Bennett Era Comes to Emotional End

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. —  In the same room at John Paul Jones Arena where he was introduced at the University of Virginia in April 2009, Tony Bennett took a final bow as the Cavaliers’ head men’s basketball coach Friday morning.

It was an emotional day that Carla Williams, UVA’s director of athletics, had hoped to postpone for as long as possible, and not only because of Bennett’s remarkable coaching record.

“I came to Virginia in part because Tony Bennett was here, a person and an institution that stands for everything that is important to us,” said Williams, who succeeded Craig Littlepage as the Cavaliers’ AD in December 2017. “The University of Virginia is an amazing place because of people like Tony … Tony has led the program with his guiding pillars of humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness, and we’re all better because of the way he has represented college basketball and college athletics.”

Less than three weeks from the start of the new season, UVA made a stunning announcement at 4:30 p.m. Thursday: the winningest coach in program history was retiring, effective immediately. About 20 hours later, Bennett and Williams sat side by side at a press conference during which he explained his decision.

Bennett’s wife, Laurel, and their son, Eli, stood at the back of the room. Also in attendance were staffers and players from the men’s basketball team and such luminaries as Littlepage, Tony Elliott, Rick Carlisle, Debbie Ryan, Steve Garland, Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, Lars Tiffany, Kevin Sauer, UVA rector Robert Hardie, University president Jim Ryan and Margaret Grundy Noland, Ryan’s chief of staff.

“I am at peace,” the 55-year-old Bennett said, “and when you know in your heart it’s time, it’s time. Will I miss the game? Do I love the game? Absolutely. But I don’t think I’m equipped in this new way to coach, and it’s a disservice if you keep doing that.

“I’m very sure this is the right step. I wish I could have gone longer, I really do, but it’s time. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think we had the right group of young men and the right staff to lead them forward in this way.”

Ron Sanchez will lead the program as interim head coach in 2024-25, Williams said, after which UVA will begin a national search for a permanent head coach.

Bennett would love to see Sanchez get the job. They first worked together at Washington State, where Bennett spent three seasons as head coach before coming to UVA. When Bennett left Wazzu in the spring of 2009, Sanchez followed him to Charlottesville. He worked for nine seasons on Bennett’s staff at Virginia—the final three as associate head coach—before departing in March 2018 to become head coach at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

At Charlotte, Sanchez took over a team that had finished 6-23 overall in 2017-18. The 49ers finished with a winning record three times during his tenure, including a 22-14 mark in 2022-23. Sanchez rejoined Bennett’s staff at UVA as associate head coach in June 2023.

“I’m excited,” Bennett said. “I’m excited for these players. They’ll have to grow together. They have a very tough schedule coming up, but they have a chance to be good. The staff, with Coach Sanchez leading it and the rest of the staff, have a chance to take this group and do the job. They’re more equipped than I am, and that’s the reality of this situation.”

College basketball has undergone dramatic changes since Bennett entered the coaching profession. Name, image and likeness and the transfer portal are now huge parts of the game, and Bennett, though he believes players should be compensated, sees much that worries him in this new landscape.

“There’s so many wonderful things about college athletics …  but I hope it will change and it will get back to some regulations and guardrails, so it can be what it’s supposed to be about and adapt to the new model,” Bennett said. “It is a billion-dollar industry, I understand that, but there’s things that need to change.”

In today’s game, Bennett said, “I’m a square peg in a round hole. That’s what it is. Maybe that’s the hard part to admit, but it’s OK because, when you tell the truth, there’s freedom in that. That’s the reality of it.”

When the 2023-24 season ended, Bennett said, he considered retiring. But he got caught up in recruiting and working the transfer portal and felt re-energized over the summer.

“We landed a really good group of transfers,” Bennett said. “We had two good incoming players, and I was excited about that and going forward. Then I was offered a contract extension, and I signed it. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do the whole six or seven years, obviously, but I was excited and thought, ‘I think I can do this. I’m excited about the way forward.’ ”

During UVA’s fall break last weekend, however, Bennett and his wife, Laurel, went out of town and had an opportunity to discuss their plans at length.

“That’s where I kind of came to the realization that I can’t do this,” said Bennett, who had to stop to collect himself several times. “It’s not fair to these guys and to this institution that I love so much to continue on when you know you’re not the right guy for the job.”

Bennett said he’s eager to be a better husband, better father, better son, better brother and better friend. Moreover, he said, “I look forward to the relationships with the former players and even with the current ones and the staff that you don’t always get to have when you’re grinding away.”

As he prepared his remarks for the press conference, Bennett said, he recalled a quote from the missionary Jim Elliot: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

“I’ve been here for 15 years as the head coach, and I thought it would be a little longer, to be honest, but that’s been on loan,” Bennett said. “It wasn’t mine to keep. This position has been on loan, and it’s time for me to”—he choked up here—”it’s time for me to give it back … And it’s mine to give back, and I’ve given everything I can for 15 years.

“I go back to the reason why I came here. I was so excited to test myself as a coach against the [ACC’s] Hall of Fame coaches: Coach K, Coach Roy Williams, Coach Gary Williams, Coach Boeheim. I wanted to see if I could, with my staff, who’s the reason why we’ve had this success while we’re here, build a program in our unique way to compete against the blue bloods. I was so intrigued and excited about being at a school that had academic excellence and [where] the degree mattered and it was important. And what happened—I hoped but I didn’t know—was beyond probably my wildest expectations.”

His tenure included unforgettable highs and, on occasion, heart-wrenching lows. In 2018, UVA became the first No. 1 seed in NCAA tournament history to lose to a No. 16 seed. A year later, the Cavaliers were crowned NCAA champions.

“It’s all part of it,” Bennett said Friday. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Under Bennett, who was named ACC Coach of the Year four times, the Hoos posted a 364-136 record and won the conference tournament twice (2014 and 2018). They captured six ACC regular-season titles and advanced to the NCAA tournament 10 times. (They would have made it in 2020, too, had the pandemic not wiped out the postseason). Backed by passionate crowds, the Hoos made JPJ a house of horrors for most visiting teams.

“I’m incredibly grateful [to fans] for embracing me, for standing up when the shot-clock violations were about to happen,” Bennett said.

He smiled. “I know at times …  we weren’t the prettiest to watch, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

The Cavaliers’ trademarks became their deliberate offense and the rugged Pack Line defense created by his father, Dick Bennett, for whom Tony Bennett played at Wisconsin-Green Bay. UVA didn’t land five-star recruits, but many of the players who developed under Bennett are now in the NBA or playing professionally overseas.

“There’s no chance it would happen without the young men and how we did it,” Bennett said. “We did it in a unique way. That was my vision, our vision as a staff. Can we build this program that maybe is a little different than the way you do it? That’s the beauty of this sport: You get to choose how you do it, with who you do it, in the style you do it.”

From his father, a legendary coach himself, Bennett also borrowed the five pillars that form the foundation of the program. He cited the first two Friday: humility and passion.

“Humility means know who you are and have sober judgment,” Bennett said, “and passion means do not be lukewarm, be wholehearted in all you do. I think those are the ones that caused me at this time to look and have sober judgment about where I was at.”

Bennett said he realized he was “no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment, and if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be all in. You’ve got to have everything. If you do it halfhearted, it’s not fair to the University and those young men. In looking at it, that’s what made me step down. There’s still a way in this environment. There’s a way with Carla and President Ryan and the board to do it and hold to our values, but it’s complicated. And to admit, honestly, that I’m not equipped to do this is humbling, but it honors the pillars.”

The Cavaliers’ coaching staff includes Isaiah Wilkins, Kyle Guy and Chase Coleman, all of whom played for Bennett.

“I’m sad,” Wilkins said after the press conference “It’s more than basketball, more than a coach. That’s a guy who’s shaped a lot of who I am. But I’m happy for him.”

When he was introduced as the Hoos’ new leader in 2009, Bennett said he wanted to build a program that would last and have sustained success. Having achieved that goal, he said Friday, made it easier for him to step down.

When UVA unfurled the NCAA championship banner at JPJ in 2019, Bennett quoted a proverb: A desire accomplished is sweet to the soul. “And how we did it and who we did it with, that’s the beauty of it,” he said Friday, “and what we went through and how we handled adversity.”

He’s staying in Charlottesville, but Bennett said he’s unsure what the next chapter of his life will hold. If he can support the University in some way, he’d like to do so.

“I’ll still be around,” Bennett said.

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