Wood Brothers Living Out Their Dreams at UVA

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — James Jackson shares an off-Grounds apartment with Sackett Wood Jr., and more than once the University of Virginia linebacker has seen his roommate walk in the door looking crestfallen.

“I’ll think something bad happened,” Jackson said. “I’ll ask him what happened, and he’ll have lost the Wood Cup.”

The Wood Cup is at stake every time brothers Eli and Sackett Wood play each other in golf. The winner’s reward is a small, nondescript tin trophy.

“They might tell you it goes back and forth a little bit, but Eli’s got everybody’s number,” their father, Sackett Wood Sr. said, laughing. “I can tell you that no one is cheering for Eli in that match, including me.”

The brothers’ head-to-head matchups can grow heated but do not end in fistfights, in part because Sackett Jr. (6-foot-4, 240 pounds) is significantly bigger than Eli (6-foot-1, 202 pounds). Still, Sackett Jr., he and his youngest brother are “extremely competitive. Whether it’s outside playing basketball or football or inside playing video games, tempers definitely tended to rise.”

Jackson knows the brothers well. “If you hang around them enough, you see how they’re like the same person,” he said, “and it’s funny to see they have some of the same mannerisms. But they have a great relationship, and one thing I would say about them that I like the most is how competitive they are. They’re super competitive. They both play super hard and they’re both just great people to be around.”

Growing up in Lynchburg, the brothers battled each other in backyard football games but never played on the same team. Their age difference was too great.

Sackett is almost four years older than Eli, who was in the eighth grade when Sackett was a senior at E.C. Glass High School. But when Eli, a wide receiver, joined head coach Tony Elliott’s program at UVA as a preferred walk-on in 2022, the brothers finally became teammates.

“It’s been really cool,” said Eli, who wears jersey No. 82 and has caught two passes (for nine yards) this season. “I’d never been able to compete with him, and he just pushes me to be my best and holds me accountable every day.”

Sackett, who plays tight end and wears jersey No. 44, has 22 career receptions as a Cavalier. He’s in his sixth year at UVA but only his fourth year in the football program.

“His journey was so different,” Sackett Sr. said.

Coming out of Glass, Sackett Jr. had opportunities to play for Division III programs, “and I really encouraged him to take those offers,” his father said, “because he loved football.”

But Sackett Jr. wanted to attend UVA, the alma mater of his parents and countless other family members, even if that meant giving up football. After gaining admission to the University, he arrived on Grounds in August 2018 and immersed himself in life as a student.

Midway through his second year, though, Sackett Jr. began realizing how much he missed football, and he told his father he wanted to try out for the team at Virginia.

Sackett Jr. reached out to the coaching staff, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, and the football team didn’t practice that spring.

“Honestly, Sackett Jr. recalled this week, “that might have saved me, because if they’d had spring ball, maybe they would have been like, ‘We’re good with our team.’ ”

When players returned to Grounds that summer, Sackett Jr. was invited to try out, and he earned a spot on the team, then led by head coach Bronco Mendenhall. He appeared in two games in 2020 and then was put on scholarship a year later.

Sackett received his bachelor’s degree in history in 2022. Eli is a media studies major.

Like Sackett Jr., Eli starred in football at Glass, where he caught 50 passes for 1,020 yards and scored 14 touchdowns as a senior in 2022. He was also an exceptional lacrosse player, but there no was question which sport Eli would pursue in college.

“He liked football 10 times over lacrosse,” Sackett Sr. said. “When the basketball season ended, he picked up a lacrosse stick, and when lacrosse was over he didn’t pick it up again until the next spring. They both from an early age liked football. I coached them in little league for a while, and they love it.”

Sackett Sr., who lived on the Lawn as a UVA undergraduate, and his wife, the former Alexandra Perrow, have three children. Their middle son, Hugh, graduated from the University last spring. The brothers’ maternal grandfather, Mosby Perrow, played football at UVA, and the family has followed the program fervently over the years.

“We grew up coming to Scott Stadium, for sure,” Sackett Jr. “The first year I really remember was when we went to the Gator Bowl against Texas Tech [in 2007). We had Mikell Simpson, Jameel Sewell. I was seven.”

After redshirting in 2022, Eli appeared in nine games in 2023. He and his brother figured that would be their final season together at UVA, but after the team finished spring practice this year, Sackett Jr. received a waiver that granted him another year of eligibility.

He rejoined the program this summer, and the coaching staff was delighted to have him back.

Elliott, who succeeded Mendenhall after the 2021 season, said he’s enjoyed coaching the Woods, “because they’re extremely, extremely intelligent, very, very accomplished academically, but they’re also football guys. They just love football. They love being a part of the team. They’ll do whatever you ask them to do. There’s no question. There’s no, ‘Why, Coach?’ It’s like, ‘Yes, sir,’ and they’re going to go do it with everything that they have, and it’s made their teammates better.”

There are two sets of brothers on the Wahoos’ roster: the Woods and the Greenes (Malcolm and Miles). Eli and Sackett Jr. “kind of have their own personalities and their own friend groups within the team,” Elliott said. “But they’re brothers, [and] Sackett is kind of letting Eli grow up a little bit on his own instead of being that hovering big brother, and it’s been fun to watch.”

Elliott, who joined the football program at Clemson as a walk-on wideout,  eventually earned a scholarship at that ACC school. But he’s never lost his appreciation for players who embrace the rigors of college football with no guarantee of a scholarship.

“That’s why we treat our walk-ons the way we treat our walk-ons,” Elliott said. “We don’t treat them like they’re walk-ons. They’re on the team. They’re treated just like the scholarship guys. They get everything that the scholarship guys [get] … because they’re all part of the team.”

Virginia (2-1) plays Coastal Carolina (3-0) at 2 p.m. Saturday in Conway, S.C., and Sackett Sr. will be among the capacity crowd at 20,000-seat Brooks Stadium. He’s picking up Steve Koudelka, whose son Billy, is a first-year defensive end at UVA, that morning in Lynchburg, and then they’ll drive to Conway for the game.

“My dad has never missed a game since Sackett [joined the program],” Eli said.

Sackett Sr. is not about to break that streak now. His sons’ dream school was always UVA, he said, so “they’re where they want to be. I know both of them really appreciate the fact that they’re having that experience together. It’s been a life-changing experience for both of them, and the fact that they get to play together is really cool.”

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