Virginia’s Lax coach, Dom Starsia, will return to coach the Wahoos next season. UVA athletic director Craig Littlepage sent out an announcement late in the day on Saturday confirming the decision.
"Coach Starsia has my support and he will be the the coach of the Virginia men’s lacrosse team next season," Littlepage wrote in an email.
The Virginia coaches base salary is around $120,000 and his contract at UVA runs though the 2012 season. Virginia’s recruiting class coming in the Fall is ranked very highly by several recruiting experts. Virginia is coming off a very disappointing effort against the Duke Blue Devils in the National semi-final last weekend in Baltimore. The Blue Devils went on to defeat Notre Dame to win their first National Championship in the programs history.
Starsia, and the Virginia Lacrosse program, are coming off the most difficult couple of seasons in its long history. In November of 2008, Virginia Lacrosse player Will Barrow committed suicide. Will was a very popular player on the Hoos roster. Earlier this season, we all know what happened as Virginia midfielder George Huguely has admitted that he killed his former girlfriend and 4th year classmate, Yeardley Love.
I, for one, and very glad that Coach Starsia will be back on the sidelines for the Wahoos. This program that Starsia has guided for the past 18 years is not a reckless, out of control ticking time-bomb. What Hugely allegedly did to the strong and strikingly beautiful Yeardley Love is sickening and certainly disheartening for all people in this community. But for Coach Starsia to go out on this note would be wrong on many levels.
I would not be surprised at all if next year is Coach Starsia’s last year at Virginia. It’s the last year he is under contract, and Dom has been here for an eternity. He’s a great mentor, an excellent lacrosse coach, but as we all know there is a hell of a lot out there in this world that is so much more important than college lacrosse. With his father passing away this year and all that has happened in Charlottesville the last several years, it just might be time for Coach Starsia to start a new chapter of his life. Go Hoos!
