Mike Hollins, who survived the mass shooting that took the lives of three of his teammates, ran for seven yards on the first play of Virginia’s 2023 spring game, setting the tone for a day that was unlike any other spring game you’ll ever see.
Spring games, glorified scrimmages, an excuse for fans to tailgate in the spring, are also a reward for the kids after 15 practices basically in the dark, a last chance before training camp for coaches to evaluate guys, and the opportunity to give some young players their first snaps in as close to a gameday environment as possible.
What was different about Saturday’s Blue-White scrimmage at Scott Stadium was, it was the first game since the Nov. 13 murders of Virginia football players D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr.
“We’re the ones that are fortunate to be on the grass, where three young men are not fortunate to be on the grass, and then their families will not have a chance to see them play on the grass again. So, that kind of puts it in perspective,” said UVA head coach Tony Elliott, which, yeah, there’s perspective for you, smacking you right upside the head.
Elliott is entering Year 2 with a load of football-related pressure – his first season ended with an underwhelming 3-7 record.
And then heap upon that the obvious strain on everybody stemming from the fallout from the tragic events of Nov. 13.
Day to day isn’t even something to take for granted.
“There’s going to be days where we’re, all of us, are going to be emotional,” Elliott said. “I get emotional if I go a certain route on campus, or on Grounds, at times, you know, I tear up a little bit, and so there’s going to be times.”
This spring game, then, was important to Virginia Football as a chance to just let it all out.
It was almost certainly by design that the first play from scrimmage on Saturday was a handoff to Hollins, who was shot after leading a group of fellow students to safety from the charter bus they’d taken to Washington, D.C., to take in a play.
Hollins returned to the bus to try to help others, which had him confront, face to face, the shooter, also a fellow student, Christopher Jones, 23.
Jones shot Hollins as Hollins tried to shield himself. The bullet pierced Hollins’ kidneys and small intestine, life-threatening wounds that put him on a ventilator and ultimately required two surgeries.
It’s a miracle that he’s alive, much less going for 40 yards on 11 carries in a football game five months later, his statline including a 1-yard second-quarter touchdown run that he punctuated by placing the ball on the #41, Perry’s number – Hollins was Perry’s roommate.
The moment “just brought chills,” offensive coordinator Des Kitchings said.
“Early in the spring, he didn’t practice, then he started to practice, then no contact, and then he wanted to get contact, so we just integrated him in the spring,” Kitchings said. “He just kept building and building throughout the spring, and to culminate it the way he did today, man, it’s like a script that was written up, it’s awesome.”
“We were through the roof. We were super excited,” said sophomore linebacker Trey McDonald, on his teammates’ reaction to the Hollins TD, adding that the senior tailback’s big day was a testament to “how much he’s worked this spring, and every day he’s brought a smile and a hard-working attitude to the day, and that is just all we could ask from him.
“To see him score was amazing,” McDonald said.
“I’m not a doctor or a nurse or anything like that, but I don’t know how his recovery was that quick,” said Tony Muskett, a transfer from Monmouth competing for the starting quarterback job, who was 11-of-14 through the air for 149 yards and one TD, a 63-yarder to JR Wilson.
“That’s tremendous and a credit to him, because he’s one of the hardest-working people you’ll ever meet in your life,” Muskett said of Hollins. “Just seeing him walking every day and how he interacts with everybody and how mature and how grown up he is, it’s an inspiration, because he has so many eyes on him, and so many people that he inspires just seeing how he handles it.”
There were other highlights from the day – most notably, the command performance by freshman quarterback Anthony Colandrea, who was a coolly efficient 18-of-29 for 218 yards and one TD, a 5-yard to freshman wideout Jaden Gibson.
The starting QB battle could actually be a three-way between Muskett, Colandrea and last season’s backup, Jay Woolfolk, who wasn’t available for the spring game because he’s also the closer on the seventh-ranked Virginia baseball team, which was in action across Grounds on Saturday night.
The final score of the spring game came on a 97-yard picksix by sophomore safety John Hurley, definitely a highlight for that young man, a walk-on.
After the final horn, Elliott addressed the small turnout, Hollins at his side, sharing the message that “at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.”
“It wasn’t just the football team that was impacted by the tragedy. It was our institution, our athletic department, our community, our fans, the communities of the three young people back in their hometowns that were impacted and changed forever,” Elliott said, fighting back tears.
“They were beautiful young men. They were much more than football players,” the coach said. “My heart goes out to the families, to the Davis family, the Perry family, the Chandler family. They’ve been inspirational to us, just the strength, the courage, the vigor that they go forward with every day, I don’t know how they do it, but because they do, I know that I have to, and this program has to, to make sure that those numbers and those names and the lives of those young men were not lost in vain.”
Addressing reporters a few minutes later, Elliott said the emotions were flowing because “this is real life.”
“You never wake up in the morning expecting or thinking that you’re not going to see your loved ones again, right? You expect to wake up in the morning, right? You see your circle of friends, you enjoy them for a day, you go to sleep at night, and then you expect to wake up the next morning and have those folks around,” Elliott said.
“And for not just, you know, our folks, but all over the country, you know, people are dealing with, you know, the loss of life and tragic loss of life, and so it puts things in perspective. And so, you have an opportunity to use that space to be a safe place. But you also have an opportunity to use that space to inspire somebody, and that was my message to the to the team, is we have a chance to change the world today.
“Because a lot of people are tuning in to see you know, how are the Cavaliers going to respond? You know, what’s this team going to look like? The spirit that I’ve seen day in and day out, that’s all I wanted them to do, was show the world the spirit that they have. They had a great opportunity to show and encourage everybody how you respond, you know, when you face a tough time, and for the most part, I felt like they did a really good job of letting everybody see, you know, their spirit and their joy and their fun and their passion for playing the game and their appreciation,” Elliott said.
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Chris Graham
