U.Va.'s Football Phenom

Paul Freedman
Photo by Dan Addison

It’s dusk on November 9, 2007, and the Orange Bowl is serenely silent. The following evening the Cavalier football team will go head-to-head with the University of Miami Hurricanes in the final game ever in this venerable stadium that is slated for demolition. But tonight the seats are empty, the mood somber as the team, dressed in suits and wingtips, takes their ritual pre-game stroll on the field.

And trotting along with the team, eager to lend his inspiration as guest coach for this historic game, is Associate Professor Paul Freedman.

“I’m not a huge fan,” admitted the politics professor and occasional election analyst for ABC News. “I don’t have season tickets. I don’t go to all the games.”

Freedman was surprised, therefore, when he received a letter from the football office last summer inviting him to serve as guest coach for the Miami game. He eagerly accepted the invitation and was more than pleasantly surprised to discover the job entailed much more than a plane ticket to Miami and a seat on the 50 yard line. There was, in fact, no seat at all.

“Al Groh said, ‘I want you to come to everything. I want you to come to the players’ meetings, to the coaches’ meetings. I want you to be part of everything for the whole weekend,’” Freedman recalled.
 
While Freedman usually focuses on election advertising and the framing of issues in political debate, he showed up at the U.Va. football program’s well-appointed offices in the McCue Center at 8:30 that Friday morning to begin his work on a whole different sort of campaign. Like a fly on the wall, he sat in on meetings and meals, flew with the team and an entourage of nearly 100 support staff on a chartered jet to South Florida, hung out at the hotel with members of the team, and braved passionate Hurricanes fans’ hostility during the bus ride to the Orange Bowl on Saturday evening.

“Guest coach is really a generous honorific,” Freedman admitted. In fact, the first rule on the list of duties ascribed to this honorary role by the U.Va. athletics department is, according to Freedman, “Do not under any circumstances talk to any member of the team or coaching staff during the game.”

Still, wearing his official game shirt and cap, Coach Freedman paced the sidelines cheering on the team right along with his official counterparts. Freedman, however, stayed well away from the action just in case an errant 300-pound body happened to come flying his way.

“These are big guys,” declared the professor of public opinion and media politics. “You don’t want a ton of humanity falling into you, particularly these days. [A broken] shoulder would be a pain, but it would be nothing compared to the humiliation of seeing it [replayed] on YouTube the next day.”

U.Va. was not supposed to win that game; Miami was favored by three points. But Virginia took the lead in the first 10 minutes of the game and never looked back. With members of the athletics department referring to his role during the game as the “Freedman Effect,” the guest coach modestly takes credit for the Cavs’ 48-0 victory, which was not only their first win in Florida in decades, but was the worst shutout loss in Orange Bowl history.

“It was just a blast,” Freedman declared of the experience. “This trip was an education, not only in the sheer scope of the football program and the experience of being on the team, but also how much intellectual capacity as well as physical prowess these guys need to have in order to succeed.”

Having played such a significant part in the team’s utter humiliation of the Hurricanes, Freedman gallantly offered his services to the Cavaliers in the future. “They may need some good guest coaching at, say, the Gator Bowl on New Year’s Day,” he asserted after the victory in Miami.

Coach Groh may still regret that he didn’t take him up on this offer.