"Him having confidence in his own voice because he knows it's backed up by the work." With vet Jahmeer Carter gone on #UVA's defensive line, Jason Hammond has stepped into a bigger leadership role for the Hoos⬇️

Tonight, as I do every year at this time, I’ll be raising a glass to a scared young man, who 82 years ago was preparing to go ashore on the beaches of Normandy as part of an event code-named Operation Overlord. D-Day. I can’t imagine what was going through his mind. I’d be scared to death and I’m sure he was too. But in that first wave was a 21-year-old Private First Class from Henry County, VA by the name of Allen Homer Sink. Fortunately, he would survive that initial wave, participate in battle until it ended in August, then come home to marry and raise a family of four, including two daughters after the war ended. He would also become my father-in-law until his death in 2006. His nickname for some reason was “Hank” and when I asked him how he got it, he said some guy in the Army said he “looked like a Hank.” From the time I first met him, he was a salt-of-the-earth man who was never afraid of anything. He was a carpenter by trade, and he’d stand up on the tallest roofs, grab bumblebees with his bare hands when they tried to persuade him to move elsewhere, and never be bothered by anything. His hands were tough and leathery, but he was a softie. He spoiled his children, complained when my mother-in-law would gripe about something involving one of his alleged misdeeds, and always thought he was fooling everybody when he snuck around the back of the house and lit a cigarette, a habit everyone opposed but he could never part himself from. He could talk your ear off for hours at a time, and I always suggested he become a greeter at Wal-Mart when he retired because then he could talk all day to strangers and none of them would – like his wife and daughters often did – tell him to be quiet for a few moments. Yet for all his love of talking, there was one subject he just wouldn’t discuss. June 6, 1944. Omaha Beach. In 1998, when he was 76 years old, the subject came up again. The movie “Saving Private Ryan” came out and the beginning was gruesome. Reviews said it was incredibly realistic to what really happened that day. I asked Hank if he wanted to go see it. “No,” he shook his head. “I don’t ever want to see any of that again.” He did offer that he remembered the night before when troops were loaded into the boats for the amphibious assault. He said it was raining and that once everyone was in place, they gave everybody ice cream and told them to try to get some sleep. Then the next thing he knew, they were waking everybody up telling them to stay low and head for the beach. No, that doesn’t sound like somebody drugged the ice cream. Not at all. That’s all he would say about the subject, and he never said another word about it until the final months of his life. Alzheimer’s would gradually rob him of his mind, and as his condition deteriorated, memories of the past would briefly spill out. One evening he thought I was his commanding officer and he was back at Normandy. It is the only time I ever saw him where he appeared to be scared. Ever. It reminds me every day of something I had unknowingly taken for granted. The greatest generation did fight in and win World War II, then did incredible things over the next 50 to 60 years after the war. But many carried unspeakable memories from the War, ones they would never talk about and carry inside them to their graves. Those veterans lost a piece of themselves in battle they would never, ever, get back. I mean, how can you at the tender age of 21 storm a beach, see friends die only a few feet from you, wonder each night if you will wake up alive the next morning and then return home a year later and try to pick up on the same normal life you had before you left? I told him once that after seeing “Saving Private Ryan”, I understood why he was never afraid of anything; after you’ve made it through something like that, everything else pales in comparison. So tonight, I raise a glass to Hank and the 150,000-plus men, who like my father-in-law, were very young, very scared, and still charged that beach, paying a price that even for the survivors would last the rest of their days. Rest In Peace...

We’re big fans of @WashWizards Anthony Gill! Anthony stopped by @TAPSorg Good Grief Camp this morning to spend time with our surviving military children. Grateful for his continued care and support of TAPS 🇺🇸❤️🏀 @nbacares

10 years ago I read this book and remember thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if one day…” Still waiting for the TEDx talk to officially be released… but pretty wild to see a dream slowly become reality. Manifest. 💭🎤 @total_cents #TEDx #TEDTalk #PersonalFinance

Champion Men on and off the field @fishercamac has been named to the @TheLottTrophy Watch List #GoHoos 🔶⚔️🔷

Elon Musk just put the entire university system on trial. Not the curriculum. Not the professors. The premise. Musk: “You don’t need college to learn stuff. Everything is available basically for free. You can learn anything you want for free.” For a thousand years, universities held one monopoly. Access. You paid the toll or you stayed ignorant. The internet erased that in a decade. Every lecture. Every framework. Every textbook. Free. From any screen on Earth. The six-figure tuition is no longer buying knowledge. It is buying a signal. Musk: “There is a value that colleges have, which is seeing whether somebody can work hard at something, including a bunch of annoying homework assignments, and still do their homework assignments.” That is the product. Not intelligence. Not creativity. Not vision. Compliance. You are paying $200,000 to prove you can tolerate bureaucracy on a schedule. Musk: “Colleges are basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores. But they’re not for learning.” The entire system is a sorting machine for corporate HR. It does not measure what you can build. It measures whether you can sit still, follow directions, and deliver on command. Four years of obedience dressed as education. Musk: “If you’re trying to do something exceptional, you must have evidence of exceptional ability. I don’t consider going to college evidence of exceptional ability.” The system optimizes for average. It rewards the compliant. It certifies the patient. It quietly filters out everyone who refuses to wait for permission. The ones who reshaped the modern world never finished the test. Musk: “Gates is a pretty smart guy, he dropped out. Jobs is pretty smart, he dropped out. Larry Ellison, smart guy, he dropped out.” They did not drop out because it was too hard. They dropped out because the speed limit was too low. The most dangerous thing a university does is convince a generational talent that finishing the syllabus is the achievement. It is not. It is the floor. A degree is a receipt for compliance. The future has never belonged to people who finish their homework. It belongs to the on

We all know pursuing donors to sustain a sport annually isn’t sustainable. However, in the era of rev share/NIL where courts have ruled that those athletes generating the media rights income will benefit disproportionately (see House settlement docs), the way of funding Olympic sports like in the past no longer applies (i.e., using football/basketball revenues). What surprises me still is how many are unwilling to accept or understand the implications of the House settlement. Here’s the reality: unless UVA can convince donors to fully endow our non-revenue sports, future cuts are on the horizon. So the coaches that get it and can work effectively w/ VAF to raise those endowment funds will have sustainable funding. Andres Pedroso jumped right in and Men’s tennis is almost there. The days of coaches living in a protected bubble to only concern themselves w/ just player development/game strategy/recruiting/media are over. Heck, even Mike Krzyzewski wasn’t beyond raising money for his own program. If coaches don’t have the appetite to raise funds w/ VAF’s support that they benefit directly from, then UVA and most Power-4 programs doesn’t appear to be the best place for them in 2026 and beyond!

The Real Story Behind Why Lars Tiffany Is No Longer Virginia's Lacrosse Coach - Jerry Ratcliffe jerryratcliffe.com/the-real-…

In another week, men’s golf will be among a few programs w/ a legit shot at winning a natty. It could be a 3rd natty for UVA in this school year. Only one other time in UVA history has that occurred, 2014-15. But unlike that school year, in 2025-26 football won 11 games/played for an ACC title, MBball won 30 games/played for an ACC title, WBball reached the Sweet 16, WSwim/won a 6th straight natty, Men’s Cross Country/won the ACC Championship, MTennis/won 3rd natty in 5 yrs, and MT&F/won 2nd ACC title in 5 yrs. This is on the heels of opening the Hardie Football Center & Harrison Olympic Sports Center over past 2 yrs. Plus, w/ so many Power-4 Athletic Depts swimming in massive 9-figure debt, UVA’s Athletics debt under $25M, among the lowest in the ACC. If Carla hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt in minds of those critics, then let them spew their vinegar. Those minds will never change. What I do know, it’s going to take major donor investment to maintain national championship level programs in this rev share/NIL era for the foreseeable future.

𝗩𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗔 𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗡𝗖𝗔𝗔 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗠𝗣𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣 🏆 The Cavaliers are once again atop college tennis for a seventh national championship!

The Hoos battled, but the season comes to a close on Rocky Top. #GoHoos | #4for40 | #PeopleMakeThePlace

Happy birthday to Barry Parkhill! 🎂 Parkhill, an All-American for @UVAMensHoops in both 1972 and 1973, led the 1971-72 team to a 21-7 record and its first ever Top-10 ranking. Parkhill still holds the record for most points scored in a game by a UVA player with 51 against Baldwin-Wallace College on December 11, 1971. 🔶🏀🔷

Virginia with a HUGE addition as they land four-star 7’1” @favouribe__ 🔥⚔️

With Love ❤️🫡 #GoHoos 🔶⚔️🔷

"There are no maverick molecules in the universe," says Ben Sasse. cbsn.ws/4e5LH9T

same place, same purpose - Jeremiah 29:11 -