http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/2005draft/050603virginia.html

Emergence Of A Hotbed

By Will Kimmey
June 3, 2005



Virginia has produced plenty of firsts. America's first permanent settlement
came in Jamestown in 1607. The College of William & Mary opened the nation's
first law school in 1779, started the first educational honor system and
founded Phi Beta Kappa. Virginia native George Washington served as the
nation's first president from 1789-97, and seven more presidents have come
from the state.

In the sports world, NFL franchises have drafted Virginia natives first
overall three times: Bill Dudley (1942), Bruce Smith (1985) and Michael Vick
(2001) while Ralph Sampson (1984) and Allen Iverson (1996) became No. 1 picks
in the NBA draft. Yet for all its firsts and abundant athletic talent,
Virginia has never produced the first pick of the baseball draft.

Expect that to change this year. Chesapeake's Justin Upton rates as the
favorite to go from Great Bridge High in Chesapeake to the Diamondbacks with
the first selection, one pick earlier than his brother B.J. went to the Devil
Rays in 2002. Old Dominion righthander Justin Verlander (2004) and James
Madison righthander Jay Franklin (1971) give Virginia three No. 2 overall
picks in draft history.

Virginia colleges and high schools have accounted for two first-round picks
in each of the last three drafts, and nine times overall. The state has never
exceeded that figure, but that's another first waiting to happen in 2005.
Virginia's Ryan Zimmerman and two high school players--Centreville's Brandon
Snyder and Richmond's Justin Bristow--all could join Upton in the first
round, with Zimmerman a potential top-five pick.

That would mark quite a windfall for a state that has produced 28 first-round
picks over the draft's 40 years (see chart). It's had scouting directors and
crosscheckers spending more time in the state, because the talent spread
means nearly every team will have a shot at drafting a Virginian. Most of the
talent in Virginia is in three regions that can be reached on one tank of
gas. Starting in northern Virginia's affluent Washington, D.C., suburbs, you
can drive 100 miles south on Interstate 95 to reach the state capital in
Richmond. From there, another 100 miles east on I-64 puts you in the
Tidewater region, the fertile crescent of the state that has produced four of
the state's last nine first-rounders.

"They all have their own little thing, but it's a very good class of
prospects in the state of Virginia," an American League area scout said.
"Obviously with Upton going in the first couple of picks and Zimmerman not
far behind. From what I'm seeing and hearing on Snyder, he might not be there
much longer, and with Bristow it's the same thing.

"There's plenty of other guys in this region as well. There's talk of a lot
of guys in the state of Virginia, even beyond those four."



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That's a relatively impressive feat, one usually reserved for more populous,
warm-weather states such as California, Texas and Florida. Virginia's
temperate climate and the nation's 12th-largest population (about 7.5
million) don't explain the sudden spike in talent, one that has seen 11 of
the state's first-round selections come since 1996.

Scouts, executives and coaches at the high school and college levels tossed
around all sorts of ideas for Virginia's recent draft boom. They spanned the
serious (the spread of indoor facilities across the state) and the
lighthearted (something other than fluoride being added to the water). Yet
nearly all of them returned to the recipe of excellent youth-level coaching
mixed with an area rich in athletic talent.

Most pointed to one man for the genesis of the talent explosion: Mark Newman,
now the Yankees' senior vice president of baseball operations.

Newman grew up a Yankees fan in Southern California in the 1950s and '60s and
played college baseball for Itch Jones at Southern Illinois before serving
nine seasons as his pitching coach while working toward his law degree.
Newman's cross-country baseball migration carried him to the top job at Old
Dominion in 1981, when Jones made a call to one of his former classmates, ODU
athletics director Jim Jarrett.

Newman quickly noted the athletic talent in the Tidewater region, an area
that encompasses Chesapeake, Newport News, Norfolk and Virginia Beach and is
better known for its tourism, shipyards and military bases. Newman staged
summer and winter baseball camps for young players and clinics for aspiring
coaches, a practice he learned from Jones that already was popular in
warm-weather states, but had not yet come to Virginia.

"It elevated people's awareness of baseball in the area," Newman said. "There
were always great athletes coming out of schools in Virginia, (but) some
didn't play baseball."

Newman did things the way he had learned them from Jones, focusing on work
ethic through regimented drills on different baseball fundamentals. The list
of major leaguers who came through his early camps includes Willie Banks,
Jerry DiPoto, Steve Karsay, John Valetin and Dmitri Young.

"The biggest key to changing baseball in this area was Mark Newman," said
Ryan Morris, a Portsmouth native who spent five years at as recruiting
coordinator at Virginia Commonwealth before taking on the same role Old
Dominion's last summer. "He started invitational camps. He was teaching
things that weren't being taught baseball-wise in this area. The details of
mechanics . . . He was a guy who stressed work ethic and doing this the right
way."

Newman's success on the field reinforced his abilities as a coach and
teacher. He won 65 percent of his games in nine seasons at Old Dominion
before leaving for the Yankees after the 1989 season. Successors Pat McMahon
(1990-94) and Tony Guzzo (1995- 2004) kept the camps and clinics going.
Similar college camps have spread across the state, including one Guzzo began
as Virginia Commonwealth's coach before taking the Old Dominion job.

"That's a huge impact, when you look at how Mark Newman started the camp
phenomenon," said Auburn coach Tom Slater, who worked at the Old Dominion
camps in the early 1990s as an assistant at Marshall and Virginia Military
Institute. "That really helped, especially in Tidewater with the growth in
that area. (Mets third baseman) David Wright was in that camp. There's a
reason he's such a good hitter: some of it is natural ability, but somebody
gave him a base."

Newman's contributions reach beyond his 321 wins at Old Dominion or even the
camps. His lasting legacy is in the players and coaches he influenced, many
of whom are still helping to cultivate the state's talent as he once did.

"I honestly don't know how to quantify that, but I do think the university
and program that we ran had a beneficial affect on Virginia," Newman said.
"Wiley Lee is a classic example. He's one of the best high school coaches in
the country and I'm proud to have been able to have coached him."

Both Lee, who coaches Justin Upton at Great Bridge High, and Scott Hughes,
the coach at Deep Creek, played for Newman at ODU in the early 1980s and then
went on to minor league careers before settling back in the area as coaches.
Two of their ODU contemporaries hold college coaching jobs: Paul Keyes
succeeded Guzzo as VCU's coach in 1996 and has become the winningest coach in
school history, while Nick Boothe has won five coach of the year awards in 19
seasons at Division III Virginia Wesleyan.

"I've spent time talking to different scouts, seeing where we can improve our
practices," Lee said. "They've enjoyed our practices and I feel like we've
prepared Upton for pro ball. We don't have any standing around and watching;
everything goes at game speed and is based on thinking and reacting, like
Coach Newman did. He used to add extra elements to game situations, like
running a stopwatch on us during bunt defense drills."


The coaching acumen doesn急 stop there. Gary Lavelle, a 13-year major league
veteran with two all-star appearances, returned to coach Greenbrier Christian
Academy this season after spending five years as a Yankees pitching
instructor. He won seven private school state titles in 11 seasons before
leaving Greenbrier in 1999. Lavelle also opened the Athlete Training
Institute at Greenbrier, an indoor complex for baseball and softball training.

Guy Hansen, the Royals pitching coach who formerly worked in the Braves
organization, and Mark Meleski, a former hitting instructor for the Tigers
and Braves organizations, work at academies and offer lessons in the Richmond
area. Bristow and Hermitage High righthander Scott Taylor spent time with
Hansen honing their mechanics and repertoires.

Tim Haynes, a Washington, D.C., native, spent 10 seasons coaching Dinwiddie
County High before landing a volunteer and then a full-time assistant
position on Keyes' VCU staff. Norbie Wilson, who worked many ODU camps with
Newman, won 414 games in 26 seasons at Virginia Beach's First Colonial High
before retiring after the 2004 season and turning the job over to Scott
Stubbe.

"I see so many coaches who don急 care, it旧 like they drew the short straw in
the teachers lounge. All he makes sure is he has same number of kids going
back on bus as came," said a veteran area scout who has covered Virginia for
more than a decade. "In Virginia they really care--it旧 a self-perpetuating
thing."

High school coaches learn from college coaches and teach players strong
fundamentals from an early age. The players leave the prep ranks more
polished and more ready to compete at higher levels.

"The high school coaches in the area have a passion for teaching baseball,"
McMahon said. "They work hard at camps, and it always helped you get better
players when they got to college."

That also breeds success at the college level, sends players from Virginia to
the minors and majors, and draws attention from younger athletes. They give
baseball a shot--helped across the state by more indoor complexes and growing
AAU and summer baseball programs--and develop confidence when they have
success. Now instead of the next Michael Vick or Allen Iverson, Virginia
teens can strive to be like Upton--either one.

"A few guys get exposure in the area or state, and it sparks some interest,"
said Mark McQueen, Richmond's recruiting coordinator for 12 years before
taking the same job at VCU in 2000. "Before you know it, guys are popping up
here and there. When you get attention in one area, kids get notice and start
working harder, doing the things those guys are doing."

Great Bridge High's twin 1997 first-rounders, Michael Cuddyer and John
Curtice, started the modern trend, and Upton and Zimmerman will add to it
this year.

"Cuddyer and Curtice were the ones that put the dynamite to it," Lee said. "A
lot of guys lit that fuse before, playing in college after growing up here.
But then Cuddyer and Curtice were like 'Boom!' and then you get a David
Wright, a B.J. Upton and all that. The foundation was laid by Coach Newman
proving to guys that they can go to college and play."

That's how things worked for Morris, who played at Division III Bridgewater
College after learning the game at Newman's camps. The experience drove him
to become a coach, and a picture of Newman hangs on the wall in his office at
ODU. Morris bumped into Newman at the Yankees' complex in Tampa this spring,
when he was in town to see Verlander's pro debut for Detroit's Lakeland
affiliate.

"He remembered me, took me upstairs and talked baseball for 2 1/2 hours,"
Morris said. "It was really cool because he was a mentor of mine."

When Morris was packing to move from VCU to ODU last August, he came across a
memento from another mentor: a game-worn Old Dominion jersey he bought at one
of the camps. It had belonged to Hughes, who worked at the camps during his
playing days.

Morris showed Hughes the jersey the next time he ran into him on the
recruiting trail. Hughes smiled at the memory and produced one of his own, a
Little League trading card with a young Morris pictured on the front. Hughes
had kept it for nearly 20 years.

"There's an innumerable amount of people you could give credit to in the
area, but it's all been a process since the 1980s," Morris said. "It's a big
ball that kept rolling."