Dawning of UVA Lacrosse

Charlie's UVA Coaching History

In 1948 Charlie became the University of Virginia’s first paid lacrosse coach. Although UVA had fielded teams since 1925, they had never experienced a winning season and produced few nationally recognized players. Many longtime and current UVA lacrosse supporters believe that Charlie’s 1949 and 1950 teams represent the Dawning of UVA Lacrosse with:

• Its 1st winning season in the school’s history: 1949 (7-4) 1950 (8-3) Combined record of 15-7 (.682%)

• Its 1st team to defeat a nationally ranked power: in 1949 defeated Rensselear Polytechnic (RPI), 9-8, ending their 34-game winning streak

• Its first nationally recognized lacrosse coach:

In recognition of Charlie’s excellent first year coaching results at UVA, his former Navy coach, William H. (Dinty) Moore, lll, selected him to join Dr. John E. Baxter, coach at Washington and Lee, on the South All-Star Coaching Staff for the 1949 USILA North South Game held at RPI in Troy, NY. This was the first win for the South in four years and the first game outside of Baltimore which drew a record crowd of 5,409. The South outscored the North, 6-2 in the final period to win 11-6.

• Its first ever victory over a Naval Academy lacrosse team: scrimmage held March 1950 (7-5)

• Its development of numerous nationally recognized All American lacrosse players:

Bill Hooper was also UVA’s 1st member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1975), while Gordon Jones earned the 1952 Jack Turnbull Award as top collegiate attackman.

Once when Charlie was asked about those early days of Virginia lacrosse, he said that he wasn't sure if he was hired more as a lacrosse coach, or because he could help the football team.

Football was a big deal. Lacrosse was not at that time. But I will say they got their money's worth out of me. I was also the freshman wrestling coach, and they gave me a month off in the summertime so I went door-to-door and sold Encyclopedia Brittanica's."

In later years when the subject of his UVA coaching successes would be brought up, he would always credit instead his teams and their very special key players. In an interview with him for Lacrosse Magazine, Editor Bill Tanton documented the following quote: 

We won in lacrosse because I had some wonderful players. Bobby Proutt was my captain in 1949 and he was first-team All America. In 1950 Billy Hooper was my captain. He made first-team All America on attack. He became the first Virginia player inducted in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame (in 1975).

In addition to his efforts in coaching lacrosse, Charlie also served as the UVA assistant freshman football coach and the head freshman wrestling coach. In 1950, both teams were undefeated -- football for the first time in two decades. His commitment to UVA sports caused the sports editor in The Cavalier Daily on March 23, 1950, to lament Charlie’s departure to become the head football coach at Johns Hopkins:

Johns Hopkins is indeed fortunate to have obtained Charlie Guy. He is extremely capable and vigorous, and is perhaps the best man on the UVA payroll.

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Articles

Guy Gives Boost To Lacrosse At Virginia U.
Baltimore News-Post, 1949 by John Steadman

(The following is an article written at the close of the 1949 lacrosse season.) 

When lacrosse’s bigwigs convene for their annual convention in New York next December, there’s a possibility that a coach in his freshman season at the University of Virginia will be acclaimed as the man who did the most for the game in 1949. He’s Charlie Guy, a fast-talking, intelligent young fellow, who has convinced himself that Virginia is going to be developed into one of the leaders of intercollegiate lacrosse.

Ended Win Streak

Guy took the Cavaliers well up the road to major stick recognition last Saturday when his team came driving from behind to overcome Rensselear Polytechnic, 9-8, and end a 34-game winning streak. That victory put Guy’s guys into a position of prominence. And that’s where Charlie wants them. Since mid-March, when his Cavaliers started practice, Guy has personally written thousands of words about his squad, its chances, and its personnel.

He has called on sports editors and reporters for advice on self-authorized releases. On the average, he forwards two stories each week. His hope is that his young squad members be given newspaper notice. And even if Virginia receives only one line of mentioning, he feels compensated.

No matter how the remaining games on their schedule turn out, the members of the Virginia lacrosse team feel that the 1949 season has been a success after Saturday’s victory over the highly touted R.P.I. team from Troy, N.Y.

The thrill-packed contest was tied 8 to 8 with 15 seconds left to play in the game when Russ Traufelter, the Cavalier creaseman who formerly played at Baltimore City College, tossed in the winning goal.

Charlie also has attempted to accomplish considerable missionary work in spreading the sport about the Old Dominion. The former Navy and Mount Washington stickman, a native of Ohio, has predominately an all-Baltimore outfit. He is an excellent handler of youngsters and his personality is somewhat captivating. Furthermore, he is a capable teacher of the game.

Lacrosse has lacked good public relations in a number of colleges and universities. But if Guy has his way Virginia won’t be included in such a slacking category.

He’s quite a guy -- this Charlie Guy.

John Steadman (February 14, 1927-January 1, 2001) was an American Sportswriter for The Baltimore Sun. His career spanned 7 decades and he attended and reported on every Super Bowl from its inception until his death. Steadman attended the Baltimore City College high school and was once a minor league baseball player. He decided to leave baseball in order to become a sportswriter.

He was originally hired by the Baltimore News-Post in 1945 as a $14 a week reporter, and in 1952 broke that Baltimore would regain an NFL franchise. Steadman would attend every Baltimore professional football game from 1947 to December 10, 2001, a streak of 719 games. He was also one of only eight writers to attend all 34 Super Bowls, through Super Bowl XXXTV. He was inducted into the National Sportscasters & Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 2000.

Steadman served as a color commentator on Baltimore Colts radio broadcasts from 1955-58 and again from 1963-66. In 2001, Steadman was honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors, who awarded him the Red Smith Award, which is America’s most prestigious sports writing honor.         Wikipedia

No Longer Boo-Hoo: Powerful Virginia’s Program Built From Meager Beginnings

Lacrosse Oct/Nov ‘08 By Bill Tanton

They’re at the top of the mountain now in Hooville.

Translation, The University of Virginia, home of the Wahoos, is in the driver’s seat in men’s college lacrosse at this juncture.

UVA, a prestigious university to begin with, has Dom Starsia who has won three national championships, including this year’s. It has lacrosse facilities-including Klockner Stadium-that are second to none. In sort, the place has everything going for it.

It wasn’t always that way, of course. Virginia’s lacrosse history is as modest as anyone’s, and more modest than most. The school had a lacrosse team from 1904-1907 -- but no information on that is available. Starting in 1925, the Cavaliers fielded a team annually, always coached part time by someone who was in graduate school.

For the first five years, the team won no games. The first UVA victory came in 1930, against Randolph Macon, by a score of 7-5. The school has played every year since, but it never had a winning season until 1949. That’s when things began to get serious and a full-time coach, Charlie Guy, was hired. It was Charlie Guy who finally made Virginia a winner.

Guy had been a football star at Navy, but at Annapolis he also learned to play lacrosse well enough to make first-team All-American and win the Schmeisser Award as the best defenseman in the country. Still, when he came to Virginia, he had to coach more than one sport, as many did at that time.

In Charlottesville, Guy also had to serve on the football staff. In those days, there was no such anywhere as fall ball—fall lacrosse practices. Charlie’s Cavalier lacrosse teams went 7-4 in 1949 and 8-3 in 1950.They had wins over Washington & Lee, North Carolina, RPI, Penn State, Syracuse, Rutgers, and Loyola. Virginia lacrosse, finally, was on its way.

I’m still not sure if I was hired for football or lacrosse, says Guy, who has long been in business in Tampa. Football was a big deal. Lacrosse was not at that time. But I will say they got their money’s worth out of me. I was also freshman wrestling coach and they gave me a month off in the summertime so I went door-to-door and sold Encyclopedia Brittanicas.

We won in lacrosse because I had some wonderful players. Bobby Proutt was my captain in 1949 and he was first-team All-American. In 1950 Billy Hooper was my captain. He made first-team All American on attack. Hooper was a four-time All-American. He became the first Virginia player inducted in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame (in 1975).

The coach who succeeded Guy and then made Virginia a champion was the late Robert Pic Fuller. He was an alum who had been an All-Southern Conference pulling guard in football when Famer Bill Dudley carried the ball the Cavaliers. When Fuller returned to the university, it was as head lacrosse coach and a member of Art Guepe’s football staff.

In the spring of 1952 Fuller’s Virginians were co-national champions with RPI. The teams did not meet that year. Fred Whitridge, who has been active for many years in US Lacrosse leadership, was a defenseman on that UVA team.

Virginia lacrosse has come a long way since our day….except for the fact that we also had a lot of great players on our team, Whitridge says. We played our games on Carr’s Hill Field—just an open field by the university president’s house, and spectators sat on the hill and watched. They never charged admission.

Gordie Jones was our captain. He was All-American. So were Bill Sinclair and Tommy Compton and Dick Godine. Jimmy Grieves and our goalie, Bo Moore, were great players. Tom Scott, a football All-American, became an All-American defenseman in lacrosse. We had a lot of talent on that team and Pic fuller was a terrific coach.

We won the ’52 USILA championship and we thought we should have won it again in ’53, but Navy sent a scrub to foul Compton intentionally and Compton took a swing at the guy. They were both kicked out of the game, but we lost our captain and Navy lost a player they didn’t care about. Navy went on to win, 8-7.

Virginia won its first NCAA championship in 1972, beating Johns Hopkins, 13-12, in the championship game at Maryland. The young head coach of the Cavaliers was Glenn Theil….who today is still the head coach at Penn State.

From that time on, Virginia has remained one of the more formidable lacrosse programs in the country. Over the years, the Wahoos have had a number of excellent coaches such as Wilson Fewster, Bob Sandell, Gene Corrigan, Buddy Beardmore, and Jim Adams. Dom Starsia, of course, is the most successful of all, having won three NCCA titles.

But, in a simpler time, it was Charlie Guy, a part-time door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, who guided UVA to its first-ever winning season and Pic Fuller who gave the university its first taste of a championship.