LaVoie Sees Bright Future for Program
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By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE– It’s not an especially long drive – about 140 miles — from Newport News to the University of Virginia. Yet as a standout runner at Warwick High School, Megan LaVoie never competed on the Cavaliers’ track at Lannigan Field or on their cross country course at Panorama Farms in nearby Earlysville.
As an assistant coach at Eastern Kentucky University, LaVoie became well-acquainted with both venues.
“We’d come here sometimes three times a year,” she said.
On none of those visits to Charlottesville, LaVoie said, did she ever dream she’d one day be coaching at UVA. But that’s where she’s been since August, when she took over as head women’s cross country coach at Virginia.
“The young ladies love her,” said Bryan Fetzer, who directs UVA’s track & field and cross country programs.
“When you believe in the person that is coaching you and you sense the enthusiasm and the positive energy, it makes a huge difference. I think any coach would tell you that.”
LaVoie, who’ll be an assistant coach in the women’s track & field program, started at UVA on Aug. 17. The next day, her cross country runners reported for preseason training. The timing wasn’t ideal, but her transition has “been pretty smooth,” LaVoie said.
At one of the first team meetings, LaVoie said, she had her runners “go over what their thoughts were about last year, what they liked, what they didn’t like, what their goals were for this year. So we kind of all got on the same page. And then individually I sat down with them, just to go over what they’ve been doing in training, to kind of get an idea of what I have to work with.”
The Cavaliers opened the season on Sept. 1 by sweeping Norfolk State and JMU to win the UVA Duals at Panorama Farms.
Three weeks later, in Boston, Virginia placed eighth at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown, finishing ahead of Providence and Syracuse, then ranked Nos. 11 and 22 nationally, respectively.
The Wahoos return to competition Friday at the Penn State National Open in University Park, Pa.
“They’ve been doing pretty well,” LaVoie said of her runners. “I’m excited to kind of see where they stand when we go to Penn State. All the training’s been pretty solid. They’re getting a little more confidence. I think they lost that a little bit [last year].”
LaVoie, who graduated from Warwick High in 2004, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Eastern Kentucky.
For much of the summer, she expected to be back at her alma mater in 2018-19. In late July, Cal Poly’s Priscilla Bayley was named Todd Morgan’s successor as head women’s cross country coach at UVA. But Bayley, for personal reasons, ended up returning to Cal Poly, and Fetzer started looking again.
He’d long been impressed by LaVoie, he said, and this search went quickly.
“You’re trying to find the right fit, and I really thought she was,” Fetzer said. “I’ve always liked her energy. I like how she’s positive. She’s intense but laid-back, which I think is a quality that a lot of the coaches on our staff have. You know the expectations and you get it done. You don’t have to be a rah-rah kind of person.”
EKU is located in Richmond, Kentucky. Its campus is about an eight-and-a-half-hour drive from Newport News, where LaVoie’s parents and two of her siblings still live, and she was interested in moving closer to her family.
“I was waiting for the right opportunity to come up,” LaVoie said, “but with the experience that I had at EKU, I knew that I was ready for something different.”
She’d been at the Ohio Valley Conference school for 14 years: first as a student, then as a graduate assistant, and since 2011 as a full-time coach.
“I just felt like I needed a little more responsibility,” LaVoie said. “I just felt like it was time.”
Fetzer has a sister who attended EKU, and he’s familiar with its track & field and cross country programs. Rick Erdmann, whose title at Eastern Kentucky is now head coach emeritus, is from the Johnstown, Pa., area, where Fetzer grew up.
“I definitely have tons of respect for Rick,” Fetzer said.
Cory Erdmann, who coincidentally is a UVA graduate, succeeded his father as the Colonels’ head coach.
“I’ve known for Cory for years, too,” Fetzer said.
At Eastern Kentucky, LaVoie worked with both the women’s and men’s teams. As her tenure went on, however, she “gravitated more towards the women,” LaVoie said.
In November 2017, the EKU women made history in cross country, and it happened in the Charlottesville area.
At the NCAA Southeast Regional, held at Panorama Farms, the Colonels finished third. That earned them an at-large invitation to the NCAA championship meet, where they finished 23rd.
“So Panorama has a special place in my heart,” LaVoie said, smiling.
EKU became the first women’s team from the Ohio Valley Conference to advance to the NCAA cross country meet.
“That speaks to the magnitude of how well Megan did developing those women and putting that program together,” Fetzer said.
Virginia also hired a new head coach for men’s cross country this summer: Jason Dunn. LaVoie knows Dunn from when he coached at the University of Kentucky.
After winning the ACC title in 2015, the UVA women dipped to 10thin 2016 and finished eighth last year.
The UVA men haven’t won the ACC championship since 2008, when they were crowned for the third time in four seasons, but they’ve finished fourth or better at the conference meet in eight of the past nine years.
There’s no reason, LaVoie believes, the UVA women cannot consistently qualify for the NCAA championships.
“I think recruiting out of Virginia is amazing,” she said. “There’s so much talent here, and if we’re able to pull that talent here, I think the team can do great. We should be doing special things here.”
Fetzer said it will be important for LaVoie to “develop a rapport with the in-state [high school] coaches for recruiting purposes, getting them on page and behind the program.”
He’s confident she’ll do everything required to make UVA an ACC power in women’s cross country again.
“I’m really, really excited,” Fetzer said. “The young ladies have said that the atmosphere has been incredible, and they’re very encouraged by it, which is exactly what I wanted.”