Home No coach in America is more qualified to lead Virginia Football right now than Tony Elliott
Sports

No coach in America is more qualified to lead Virginia Football right now than Tony Elliott

Chris Graham
tony elliott
Photo: UVA Athletics

There’s a reason Tony Elliott was named football coach at the University of Virginia. There’s not a coach in America more qualified to lead Virginia Football through what they’re facing right now.

“It’s a nightmare, to be honest with you, and I’m ready for somebody to pinch me and wake me up and say that this didn’t happen,” Elliott told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, less than 48 hours after the shooting deaths of three of his student-athletes – Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry.

A fourth football student-athlete, Mike Hollins, was seriously wounded in the shooting on Sunday night on a charter bus that had taken a group of UVA students on a trip to Washington, D.C., for a play and a dinner.

Elliott’s first season as a head coach isn’t going as hoped on the field, but that doesn’t matter anymore – the football part of the job doesn’t matter anymore, and won’t for a while.

Elliott’s job for the foreseeable future is to lead 125 young men through the toughest thing they may ever have to endure the rest of their lives.

‘A gift and a curse’

Elliott’s parents split when he was 4, and for a time, Tony and his younger sister, Brandi, were homeless on the streets of Los Angeles with their mother, Patricia.

When he was 9, the family was in a violent car accident on their way to church.

Elliott had helped free his sister and his stepbrother, Isaiah, from their car seats, then found his mother, who had been thrown through the windshield.

“When I found her, she was lifeless on the ground in a pool of her own blood,” Tony said. “That’s the last time I saw her. It was a sight you wouldn’t want to see as a 9-year-old.”

That was Elliott’s second brush with death. At the age of 4, he was hit by a truck after stepping out into the street in front of a hair salon where his mother was working.

The accident left him with life-threatening injuries, and after surgery, he had to learn how to walk again.

He’d endured all of this before he was even out of the third grade.

And it would get worse before it got better.

After their mother’s death, Tony and Brandi were sent to live with their father, Jerome, then split up after their father was sentenced to jail time.

“There were a lot of nights when I cried myself to sleep wanting answers,” Elliott said. “I wasn’t mad at anyone. I just wanted answers. The entire time, I had a little girl who looked up to me and saw me as her dad, mother and big brother.”

‘My job is to lead in moments like this’

There’s nothing in the playbook for how a coach should deal with a situation like the one the Virginia Football program is going through right now.

“I’m trying to figure out step-by-step how to be strong for these young men,” Elliott said. “I’m really relying on my faith, the foundation that I have there, trying to use that to inspire me every minute of the day. Also trying to make sure that I stay empathetic to everybody and understanding that everybody is going to respond differently to this situation.”

The student-athletes decided against trying to play this weekend’s scheduled game with Coastal Carolina, and while the door has been left open with regard to next weekend’s season finale at Virginia Tech, it’s hard to imagine that game being played, either.

The student-athletes, support staff, the coaching staff, have three funerals to attend in the coming days.

Game plans, practices, conditioning, walk-throughs, games, all seem insignificant in the face of that sad fact.

“My job is to lead in moments like this,” Elliott said. “I’ve had my moments where I’ve broken down and showed my emotions, and I’ve even had those moments in front of the team. I think it’s important that we all grieve. These are outstanding young men that we don’t understand why they’re gone so early. And I’ll look for the signs as we move forward, but right now it’s just to put my arms around these guys and tell them we love them and realize and figure out the best way to grieve.”

9

Elliott has two sons. Ace, the 7-year-old, “is probably doing the best of all of us,” Elliott said, because he’s not at the age where he can fully process what is going on.

His 9-year-old, A.J., is taking it hard.

“He considers these guys his friend, and that’s what’s tough,” Elliott said.

It shouldn’t be lost on anyone reading that A.J., at 9, is the same age his father was when he found his mother motionless, covered in blood, dying in the street.

“Every time I see him hurt, I think about the 125 guys that I got, and that’s how their moms see them,” Elliott said.

“We’re taking it one day at a time trying to teach a 9-year-old about the reality of life on a level that he can understand it, and we’re just putting our arms around him, loving him, supporting him, and trying to teach him as much as he can comprehend.”

Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019, and Team of Destiny: Inside Virginia Basketball’s Run to the 2019 National Championship, and The Worst Wrestling Pay-Per-View Ever, published in 2018. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].