UVA Coach Brings Unique Perspective to Matchup
NCAA Tournament Bracket | UVA Game Notes | Gardner-Webb Postseason Guide | Jeff White’s Twitter
By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Not long after Gardner-Webb upset Radford to win the Big South men’s basketball tournament, Bryan Fetzer contacted his close friend Marc Rabb.
“I immediately reached out and said, ‘How ironic would it be if we played you guys the first round?’ ” recalled Fetzer, the University of Virginia’s director of track & field and cross country since December 2011.
“He laughed. He was like, ‘No, we won’t be a 16-seed, blah blah blah.’ “
Rabb, who oversees media relations for Gardner-Webb’s athletic department, missed the mark on his prediction. The Runnin’ Bulldogs (23-11), who made the tournament for the first time in Division I, are seeded No. 16 in the South Region, whose No. 1 seed is UVA (29-3). They’ll meet at approximately 3 p.m. Friday in a first-round game at South Carolina’s Colonial Life Arena.
“Gardner-Webb making their first-ever trip and playing UVA, that’s pretty crazy,” Fetzer said.
As soon as the matchup was announced Sunday night, Fetzer said, his “phone was blown up with social media and text messages by friends.”
That’s because of his strong ties to Gardner-Webb, a private school with an enrollment of about 2,200. It’s located in Boiling Springs, N.C., a “one-stoplight town,” as Fetzer put it, about 50 miles west of Charlotte.
From 1999 to 2003, Fetzer worked at Gardner-Webb, where he started the track & field program and then oversaw its move from Division II to Division I.
Fetzer, who came to Gardner-Webb from Ranger Junior College, remembers the announcement in 2000 that his new school was changing divisions.
“I went to Gardner-Webb because it was D-II, and I wanted to build a D-II program,” Fetzer said. “I thought we could win some national championships. That was kind of my thought process. So it threw me for a loop that we were going Division I.”
Dr. Christopher White, then Gardner-Webb’s president, broke the news to the athletic department.
“We’re sitting in the gym, all the coaches,” Fetzer said. “I specifically remember him saying at the time, ‘We’re going to Division I. We’re going to be on the ticker with North Carolina, Duke and all the ACC powers, and one day we’re going to have a shot to be in March Madness.”
Chuck Burch, Gardner-Webb’s vice president for athletics, is a former AD at Liberty University. He called Fetzer after the selection show.
“His brother, who passed away recently, was a Virginia fan,” Fetzer said. “Chuck knows a lot about Virginia.”
Fetzer, who’s unsure if he’ll be able to attend the game in Columbia, understands well the significance of this occasion for Gardner-Webb. When he was a senior at Canisius College, in 1995-96, the men’s basketball team (whose head coach was John Beilein) advanced to the NCAA tourney for the first time in nearly 40 years.
“I remember what it meant for a small school like that,” Fetzer said.
Gardner-Webb’s head coach, Tim Craft, addressed that angle during his press conference Thursday at Colonial Life Arena.
There’s no one “in our entire program — staff, our players, administrators — that have been to the NCAA tournament,” Craft said. “So this is an exciting thing for every one of us. We’re thrilled to be a part of it.”
Among the teams Gardner-Webb defeated during the regular season were Georgia Tech and Wake Forest, two of UVA’s rivals in the ACC.
“No disrespect to those programs,” Craft said, “but Virginia is a different animal for sure. They’re the ACC champs.”