Conrad Stays Focused on Big Picture
Subscribe to UVA Insider Articles | Jeff White’s Twitter | VirginiaSports.com Release on Team Captains | 2018 Statistics
By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE– If he had his way, Ryan Conrad would take part in every drill at every practice this fall.
Rebecca Vozzo, the athletic trainer for University of Virginia men’s lacrosse, won’t let Conrad have his way. That’s resulted in some memorable conversations between the two.
“They’re like an old couple bickering,” UVA head coach Lars Tiffany said, laughing. “He wants to go and she’s holding him back, and I’m so glad she’s as tough as she is.”
Conrad, who’s in his last year in the McIntire School of Commerce, is the most versatile player on a team that figures to enter the 2019 season as a legitimate Final Four contender.
“He’s sort of our Captain America,” Tiffany said. “Is there anything he can’t do?”
A 6-0, 190-pound midfielder from the Baltimore suburb of Timonium, Md., Conrad was a third-team All-American as a sophomore in 2017, when he contributed 17 goals and 11 assists and led the Cavaliers with 63 groundballs.
He was putting together another stellar season as a junior when misfortune befell him. In the Cavaliers’ ACC opener, Conrad tore his right anterior cruciate ligament against Syracuse at Klöckner Stadium.
“I thought someone checked me on the side of my knee, but in reality I just planted and my knee kind of buckled,” Conrad said. “It was something I’d done a thousand times. It was just kind of an unfortunate series of events.”
Conrad went down at the 3:08 mark of the first quarter, with UVA leading 3-2. His absence deflated the Wahoos, and the Orange rallied to take a 10-5 lead. Virginia battled back to tie the game at 11-11, but Syracuse scored with 12.4 seconds left to secure the victory.
“You definitely saw the immediate impact of his injury,” Tiffany said, “and how the rest of us – coaching staff and teammates alike – had to realize, ‘What’s life going to be like without Ryan Conrad, and how many men do we need to replace one man? How do we replace the guy who was our man-down middie, who was our clearing middie, who did so much in transition for us, who was our D-middie?’
“I honestly think it took us about a month. That injury occurred March 4, and it truly wasn’t until our first game in April, when we played North Carolina, where I think we finally found a new system that incorporated three or four men to take care of the roles Ryan was doing single-handedly.”
Conrad’s injury required reconstructive surgery – Dr. Stephen Brockmeier handled the operation – and ended his junior season prematurely.
“Ryan is an impactful athlete,” said Tiffany, who’s heading into his third season at Virginia. “He’s a game-changer, and to be on the sideline is the worst torture you could put someone like him through.”
However disappointed he might have been, Conrad attacked his rehabilitation with customary zeal, first in Charlottesville and later in New York City, where had a month-long internship with Credit Suisse, a financial services company.
During the week, he’d wake up around 6:30 a.m. and head to his rehab facility. He’d get in a workout before spending 30 to 45 minutes with his physical therapist. Then he’d report for his internship.
“It was pretty intense, I will say, although I pretty much had everything working in my favor,” said Conrad, whose concentration in the Comm School is finance. “If anything had been a little bit less convenient, it would have been way harder, because my rehab facility was in the basement of the building where I worked, and I lived two blocks away from where I was working. So it was just as convenient as possible.”
UVA’s medical staff won’t clear Conrad to scrimmage this fall, but he participates at every practice, if not in every drill.
“I’m doing as much as I can, and this is kind of where the butting heads with Rebecca comes in,” Conrad said, smiling.
“I’m cleared by my doctor for basically everything, but you can’t just go from being cleared for everything to doing everything, so we’re in that progression stage. I obviously am trying to push the limits as much as possible.”
Vozzo, by contrast, is pumping the brakes. She doesn’t want Conrad to try to do too much too quickly and experience a setback.
“I totally get where she’s coming from,” Conrad said.
That doesn’t make it any easier for him. “I’m always the type of person that never really likes missing anything in general, so I just want to do as much as I can and as quickly as possible,” Conrad said. “But something that Rebecca has been stressing to me consistently — and the doctor has too – is that I have to take it slow. It’s a progression.”
Even with Conrad sidelined, the Wahoos advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2015. Virginia lost 14-12 at Loyola in the first round.
Being reduced to a spectator on game day was difficult for him, Conrad said, “but I wanted to cheer for the guys as much as possible and do as much as I could and just assume my new role to help them as much as possible.
“I was definitely more of an on-the-field leader [before the injury]. And that, I think and I hope, has made me a better captain because of that, because I’ve had to learn how to do the things more off the field, because I was forced into that last year.”
A graduate of Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Md., Conrad is one of the Cavaliers’ three captains for 2018-19, along with senior David Smith and junior Michael Kraus. Joining the three captains on the team’s leadership council are junior Dox Aitken and senior Matt Dziama.
“I’m really, really impressed with how they’ve seriously taken ownership of this program,” Tiffany said. “As the two-time captain, Ryan Conrad is out in front of us. He’s the point man when the team needs to hear a summary of a message, or if we need a representative to speak to our administration, to talk about what we’ve been doing and what we need to support it.
“What he’s accomplished as a young man already, and who he is as a person, gives him so much credit and clout with the rest of us, that we certainly look upon him and we lean on him so heavily. But fortunately, he’s not alone, because he does have those other four.”
Tiffany has placed tremendous emphasis on improving the culture of his program, and the captains’ views are aligned with his.
“It’s not really a hard thing to buy into, what he’s preaching,” said Conrad, who’s co-president, along with women’s soccer player Betsy Brandon, of a UVA club called Student-Athletes Committed to Honor, Leadership and Service.
“It’s just team first. You put the team above anything else. And frankly if you’re someone who’s gone through sports throughout your whole life, that’s something that should come naturally to you.
“Basically, we’ve gotten stricter with our team rules, and guys have made an incredible commitment to the team and to Lars and to [the leadership council].”
Conrad hurt his knee in the fifth game of the season. Under NCAA rules, had the injury occurred in the Cavaliers’ fourth game, he would have received a hardship waiver granting him an extra year of eligibility.
“It’s just a little frustrating that those 11 minutes might be the reason [no waiver will be issued],” Conrad said.
He’s appealing to the NCAA for a fifth year. His initial appeal, to the ACC, was denied, but “that was totally expected,” Conrad said. “They’re strict on their policy, and they deny anything that’s not below the numbers.”
Will be NCAA rule differently on his case? Conrad isn’t overly optimistic, but he’s interested in returning to UVA in 2019-20. He’s accepted a job offer from Credit Suisse and is excited about what awaits him in New York. Still, the opportunity to play one more season for the ‘Hoos might be difficult for him to pass up.
No matter what the NCAA decides, Conrad figures prominently in the Cavaliers’ plans for 2019 as a two-way middie. As fall ball continues at UVA, he follows Vozzo’s directions, even if he occasionally questions them.
“As much as Ryan wants to be on the field for every drill, it’s almost comical the discussions that go on between him and the training staff,” Tiffany said. “We are not going to allow him to play. I think he’s finally starting to accept that. But, boy, watch out in January.
“Life with Ryan Conrad is something we’re all really eager to see here in a couple months.”