when you're planning events. But, you know, this event is not about me. It's not about the hall. It's about the nine inductees that we have going in. And we're just really thrilled to be able to welcome them their families and their supporters to henrico county this saturday and as i mentioned there are two events we have our breakfast with champions which is a very fun kind of casual event and then we have our reception and ceremony that evening which is a bit more of the pomp and

circumstance both events are open to the publicickets continue to be on sale through tomorrow. V.A. Sports H.O.F. dot com. And they both provide different models of engagement for the sports fans. So you're not you're not forced to sit through the 10 speeches if that's not what you want to do. If you want to come and meet the inductees and engage with them in a Q&A, that's the breakfast event. But we're just really excited about it. And and like I said, for it being our first time in Central Virginia, the response we've seen has been very, very positive. And it justifies our decision to bring it to Central Virginia. And who knows what that might open up in the future as far as the Charlottesville area, the University of Virginia is well represented in this class with former athletic director Craig Littlepage, who will be one of the inductees. Also, Chris Long, a former All-American defensive end and NFL All-Pro who resides here in Charlottesville, as does Mr. Little little page who we had on the show a few weeks ago and uh monica right uh the great women's basketball player for debbie ryan's program

back in the day or the three local representatives going in tell us will about uh the other six inductees that'll be going in this weekend. Well, you mentioned the three UVA connections, and there's actually one more that Craig actually brought to my attention, and that's Jill Ellis. So Jill Ellis, before she became a head coach at the collegiate level and obviously went on to win two Women's World Cups with the U.S. Women's National Team, she was an assistant coach at UVA. So there's another UVA connection there for you. But yeah, so Jill Ellis, she's from Northern Virginia, played soccer collegiately at William and Mary and then went on to great success with the U.S. Women's National Team. Our Distinguished Virginian Award recipient this year, which is kind of our sports and philanthropy and community award,

is going to go to Rick Jeffrey, who ran the Special Olympics Virginia for 22 years. And the impact he had, not just in the Richmond region where Special Olympics Virginia is based, but really across the state, it can't be measured. They supported 22,000 athletes annually, created so much access and opportunity to sports for people that probably had been overlooked prior to that. So his impact is immeasurable. You then have LaShawn Merritt, one of our great Olympic champions from Virginia. He's from Portsmouth, Virginia.

Three-time Olympic gold medalist, four overall Olympic medals, 23 total medals in international competitions at the 400 and 4x400 meter relay, and 19 of those. LaShawn is definitely one of those. Yeah, exactly. That was the number that blew me away, too, is that when he competed, he typically won. We then have Hal Nunley, a longtime, longtime head men's basketball coach at Randolph-Macon and the Randolph-Macon basketball program.

That's one that when you go back through the history books, you see that is a dominant program. They went from Coach Paul Webb, who was an inductee, to Coach Nunley, who's going to be an inductee. Mike Rhodes followed him, and now they've had even more success following Coach Mike Rhodes. So the Randolph-Macon basketball program is definitely not just a powerhouse here in Virginia, but a powerhouse nationally. Coach Nunley won 431 games, 24 seasons, five-time conference coach of the year, so definitely well-deserved. And what's been truly unique about Coach Nunley is this is a posthumous honor for him. So he passed away in 2004, but there's going to be over 100 former players in attendance for Coach Nunley's induction this weekend, which to me,

that just shows you how special it is to how special this recognition is to just the whole Yellow Jacket community. We then have two media members that are going in this year. The first is Dave Smith, longtime sports information director for Virginia Tech. You know, we can set the rivalry aside. You know, Dave Smith is about as well respected as they come in the sports information world and truly well deserving of this honor. And then Paul Woody. Paul Woody, 40 years with the Richmond News Leader, Richmond Times, Dispatch, won Virginia Press Association Awards, Pro Football Writers Association Awards, covered any and everything in sports sports as you did, Jerry,

as you've done for much of your career. And Paul definitely has the respect of pretty much everybody he's come in contact with. So it's just a class that really is unique and touches, as I mentioned, all corners of the state. We have Hampton Roads. We have Northern Virginia. We have Central Virginia. We have Hampton Roads. We have Northern Virginia. We have Central Virginia. We have Southwest. And it's just great to see all of these people coming to our events to celebrate the sports history that we have in Virginia.

And so we're very excited about it. The class is very excited. And I can't wait until Saturday. Yeah, I'm excited for Paul Woody, a longtime colleague of mine. And we worked for the same company, to speak for a long time and he media general media general he's a terrific guy and uh very deserving and i grew up in the business with dave smith in fact his mentor at virginia tech kind of when i was a pup in the business kind of took me under his wing and uh taught me the ropes to some degree a guy named

wendy wison uh who's long gone but uh uh so dave dave and i've been friends for decades and uh so happy for him as well no question about it uh questions coming in for you here well let's throw this here we want to we'd love to get a uh some behind the scenes stories for you how about the star of our show hootie rackliff let's talk about last year a lot of people don't realize this hootie was you were sick as a dog during the hall of fame last year talk to us about uh what went into experience and the honor and the selection process of the Virginia Sports Hall of Famer sitting across from me. Well, I'll never forget the phone call I got from Will that told me that I had been elected. And I was completely speechless, which if you know me, that's really hard to do.

But I was blown away and a moment I'll never forget. And I had a medical problem that I wasn't aware of leading up to the event and I was having a hard time breathing actually and didn't realize that I had some some fluid on my lungs and so I was struggling that entire weekend even I didn't have much energy I remember my girlfriend and I walked from the hotel down to the place they have the exhibit near the induction, near the site of the induction where they had an exhibit of some of your, I guess, some of the things you've accomplished in your career.

And I walked over there and walked back with her and and uh my daughter and my some of my grandchildren and i said i i don't know if i can make this uh we got back and i i manned up and um we uh went to the ceremony and it was fantastic uh i delivered my speech i i didn't win my bet. I did break down emotionally a little bit at a couple of moments, which I didn't feel so bad when Ryan Zimmerman did the same thing after me, so I felt pretty good about that. But it was great having so many friends and family there, and Jeff Motley, a dear friend and like a brother to me who's vice president of las vegas speedway flew in for the event and uh it's great to see him and it's just a glorious

weekend uh so well attended and appreciative crowds um very interactive crowds. You have a little situation, a little reception there before the event where people can mingle with the inductees and past inductees. The breakfast is great. People get to ask some questions to all the inductees. And it meant the world to me. It was just sort of the highlight of my career. It just made me feel like I had all those years of deadlines and driving endless hours into the night. And stuff like that was well worth it.

So it was a weekend I'll never forget, and I'm sure I'm speaking for everyone who went in with me, along with we had a great class, including Jimmy Laycock and Sean Moore and Ryan Zimmerman and many others. It was just unforgettable. I'll throw this to you, Will. Weave us through, weave us through the process of selecting media and sports information directors for say like athletes and, and coaches who have, you know, tangible production on a hardwood,

a soccer pitch, a gridiron for, say, media and sports information directors where perhaps there's not as much hardware to go by? Yeah, that's a great question. And the decision was made well before my time with the Hall. So I've been with the Hall now for seven years, been in this role for five. And I believe the decision to start including media was made in the mid 90s. And it's an important one. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a former broadcaster myself in some small markets, nowhere near here. But media is a huge component to sports. And so how we go through the selection process is even with the athletes, coaches, and others, we have categories that we kind of sort the nominations through. So the media members are going up against other media nominations. Same with sports information.

They're in that media bucket. We then have our professional athletes, but that's really focused on athletes that are from Virginia or born in Virginia, have strong connections to Virginia that go on to professional success. But that's kind of more focused on the big sports. So football, basketball, baseball. We then have another one for the international sports, the Olympic sports, because comparing somebody's career on the track or in the pool or gymnastics is not the same as NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball. We then have a collegiate category because one of the things that's very important to us at the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame are the colleges and universities. We don't have those top-level professional sports. We have

great professional franchises at the minor league levels, but we don't have the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball. So the colleges and universities, all 37 NCAA sanctioned programs, Division I, II, and III, they need to know that we see the great athletes and coaches that have come from those schools. And then we have our Veterans Committee, which is anyone over the age of 55. So we have all of these buckets that our Honors Court can pull from. So we have our Screening Committee, which reviews all open nominations,

which we have over 100 right now. And then they pass on the 30 to 40 best that they deem that year the best to the Honors Court Committee, which is made up of past inductees, sports professionals in Virginia, board members of the Hall of Fame. And we meet the first weekend in November to select the class. And so we're all going, we're reviewing all of these nominations. And there can be a lot of debate, a lot of discussion. But I'm always very pleased with how we get through the meeting and

we come out with the class that we do because it, one, it's representative of Virginia, touches multiple sports. We've represented 22 individual sports throughout our history, and that would probably be more if we didn't lump track and field as one. So 22 individual sports, 23 of those 37 colleges I mentioned have been represented with induction into the hall at some point. And so it's a very diverse group that hopefully is selecting a diverse group of inductees as well. But nominations are submitted year round to be considered for the next class, though they need to be in by September 1st. And then once a nomination is submitted, it has a five-year lifespan. And if it doesn't get selected in those five years,

it expires, but it can easily be re-nominated to start that five-year timeline again. Fantastic insight. How about an inductee of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame that had the biggest you know I don't want to call it pop in circumstance but the biggest hoopla surrounding him or her either attendance or coverage or attention, all the above, Will? So, you know, it's funny because it'll probably be a name that doesn't necessarily, it won't be a name you expect. Yes, you know, last year we had Ryan Zimmerman and D'Angelo Hall, two great athletes from Virginia. They went to Virginia colleges, and then they had great professional success not too far from here, up in the Washington, D.C. area. But a few years ago, Coach Sonny Allen, the legendary Sonny Allen, who spent 10 years at Old Dominion University, it was a posthumous honor for him as well.

He had passed away a year prior to being selected for the induction, but the family was so moved by his selection to the hall that they helped bring almost 75 people to the event. And so we dubbed them Allen's Army. And, you know, it's funny, those are the ones that you just kind of that they they come in off the radar but but then they bring the people because it is such a meaningful moment to to their family last year sean moore i think he brought the entire city of martinsville with him to virginia beach jerry can vouch for that's true yeah i think the entire city of martinsville was there bob ruttans from Roanoke College had 50 people,

some of them former teammates on Roanoke lacrosse, some of them just friends. Bob is the owner of Mac and Bob's, so they're just supporters of his business that came all the way from Roanoke and Salem to support his induction. So, you know, yes, the Heath Millers of the world, the Ryan Zimmermans, you know,

they draw the attention from the media standpoint, but sometimes it's people that you might not think that are actually bringing the crowd. And from an event planning standpoint, we love people, we love butts in seats. How about the time that goes into this, Will, for you and the staff? How long have you guys been planning? What's the workload and what's the, how does it intensify as we get closer to showtime? Yeah, that's a great question. It's pretty much a year-round planning procedure, but I will say following the induction, we usually take a couple months to focus on some other events that we have. But then once we get to that September 1 1st deadline for nominations that's when we really start to dial it back in we have charitable golf tournaments one in in a at wintergreen actually in

june and then we have one in virginia beach here in september but once we get past that we really get into induction mode our committees will start meeting in september the honors court meets the first week of november and in between the Honors Court vote and the announcement, which I typically like to do the Monday after Thanksgiving, it's on me to get in touch with the inductees who are selected, but also make sure that they can attend the events in April. Because, you know, to use the buzzword of the day, NIL, name, image, and likeness, if we put your name, image, and likeness on a flyer, people are going to expect you to be there. And so we want to make sure that if we have nine people going in, we do our best to have all nine of those people there, if they can be there. We do have a deferral process. D'Angelo Hall,

for instance, was actually selected as part of the class of 2020. So I made the phone call to D'Angelo in November 2019. But because he was working for the NFL Network at the time, the induction conflicted with the NFL draft, so he wouldn't be able to get off. Now the 2020 induction was ended up canceled, pushed, canceled, pushed. But D'Angelo ended up going in in class of 2023, because that was the date that ended up working for him. So sometimes there are things that go on behind the scenes that the only people who know are me, the inductee, and the honors court. But once we get into, once we make that class announcement at the end of November, it's really at that point, how do we stay in the public consciousness for the next five months?

Because you have the announcement at the end of November and you have our events towards the end of April. And we want to make sure that people are talking about the hall. We want to make sure that they're learning about our inductees. You know, we last year, for instance, we know that Jerry is a multiple time winner of the Virginia Sports Writer of the Year, but we really tried to highlight through social media and through other media outlets a lot of the other work that he did. You know, we talked a lot of the other work that he did. We talked a lot about his golf. We use our platform to talk about what the inductees have done beyond just kind of the headline awards and recognitions. And so over that five-month period,

we just continue to stay in the public consciousness to hopefully drive more interests, more engagement, more ticket sales, more sponsorships. But then once we get to that month, the induction month, it's all event planning mode. It's seating charts. It's getting hotel rooms situated. It's all sorts of follow-ups and just hounding sponsors. Send us your name.

Send us your attendee names. But it's a fun process. I mean, I would be lying if i said it wasn't stressful but you know we have a pretty good we have a pretty good group in place that that helps us put all of this together and uh this year the only wrinkle is because it's our first time in henrico everything is new to us whereas when it's in virginia beach i know a through z you know i keep getting stuck on about you know rstuvSTUV right now. So it'll all come together. That's, I keep saying, control the controllables. And as long as you control what you

can control, you know, everything will turn out all right. How do you want to see the brand, Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, and your efforts and the recognition? What are some of the goals? How do you want to see it evolve as you move forward? You know, you're a goal-oriented guy. We all are here on this talk show, and you guys are doing a hell of a job here, but what's on the short list for taking it to the next level? So that's another great question, and for those who don't know, the hall used to have a large scale physical museum presence in Portsmouth, Virginia. We were founded in Portsmouth back in the, the idea was, the idea for a hall of fame was, was first broached in the late sixties. The first class was inducted in 1972.

But from that point through 2017, we had a physical presence. It started small, 2000 square feet, grew to 5,000, 10,000. It started small, 2,000 square feet, grew to 5,000, 10,000. And then ultimately the Hall of Fame and museum, which was 32,000 square feet in downtown Portsmouth. Multiple reasons, relationships and support began to dry up. So the museum was no longer feasible, but the brand, the board of directors at the time in 2017 understood that the brand of the Hall of Fame was much bigger than four walls and a roof. And so that's actually where I came on. I came on, you know, I don't like to say because the museum closed, but that's when my story with the Hall started.

And so we really started to do more events. We started to create more community initiatives around sports. Our core values, we revamped them about a year ago. They're recognition, impact, and integrity. Recognition is the induction. Recognition are the exhibits. Recognition is how we highlight our inductees and tell their story. Celebrating sports in Virginia. But impact, to me, is probably one of the most important ones, because while we honor the best of the best, are we doing to provide access opportunity highlight the benefits of sports participation at the youth level so we've increased our our community initiatives we've increased our scholarships

we created a sports and mental wellness initiative here in Hampton Roads and I want to see those continue to grow I don't not just those two initiatives, but I want to start adding more to that. But the biggest thing to me is the idea is we're not necessarily going back to a museum, but the we're the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, what have we done to really justify our role as the official Hall of Fame for Virginia? What incentive, what outreach have we done outside of Hampton Roads? And the answer was not much to that point. So we came up with the idea that instead of going back to a large-scale museum, let's break the state into regions and figure out how we can tap into each one of these regions. We know Hampton Roads. We've been in Hampton Roads for years. But as much as we love our Hampton, as much as Hampton Roads people love the Hampton Roads inductees, so does Central Virginia, so does Southwest Virginia, so does Northern Virginia. So we have to find ways to take the hall to them. And luckily, we got our first partner to

help us do that in Central Virginia with the Henrico Sports and Entertainment Authority. I mentioned we're hosting this year's events at the Sports and Events Center. Well, we also now have a physical exhibit presence there that is heavily focused on the inductees from Central Virginia. So the counties from Central Virginia go from about New Kent out through Charlottesville. So much of the exhibit presence that you see there is going to be focused on Central Virginia Virginia. So the counties from central Virginia go from about New Kent out through Charlottesville. So much of the exhibit presence that you see there is going to be focused on central Virginia inductees. I would love to see that replicated in southwest Virginia, maybe even south side, northern Virginia. And then next thing you know, you have a statewide network of exhibits that's celebrating the inductees where they're from. And I never want to say that an

inductee is more important in this place or that place, but they're more important in their hometowns. They're more important with the schools that they attended. And so we just want to really find ways to continue to make those connections. And especially in a venue like the Sports and Events Center, that's a sports crowd that's coming in there. Whether they're coming in for a tournament, whether they're coming in to attend an event, they have an interest in sports. And now they might also be learning something that, oh, I didn't know Ralph Sampson was from Harrisonburg. I didn't know Moses Malone was from Petersburg. So they're learning about the hall and hopefully maybe they take that next step to learn more about us as an organization. So really creating

a statewide approach is the long-term goal. And I say long-term because it took us a couple years to get this going with Henrico County, but I'm hoping that now people are seeing it more as instead of an idea, they actually see it now as an activation, and that's the most important thing. I think it's genius. I think it's absolutely genius because your inductees become ambassadors and evangelists for the Hall of Fame. They each have their own micro following across the Commonwealth, across the region, across the country. And as the inductees get attention from the Hall of Fame, that's going to only trickle over to what you guys are doing. I think it's a fantastic plan. I'll throw this to you. We are

literally doing a show with you now, Will, that's broadcasted on all social platforms, all podcasting platforms, and folks in a handful of states are watching you and Hootie and I on the program. How does technology, digital, and social media come into your efforts with raising recognition for the brand profile that is the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame? It's massive. And I'll start that off with, you know, we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. So we're not, yes, we do a decent job of fundraising, but we don't have the biggest staff in the world. In fact, we have a very small staff, you know, where our resources are limited. So what we do, I always say, let's do as much as we can with as little as we can, and then we'll find a way to hopefully add to that. So social

media, especially in my time, has been a huge asset to us because it allows us to engage with people where they are, as opposed to when the museum was open it was always come to us come to us and and which there's nothing wrong with that because that's the approach of a building you have to get people in the door but we our first step to do that was okay let's look at our social media how can we utilize this to engage our audience well we created our own podcast platform, the Hall Call Podcast. It started out as just audio. It's now transitioned to video and audio.

And what that does is if we – our most recent episode was with Chris Long, incoming inductee. You don't have to be in person at an event to engage with this content. You can go watch the content, which I'm biased, but I thought it was a great interview. Chris is a great person to talk to. But you create content for people, you create initiatives for people, and that shows them that you care about them. As opposed to when you're always saying, come to us, it tends to be a one-way conversation. I mentioned we increased our scholarship awards. Our scholarship awards are open to all seniors attending a high school in Virginia. Two of this year's recipients were from Carroll County and Galax County, which is about five hours west of

Virginia Beach. So the reach for that is growing. Our nominations over the last five years have increased from 40 to over 140. And with that, the scholarship awards have increased as well. So we're really utilizing the digital mediums to tell our story. Sometimes it's as simple as we post something about today's an inductee's birthday. As simple as that. But it puts the Hall of Fame, it keeps us in the conversation on social media so that our followers and our supporters know that it's not always just about, hey, buy a ticket to an event. You know, hey, are you interested in a sponsorship? No, we want to tell you stories about the inductees. And, you know, you see fun engagement, like, oh, I didn't realize my birthday was the same day as, you know, inductee XYZ. And so you just got to keep finding those ways through the digital mediums that are available

to you to make a difference. And we love it. We love being able to share our story, the stories of our inductees, the story of the hall with as many people as possible. Well, I'll tell you what, Will, we appreciate your time. We wish you the best of luck on Saturday. I have no doubt it's going to go off flawlessly, and it's going to be a night and weekend to remember. We're grateful for the perspective. We look forward to future interviews, and it sounds like my esteemed colleague here, Hootie, is going to be in attendance this weekend.

I'm going to do my best. And before you go, if you want to plug your golf event at Wintergreen, in case you're looking for people to fill up your field, go ahead and give it a shot. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I know you've played in it and you have the invite, as always, to play. But, yeah, Thursday, June 13th, we host our Central Virginia Golf Tournament

at Stony Creek Wintergreen. There's plenty of information on our website. It's our Central Virginia Golf Tournament. It's our presenting sponsor is Blue Ridge out in Waynesboro. They've been a great partner of ours for many, many years. And really, this was one of the first things that we did to start kind of creating that presence out there. And we get a lot of colleges and universities that play, we have a lot of a decent amount of inductees that come out and play. So it's really a fun day,

you know, as long as the weather's great. And again, control the controllables, I can't control the weather. So as long as we get everything else in place, it's turned out to be a good tournament. But it's Thursday, June 13th Stony Creek at Wintergreen it's a heck of a day it's tons of fun and I'd love to see some new faces out there as we continue to grow the hall throughout the state Fantastic. Thank you Will Driscoll

we appreciate your time See you brother. Thank you Alright absolutely. Will Driscoll ladies and gentlemen we got a two shot right now Judah's going to come on screen and adjust the computer and Skype. Fantastic interview right there through a fantastic guy doing a lot of hard work, Cody Ratcliffe. Absolutely. Again, I can't tell you how valuable he has been to the hall and growing its presence in the state of Virginia.

And I'm very appreciative. I know everybody who's involved feels the same way about the work he's done. Guys, thank you to Will Driscoll for joining us. And many of you tuning in for the breaking news that happened right before the Jerry and Jerry show launched or started this morning. Ryan Dunn enters the NBA draft. Hootie Ratcliffe, where do you want to begin? Well, I can't say that I'm surprised. And it could be that he'll go in full force and take his chances and see what happens. He still could end up being a first-round draft choice, particularly now that he's entered the draft and I'm sure will be invited to the Combine

and some other events to where he can show general managers and scouts and coaches his value and again he also i i don't know if he's uh what what the situation is but you know uh it could be like reese bigman where he puts his toes in the water to to see what kind of reaction he gets from those experts in the field as to whether he will be a first-rounder or not. Multiple platforms reporting that Ryan Dunn all in and will not maintain any college eligibility. Well, if that's the case, yeah, then that settles it. So that means he's gone.

And, again, I'm not surprised. Certainly talking to some scouts that I know and just some college coaches I know, he has rare abilities and rare physical skill that you can't coach. It's just an incredible leaping ability, rebounding, block shot ability, reaction time, reach, wingspan, timing. All those things are gifts from God and certainly he comes from an athletic family

his brother is a major league pitcher I think still with the Cincinnati Reds and has been certainly had a great influence on Ryan and trying to help him deal with all the things that have come at him the past year and a half. So, again, I think he needs to work on his offensive end of the game,

and I'm sure he will because having talked to some scouts, they will draft off potential, knowing that he is a rare talent on the defensive end of the floor and the rebounding, and they feel like their coaching staffs are good enough to make him a better offensive player. So it sounds like he believes that he will be a first-round pick, which is guaranteed money and big money. So I wish him the best. Me too.

I think he's a quality person. I've enjoyed knowing him the past couple of years, and he's just a quality human being, comes from a great family. And one of my favorite stories about him is when uh virginia offered him a scholarship and he committed to virginia and then tony bennett realized wow you know we don't have a scholarship to give him and so he he had the unfortunate task of calling r Ryan and his family and telling them that, you know, I'm sorry, but we don't have a scholarship for you. And Ryan Dunn wanted to play for Tony Bennett and play at Virginia so badly

that he and his family discussed it and called Tony back and said, would it be okay if he walks on the first year and we pay his own way? That's how badly he wanted to come and play at Virginia. So that's a rare quality in athletes these days you don't see very often. Virginia basketball fans, it's bittersweet news. As folks that follow this team closely, we're excited for the potential for Ryan Dunn as an NBA pro with the comparisons

to DeAndre Hunter. 6'9", with a 7'2 wingspan, a man who can jump out of the gym, explosive ability, shot-blocking ability, defensive ability, certainly has to refine the jump shot. I look at this roster, we've got no frontcourt returning players.

You got Groves gone. You got Miner gone. You got Leon Bond in the transfer portal. You got Ryan Dunn now heading to the NBA draft. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, this is putting significant pressure on this Virginia coaching staff to hit the transfer portal hard, aggressively, quickly. They have front court players.

I mean, maybe can we call Tane Murray a front court player at small forward, maybe? That would probably be a stretch. That'd be a stretch. I guess the good news is that they have the Robinson kid, who's 6'10", who redshirted last year and has spent a year in the system and practicing. And, yeah, I imagine he'll work hard this summer knowing he has opportunities to play.

And then there's 6'9", the Kofi kid from the Seattle, Washington area who a lot of the Pac-12 schools really wanted. And it was kind of a shock that he committed to Virginia. So he's a physical presence. He's a player who can face the basket and get the job done. He will add some physicality. They're working hard in the portal to bring in at least one more player now this up it's up clearly to the ship yeah um joshua jefferson who was a starting six eight forward for saint mary's out

in california he's a sophomore uh visited this past weekend. He has two more visits lined up to Iowa State and TCU and canceled a visit to VCU while he was here. So Virginia is one of three schools that he's considering. He's a high-level contributor, a lockdown defender, had some decent offensive numbers, was a star in St. Mary's close win over Gonzaga in early February. He had 16 points, 11 rebounds, and four assists in that game.

So he's solid. And then they're going to get a visit this Thursday and Friday from a new kid, Toby O'Conney, 6'8", kid from Illinois, Chicago, a school that I don't know a lot about, but he's a grad transfer, 7-foot wingspan with massive hands, average 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game, was all-Missouri Valley Conference all-defensive team this past season. He's being courted by UCLA, Wisconsin, Florida State, Clemson, Arkansas, West Virginia

and a handful of others. So two candidates to come in and fill that slot where Ryan Dunn has been a staple the past season. This is pretty significant news, viewers and listeners. Ryan Dunn entering the NBA draft. You look at a basketball team that is now returning Isaac McNeely.

Right. I mean, you've got a point guard, Reese Beekman. He's not going to come back although he has a year um you got mcneely at two your three is you know to be determined maybe you see a gertrude maybe you see mcneely play three with bliss heading in uh the backcourt maybe gertrude some kind of mix in there. Maybe Rhodey, if he can find a jump shot. Your four and five have transferred. You do have the Buchanan coming back that's going to clearly get some big-time minutes now in the frontcourt. I mean, from my standpoint, you're the Virginia Sports Hall of Famer. You're the pro here. From my standpoint, this really puts significant pressure

on the coaching staff with the portal. This is a question I have for you. Did this catch the coaching staff off guard, Ryan Dunn turning pro? I would guess probably not. You think no? I think Tony and them expected him to leave. There's too much money on the table. Right.

The reason I ask that is because there has not been a transfer portal commitment. Yeah, and it's not because they're not trying. Because the deeper we get, the more the talent comes off the table. Right. But we have to also remember that guys are entering the portal every day. I check Twitter probably 30 or 40 times a day throughout the day and night, and there's hardly an hour goes by that somebody doesn't enter the transfer portal, sometimes multiple players. So they're coming in fast and furious from everywhere including programs like Kentucky

and Southern Cal and Arkansas whose coaches are leaving and opening the door for more guys to to exit their programs so there's more more guys flooding the market so to speak. I've seen a bunch of ACC players this week jump into the portal as well. I think there's a lot of guys out there that could fill that void. It's just

coming at these coaches in waves, and I'm sure they're working daily with, I don't know what kind of support staff they have in terms of, I know they have a couple of guys who are in charge of recruiting and player development and research and all that stuff. So I'm sure they're working their fannies off trying to keep up with who's available and who might fit Virginia's style of play

and who could fit academically, who will fit NIL-wise. There's a lot of things to consider and who they can get on campus for a visit. And this past week was the first, the Jefferson kid was the first guy who has visited thus far. Connie will be the second. Now, there was another guy who was supposed to visit this past weekend, the Harvard point guard who apparently is going to go to Georgetown. Instead, rumors of a lot of NIL money thrown his way.

I think Virginia is just now delving seriously into the process of trying to get some of these guys on campus. I think they've been trying to weed out who's available and who might fit. Ryan Dunn, if you're just tuning in, has turned pro, and he, according to a couple outlets, is not looking to consider a return to college, which leads you to believe that an agent siding is on the horizon,

or he's just saying, look, I see the potential writing on the wall. Do you, do you, you can have, you can still, these days you can have an agent and still return. Yeah. Yeah. Um, do you think how the season finished had anything to do with Ryan Dunn turning pro or was the writing always on the wall? I think as long as he was going to be a first-round choice, he was probably going to be gone because, again, that's a lot of money that you've got to weigh. The opportunity might not be there the following year if you have a bad year or if you get injured.

So, again, a lot of these NBA teams draft off potential. So I felt like that as long as he was still going to be considered a first-round pick, not necessarily a lottery pick, but a first-round pick, that he was probably going to go, even though I still think another year would make him a more complete player. But obviously, in his mind, that's not the important thing right now. The Hoos guys have two incoming first-year sign in the class of 2024. If Reece Beekman leaves, Coach Bennett and his staff have three open scholarships. The team clearly needs a veteran point guard and a post player that can score the basketball. So time will tell.

We have a lot of potential on the roster with guys like Christian Bliss. But from an experience standpoint, your most experienced player is Isaac McNeely. And you're returning, I guess, Rhodey saw some starters minutes and Buchanan saw some starters minutes. But really, you're returning one true starter that played from start to finish this past campaign. Yeah. And a bunch of other guys who had some starts and played some serious minutes. Rhodey, Tane Murray came on strong down the stretch.

I think he's going to be a better player. I think Buchanan will bulk up physically in the offseason and be more of a force there than he was. Gertrude, we've only begun to tap into how great he can possibly be. Do you think Leon Bond transfers if he knows the Ryan Dunn news? Yeah, I think he was going to go anyway. You think he was? Because he was kind of a tweener in between a two-guards height

but a front-court player's game? Yeah, I think he was kind of stuck in that mold because he just didn't have a jump shot. And that was tough for him. Whether these new guys that are 6'8", that are coming in, apparently they have somewhat of a jump shot. I don't know about Akani, but I know the Jefferson kid apparently does. I think both of them have made a decent amount of three-point shots.

So I think should they get either one of those two guys, it'll be an upgrade in terms of Bond. Certainly neither one of those guys are the athlete that Ryan Dunn is, but they do have potential more offensive firepower than Dunn orbon provided. Other transfer news, Justin Taylor heads to Harrisonburg. JMU.

Yep, JMU. The Syracuse wing two-guard transferring from the Orange to the Dukes. He's a Charlottesville boy. Dot the I's and cross the T's on anything else basketball-related, what you're following before we get to Saturday's spring game. Yeah, the Malik Brown kid from Syracuse, from Culpeper, apparently is, from what we heard, is going to visit Duke this weekend. So I don't know if Virginia is on his radar or not.

We haven't heard much out of his camp. But he's certainly a guy that I would think Virginia would be interested in if there's any interest from his part. But other than that, I know that they have reached out to probably 30 players in the portal. They're looking at a lot of different guards and a lot of forwards in hopes of shoring up the roster. I think it'll probably heat up starting this weekend until the portal closes.

Basketball news, guys, on the brain. Football certainly front and center with the spring game. You're going to be at Scott Stadium. Calandria takes a boatload of players to his house in Florida. We've got two quarterbacks with experience, and Tony Elliott's got more expectations, or I should say a little bit of pressure, than perhaps any year he's had in Charlottesville so far. Yeah, it was kind of a cool story that evolved yesterday

in a Zoom conference with Tony Muscat and Anthony Calandria and Taylor Lamb, the quarterback's coach. And I guess Sedarian Harris, one of the wide receivers, had spilled the beans on that trip in a previous Zoom that Calandria had taken 13 teammates down to St. Pete, his hometown, and they arranged for like an 18-room Airbnb, I guess, where they hung out for a week. Tony Elliott gave them a week off during spring break, and instead of just going to the beach and goofing off, yeah, it was more about football.

They went down in a bonding experience, they stayed at the house in St. Pete. They got up every morning and drove to Tampa and worked out at an indoor facility there from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. Then drove back to St. Pete and enjoyed the day as college youngsters would do. They did everything together, worked out together, ate together, hung out together the entire week, and it was only skilled players. It was a bunch of the wide receivers a couple of running backs and a tight end and um uh sounds like that these guys had a blast and then that's that's a

incredible way to build chemistry it's something unique to our time i think in terms of college players i know nfl guys have done that forever, forever. Yeah. But, uh, but this is certainly new in the day of NIL. What are you going to be watching in the spring game? How much you've take from the spring game and which positions are you most focused on in the spring game? I don't know how much you can take from a spring game. I've probably been to a million of them during my career.

Uh, cause coaches are going to be a spring game. I've probably been to a million of them during my career because coaches are going to be a little vanilla in most cases. Although last year, Virginia threw it all over the lot. We first saw Calandria. We saw how bold he was. We didn't really expect him to play that much as a true freshman. We did see the arm and the potential and the brashness of his play in the spring game. You can see certain things. I spotted last year that Malik Washington

was going to be an incredible addition to the team because not only was he able to get open all the time, he wasn't involved that much in the return game, but the couple of returns he had, I saw the potential there for him to make an impact on the football team, and certainly he did. We'll be looking at both quarterbacks to see how they've developed. Originally, we didn't think that Tony Musket was going to be available in the spring because

of the shoulder surgery he had in the offseason, but he overcame all those issues with incredible work in his rehab, and he said a lot of prayers to get back and participated fully, I think, in the entire spring, got equal reps to Calandria. The big emphasis during the spring from that standpoint was for both quarterbacks to get better, to develop, and to get Calandria out of some of the bad habits that he has, but not take away his gunslinger mentality. You don't want to take that away from a quarterback because it's a gift. Absolutely. As long as he can keep it under some kind of control and make better decisions.

It'll be interesting to see how both those guys have developed this spring. It'll be interesting to see the new wide receivers, Chris Tyree, Andre Green, some of the others, their freshman Cam Courtney, how they fit into the system, where Kobe Pace is as a running back. They're a little thin, I think, at the running back spot. I don't know that we'll see much with the offensive line because a lot of those guys, I think, missed the spring with recovering from surgeries and stuff.

Same on the defense. I don't know how many of those guys will be available, but you can pick up little nuances here and there in the spring game, but I don't think you can get a massive amount of impactful information during the spring game. Totally agree. This is one of the items I'm going to be watching. I'm going to be watching fan attendance. That's usually about the same. Why I'm going to watch that is whether we're going to see any kind of excitement for the year to come

or if there's apathy set again because of performance over the last handful of years. Saturday in Charlottesville in spring, there's a ton of stuff to do. There's a ton of spring sports. Obviously, all the things we like to do, breweries, wineries, hikes, restaurants. This weekend is the Tom Tom Festival in the downtown mall. So I'm curious to see what attendance is going to be like on Saturday at Scott Stadium. We're going to follow that closely. We're also talking baseball,

lacrosse, the spring sports as our eyes shift to perennial powers. Hootie Ratcliffe. Yeah, the baseball team's coming off a great weekend in Louisville. I think they host Georgia Tech this weekend. I'm not sure. Georgia Tech's always a formidable opponent. They're going to be playing a lot of meaningful series over the next month in a quest to get back to Omaha. Right now, Ryan O'Connor has one of the most explosive offenses in college baseball.

They're number one in the country in so many different offensive categories and a fun team to watch. If you like run production and action, this Shurin Park is the place to be. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, three-game series against the Ramblin' Wreck. Will Driscoll was nice. You got a busy weekend yourself, my friend.

Yeah, I feel obligated to try to make it back to this year's ceremony. They like former inductees to attend if they can. The fact that it's in Henrico, which is this side of Richmond, I think. I'm not real familiar with that area, but I'm going to try to do the double dip and go to the spring game and attend the induction ceremony if I can. It's just a lot of great people there, and you don't know who you're going to run into.

I ran into so many people last year that I didn't expect to see, including an old friend of mine, one of the first people I met when I moved to Charlottesville back in the early 80s, Governor Allen, George Allen, whose law office was right behind the newspaper when I came to town. And I was drawn to him because of his dad, George Allen, the Redskins, legendary Redskins, an NFL coach. I used to go over to his office and just sit and talk football for hours on end. We became friends and remain so to this day. You just never know who you're going to run into at the Hall of Fame ceremonies. What's in the hopper on JerryRackliff.com?

Well, certainly we'll be following the Ryan Dunn news and all things transfer portal. Like I said, we check on that probably 30 times a day as to what's going on and heavy spring football the rest of the week. And then hopefully we'll be able to have some time to delve into the rest of the spring sports from this from this weekend on ryan dunn guys is clear i mean it's going viral on social media jerry rackliff will have uh maybe dot the i's and cross the t's on that yep on the website uh the will driscoll pool was fantastic cootie he's just a terrific guy i mean he's so hard working and he's made a terrific guy. I mean, he's so hardworking, and he's made a huge difference in the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

I know a lot of people aren't that familiar with it. I have been. I used to, back in the day, Media General used to sponsor the golf tournament, which was at that time held in Williamsburg, and I would take. Which course? I think it was Ford's Colony most of the time. It might have drifted off to another course at some point,

but I was generally at Ford's Colony, and I was charged with taking some of our chief advertisers, who were golfers, for a weekend trip down to that event and entertain them. And we would always, it's a captain's choice golf tournament, we would always have the meals and the social events, but the golf was always fun because you had your foursome,

which was always a bunch of great guys, and we were always joined by a Hall of Famer in our group, so we would have a fivesome, and I remember playing one round with Lefty Drizelle, which was one of the most memorable days on a golf course I've ever spent. And Ralph Sampson, just seeing him swing a golf club with like a 74-inch driver or something like that. And some other Hall of Famers.

One of the guys whose name escapes me, Ken Willard, who was a star running back for North Carolina from Richmond, is in the Hall of Fame, and he was in our group. He played for the 49ers. And that particular year, Frank Coyle, the Virginia legendary running back, was one of our advertisers I took. And it amazed me to see Coyle, who most people look up to as a superstar in Virginia football history, how he was idolizing Ken Willard, who was one of his heroes when he was growing up. And to be able to play golf with him in that setting just made his day.

It was special. It was special. And Willard, at that point, looked like he could still step out and play in the NFL. He still lifted weights and was a massive dude. I mean, it was unbelievable. But just if you've never been to a Hall of Fame ceremony, this would be a great year to go. There's tickets.

Like you said, you can still get them through tomorrow. Just to see some of the locals go in and some of the other people, it's worth your time to go down and see it. And if you can't do that, then support their golf tournament over at Wintergreen. Who knows what Hall of Famer you might be linked up with in your captain's choice for some. There it is, Hootie Ratcliffe, guys. He set up the interview with Will Driscoll,

the executive director of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. His website, jerryratcliffe.com. We're on it every day to get all Virginia sports news, knowledge, and information. Hootie, excellent show. Judah Wittkower, thank you for running the technology. Especially with the interview via Skype. Flawlessly done, my friend.

The I Love Seville show is up in one hour and eight minutes at 1230. So long, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Hootie, Judah, that was excellent. The Skype interview went extremely well. Thank you.