Leitao looks ahead to ‘08-’09

Story by Chris Graham
sportsdom@ntelos.net

Listen to today’s “SportsDominion Show,” featuring an interview with UVa. basketball coach Dave Leitao. Show Length: 11:20.

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Eleventh in scoring defense. Eleventh in field-goal-percentage defense. Eleventh in three-point-percentage defense.

Eleventh in steals. Twelth in blocked shots.

It’s hard to win when you can’t stop the other team from scoring.

This message was reinforced to Virginia basketball coach Dave Leitao this season.

And it will be a focal point for Leitao and his staff in the offseason.

“From this point where we’re at right now until school gets out after final exams, we can still have some semblance of organized not necessarily full-out practice, but organized basketball with coaching instruction. So obviously we’ll use that time judiciously so that we can make sure that we start the process of what I had said in getting our guys to refocus on what truly is important in terms of winning,” Leitao said today in a teleconference interview with reporters. Read more

Rasoul, Richardson talk budget, taxes

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

Listen to today’s “Augusta Free Press Show” to hear Sixth District Democratic Party congressional nomination candidates Sam Rasoul and Drew Richardson talk taxes and spending. Show Length: 8:56.

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Bob Goodlatte threw down the gauntlet.

“Their budget proposal calls for $683 billion in new taxes over the next five years. That would mean a tax increase for more than 116 million American taxpayers, who will face an average tax hike of $1,800. And while obviously businesses large and small and wealthier individuals will face higher tax increases, this is something that will hit middle- and lower-middle-income Americans very, very hard,” said Congressman Goodlatte, R-Sixth District, at a March 10 news conference at the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport in Weyers Cave in which he criticized the budget proposal of House Democrats that includes a rollback of the George W. Bush tax cuts for middle-class and wealthy families.

Goodlatte was also critical of Democrats for proposing spending beyond even what spendthrift Republican President George W. Bush put forth in his $3 trillion budget proposal.

But that’s one side of the story. The other comes in the form of a pair of Democrats who are battling for the right to challenge Goodlatte in the November election, Sam Rasoul of Blue Ridge and Drew Richardson of Augusta County.

I asked both Rasoul and Richardson to respond to Goodlatte’s attacks against congressional Democrats.

Read more

Dancing (the hulu) with the stars

Carly at the Movies column by Carl Larsen

No Cineplex for me, this week. No seven-dollar bag of popcorn or four-dollar sody pop. Nossir. I’m staying home to watch movies. On my computer. For free. You see, my friends, I am learning to dance the hulu.

There’s a new website out there that’s just made for us fans of movies and TV (guess that about covers everybody, right?), and it’s there for your inspection at www.hulu.com.

Please check it out just once. After you read this column, of course.

This brand-new website, launched March 12, is a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., and even though it’s still expanding, there’s a good selection of old and new TV shows and clips along with movies (more added all the time). There are limited commercials – but really limited. I mean, you can choose to watch a Coming Attractions just like at the movies or put up with mini-commercials throughout the TV show. I watched a brief pitch for “Mama Mia,” then sat back at my monitor and enjoyed a full-screen screening of something I’ve had a Jones for for some time: the pilot episode of “Picket Fences” from back in 1992. Read more

Protecting our children

Column by Bob Goodlatte

It has become almost commonplace to turn on the evening news or visit an online news source and see the headlines detailing a terrible crime involving a child. While most of us shudder at the thought of a child being harmed, each year hundreds of thousands of children are victims of abuse, neglect, or violence.

It is time that we take back our communities and strengthen protections for our children.

As a member of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, I have long been concerned about the safety of the most vulnerable among us. The caucus has worked to build awareness around the issue of missing children, and to create a cohesive voice in Congress on the issue so that we might introduce and pass legislation that will strengthen law enforcement, community organizing and school-based efforts to address child abduction. Read more

Moran addresses run at governor nomination

Story by Chris Graham
newdominion@ntelos.net

Look at the 2009 Democratic Party gubernatorial race one way, and it looks an awful lot like the 2008 Democratic Party presidential race.

You’ve got two candidates in both who are perceived as being basically dead-even right now who you have to assume will fight to the death for the nomination while the Republicans appear to be solidly unified behind a single standardbearer.

Substitute Creigh Deeds and Brian Moran for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Bob McDonnell for John McCain, and you’re ready to go. Read more

Just doing their job

Column by Chris Graham
newdominion@ntelos.net

Just wondering …

Where are all the people who were so concerned that The New York Times was playing partisan politics when it reported on allegations of ties between Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain and a female lobbyist that his aides had reportedly warned him could be damaging to his political future? Read more

Ends around

Story by Chris Graham
sportsdom@ntelos.net

Listen to today’s “SportsDominion Show” to hear Virginia football coach Al Groh talk about tight end John Phillips. Show Length: 6:18.

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Tom Santi – gone.

Jonathan Stupar – gone.

Seventy-six catches, 777 yards, five touchdowns – gone.

One tight end who caught a pass returns for Virginia in 2008. And Bath County product John Phillips has a lot riding on his massive shoulders heading into his senior season.

“Oh, clearly, yeah,” UVa. football coach Al Groh said today in response to a question from a reporter about whether Phillips could be counted on to catch 50 balls next season.

Phillips, a 6-6, 257-pound rising senior, caught 17 passes for 193 yards and two touchdowns in 2007 while serving primarily as the “constant on-the-line stable tight end while the other two were movement tight ends,” according to Groh.

“That’s been his spot the better part of the past two years, and he’ll continue in that,” Groh said.

But Phillips will have to be more productive out of the end slot than he has been the past two years. The trio vying for the right to replace Santi and Stupar is comprised of rising sophomores Mark Ambrose (6-5, 215), Andrew Devlin (6-6, 255) and Joe Torchia (6-5, 237). Read more

Who is Slade Woodson?

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

We’re starting to learn a little bit more about Slade Woodson, the 19-year-old from Afton who is now facing felony charges in Waynesboro related to two shootings early yesterday morning, and is being called a suspect in a series of shootings reported on Interstate 64 in Albemarle County from the same time frame.

According to his MySpace page, Woodson is “a good ol’ country boy” whose interests include “mud boggin, workin on my trux, listenin to music, hangin out with friends.”

Pictures posted on the page show Woodson and vehicles in mud pits and Woodson and friends consuming alcohol.

Woodson wrote on a second MySpace page that he is “just a country boy who keeps gettin his heart broken!!! Ive got my heart broken twice in less then a year… i dunno wat to do…. keep gettin my heart broke or stop caring!!! and i dont wanna stop caring…”

He listed as his occupation on the first page “horse farm.” Woodson was arrested today at a horse farm in Albemarle County.

It is not immediately known if there is a connection between Woodson and the farm where he was arrested. Read more

No repeat of D.C. sniper case here

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

I think we learned yesterday that we can rest assured that our law-enforcement folks are going to keep us safe no matter what.

“We had one here in Waynesboro,” Waynesboro police chief Doug Davis told me, referring to the shootings reported overnight Wednesday and Thursday on Interstate 64 in Albemarle County that had made the national news.

Davis was cautious in linking the Waynesboro shooting – at a DuPont Community Credit Union branch on Lucy Lane just off I-64 – to the other shootings just down the road, but it seemed clear from the tone that he had his suspicions.

Police investigators had already sifted through surveillance footage from the bank to get an image of a car that had driven up to the bank before the shots rang out in the early-morning hours. Read more

One suspect in custody in shootings

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

An Afton teen in custody in connection with two shootings in Waynesboro early Thursday morning is considered a suspect in a series of shootings that were reported along a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 64 in Albemarle County.

Slade Woodson, 19, was taken into custody upon the execution of a search warrant at a home on Yonder Hill Farm Road in Albemarle County at 4:48 a.m. today, Virginia State Police Superintendent Steven Flaherty said in an 11 a.m. press conference in Charlottesville.

The execution of the search warrant was not done without incident. An armed man confronted tactical teams carrying out the warrant. The man, whose name has not been released, was shot by an Albemarle County police officer.

The man was airlifted to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he is being treated for his injuries.

The police officer has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into the incident.

Woodson himself was taken into custody without incident, Flaherty said.

He is currently being held in Albemarle County on felony charges related to shootings in Waynesboro on the 200 block of North Commerce Avenue and at the DuPont Community Credit Union on Lucy Lane.

Woodson is considered a suspect in the six confirmed shootings on I-64 in Albemarle County, Woodson said.

Woodson is the owner of a 1974 AMC Gremlin that matches the description of a Gremlin witnessed in a security video from the credit union that was disseminated in the news media yesterday afternoon, Flaherty said.

Investigators continue to believe that there was more than one person involved in the shootings, Flaherty said. He did not release information about other possible suspects.

Woodson was “familiar to police,” Flaherty said in response to a reporter’s question about whether Woodson had a prior criminal record.

The shootings have not been tied to any known gang activity, Flaherty said.

It’s next year at UVa., Tech

Best Seat in the House column by Chris Graham
sportsdom@ntelos.net

Was it really so bad that Virginia and Virginia Tech both lost Wednesday night?

Um …

Well, consider UVa. coach Dave Leitao’s response to comments from Bradley guard Jeremy Crouch, who suggested that the Braves were able to confuse the Cavs defense in their 96-85 CBI Final Four win with its three-guard offense.

“The reality of it is, and I respect what he said, is that if you look at the statistics, every offense has given us trouble,” Leitao said. “Our defensive presence and attitude has not been there with any level of consistency. You could have played that offense that he is talking about, or we just played three different offenses. Richmond’s offense shot at or around 50 percent, Old Dominion’s offense shot 50 percent, and Bradley shot 48 percent. With all do respect to him, I think that we caused a lot of that.”

So no, I don’t think Leitao is all that upset that it’s next year now.

“I’m obviously disappointed in the way we played today. We just couldn’t get a 50-50 ball, and we didn’t have a presence defensively. Their size and maturity up front knocked the crap out of us. They were tougher than us. You have to give them credit,” Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said after Ole Miss had vanquished his Hokies by an 81-72 count in the quarterfinals of the NIT.

Interesting. Greenberg sounds like he did want to go on. Read more

Live Blog – I-64 shootings press conference

Get the latest on the Interstate 64 shootings investigation from our 11 a.m. live blog.

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