President and CEO of Easy Step Enterprises, dba The Good Feet Store in VA, NC, MD,DC,OH. Love Jesus, my wife, our 5 kids, and 13 grandchildren. Go Hoos!
Richmond, VA
Joined April 2022
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Mike, the UVA fan base is asking to compete with Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame, etc., in football. Otherwise, why try to get into the CFP? Wake Forest believes they can compete this year. By the way, Greensboro and Winston-Salem are a sprawling metropolis compared to Charlottesville. There are about 400,000 TV households in that market compared to less than 100,000 in the Charlottesville market.
UVA fan base isn’t asking for the program to compete w/ Ohio State/Texas/ND, etc., in FB. They simply want a consistently competent product on the field. We’ve lost or haven’t been competitive this season in far too many games and that is based, in large part, on missing w/ our QB1 choice/coaches inability to adapt/adjust. Tony’s insistence to double-down on that decision simply inflamed an already agitated fan & donor base. Also, our current President has a long history w/ McKinsey, Darden/McIntire/Law grads can be gateways to corporate partnership opptys. We hired Clay Walker, who launched an NIL-type program for NFLPA well over a decade ago, to run UVA NIL, LLC to create opptys for athletes. Not buying NIL is limited based on market size. That may be for certain type deals, but not all. Still, I see other school’s medical/health centers doing much more in supporting athletics than at UVA. Also, Winston-Salem is no booming metropolis either and Wake seems to be maximizing their football investment far better than UVA. So is Duke. Greatly appreciate what you have done and continue to do for Athletics. UVA doesn’t have a funding issue or lack of access to top prospective NIL partners. What we need is for Elliott/staff to maximize the investment they are currently receiving, as that opens up new possibilities to expand.
The frustration with UVA football is real, but the core problem is larger than any player, coach or single individual. In my view, it is a business problem.
Charlottesville (where one of our Good Feet stores resides) is one of the smallest TV markets in the country. Athletics today run on multi-year brand deals, NIL collectives, and revenue flywheels from large alumni bases and proximity to major corporate HQs. UVA lacks the geographical advantages and lacks the scale and reach of Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, or Florida. That is a structural constraint.
UVA’s football fan base is more fragile (not a fault of fans) due to a lack of a winning tradition compared to the power programs—Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Michigan, USC. Those are the Amazon, Walmarts and Coca-Colas of college football. They can operate on tradition and confidence that their customers will be back even when they miss. UVA cannot afford many misses and has to be scrappy: more creative, more personal, and more deliberate about every fan, donor, and sponsor. Otherwise the support of the fan base erodes quickly. The football program would make a strong Darden case study on building without the giants’ natural advantages.
In 2021 we were early NIL partners with UVA. We started with Kihei Clark on TV spots, then expanded to other athletes in UVA-logo jerseys, attaching millions in Good Feet advertising to the UVA brand. We followed the university’s approach: not pay-to-play, but real marketing leverage, inviting players to conferences, networking, and speaking opportunities. We did the same for others in football, men’s and women’s basketball, and non-rev sports. We are not a major Fortune 500 brand but we have made meaningful investments and will match our heart with anyone.
Two years ago major money flowed into UVA football. Problem solved, or so it seemed! Emphasis seemed to shift to seven and eight-figure checks. Those are wonderful gifts but that is not a sustainable model. Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Walmart, built flywheels one customer at a time.
Is it possible that those generous donations muddied good strategic thinking? It seems there is need of a strategy that attaches value at every level: the single fan with family at a few games, season-ticket holders and lower-level donors, small businesses attaching to the brand, larger sponsors, mid-tier five- and six-figure donors, and the premium seven-to-eight figure donors. When you are customer focused, you are accountable to those customers. Is it possible, that greater accountability to customers up and down the ladder, could foster better football strategy?
Tradition and humility can go together; tradition and entitlement cannot. Academic excellence and history are strengths, not automatic equalizers to the football powers. Be accountable to the people paying the bills, make hard, strategic decisions, be creative, listen. Embrace being David because you will never be Goliath. Winning will come.
Being in Waco last year with @BUDREW , Ron Sanchez and @BAYLORMENSBBALL was inspiring. The Day of Joy was authentic and filled with compassion, not performative window dressing. Well done!
This season is not over, but there needs to be a major reboot in Winston-Salem on Saturday. College athletics is a major business, with big money paid out to the participants. That money doesn’t fall from the sky, and fans, donors, and sponsors all want an ROI. That is business.
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Wahoos Preseason Pick #2 — 2026-27 ACC Men’s Basketball, De Ridder Tabbed Preseason Player of Year/Mallory 2nd Team All ACC. 🏀 🔶⚔️🔷
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If you haven’t heard @IAmBallHawk on the radio or his podcast you are missing out.
Here is how I would describe a play:
Nice little dump-off to the sideline. Got the first down. Good play.”
This is Ballhawk:
“They’re sitting in Cover 5—two high, man underneath. Those backs are sitting in the curl/check-down, and when the receiver comes out in the flat the linebacker who’s manned up on the back can’t expand with it. The corner is in trail with inside leverage, safety’s too deep to help on that short throw. Pribula throws it on time, Courtney catches it with his body between the defender and the ball. That’s the flat void in 2-man.”
There are those who truly understand the game and the rest of us who are just along for the ride.
The Second Half Adjustment That Saved Virginia Against Syracuse youtu.be/lySBj3ObuCc?is=SSw0… via @YouTube
#GoHoos
Amazing shot and great call by @JohnFreemanUVA!
This story never gets old. What is omitted here is Tony Elliott’s abiding faith in Jesus and the praise he gives to God for guiding him through life’s tragedies from an early age. Suffering can produce the deepest wells of compassion. A leader of men.
When Tony Elliott was four years old a truck hit him. Broken ribs, a punctured lung, a torn spleen.
When he was nine, his family was driving to church outside Anaheim, California, and a car ran a red light.
His mother Patricia did not survive that morning. Tony was not wearing a seat belt and he walked away without a scratch.
Here is what he has said about it.
"When you lose your mother on the way to church when you are nine years old, you don't understand."
His parents had separated when he was five. His father went to prison. He got out, and about a month later he was locked up again.
Tony and his sister Brandi went to an aunt and uncle in Atlanta who could not afford to keep both of them. So the two of them were split up.
He ended up in Charleston, South Carolina, with his Aunt Blondale, who raised him alongside her own two sons. He got his sister back before his senior year of high school.
He played at James Island High School. He had a few small school offers and an appointment to the Air Force Academy.
He spent a year at the Academy prep school and left. He has said he went for the wrong reasons.
So he bagged groceries at Publix. He worked construction for 8 dollars an hour, twelve hour shifts.
Then he applied to three colleges. Georgia, South Carolina and Clemson.
Clemson took him with no conditions.
He walked on to the football team. As a freshman he broke his arm against Georgia Tech and missed five games.
He earned a scholarship anyway. He graduated with an industrial engineering degree and a 3.55. He became a captain of the Clemson Tigers. As a senior he caught 23 passes.
Then he went and got a real job as an engineer at Michelin.
And he quit it. He volunteered at a high school, then went and coached receivers at South Carolina State, then at Furman.
Then Dabo Swinney called him about the Clemson running backs job.
Years before that, at a coaching clinic, Elliott had driven Swinney out to the intersection in Anaheim where his mother was lost. That intersection is on Sycamore Street.
Swinney had him over to the house for homemade chili and offered him the job right there.
Swinney's house is on Sycamore Street.
He coached at Clemson for a decade. Two national championships. In 2017 they handed him the Broyles Award, which goes to the best assistant coach in the country.
Then Virginia hired him. In his first three seasons the Virginia Cavaliers won 11 games total.
Last season they won 11 in a single year. The most in the history of the school, and the first double digit season there since 1989. They made him the ACC Coach of the Year.
Virginia is 3 and 2 right now and just got beat 38 to 7 at Florida State. Nothing is fixed and nobody is pretending it is.
But tonight is the 101st Homecoming game at Scott Stadium, against Syracuse.
And the man standing on that sideline used to bag groceries for a living.
This win is dedicated to my three grandsons in Aledo, Texas. They are loyal UVA fans in a sea of Longhorns, Aggies and all the other SEC rabble. Monday, they can ask their friends, “On Saturday, between Texas, Texas A&M, LSU, Florida and UVA, which team won?” Go Hoos! 🔶🔷
Yesterday was ugly and it has to be owned. Yet the following should be factored in as we evaluate Tony Elliott and UVA football:
UVA is 3-2, 1-1 in the ACC. Scott Stadium holds 61,500. In 2025, he took this program to a school-record 11 wins, an ACC regular-season title, and a Gator Bowl win, Virginia averaged about 48,800 fans. Best home average in 17 years. Still about 13,000 empty seats.
Here is a comparison of prior National Championship football programs with 2025 home attendance and the record this morning:
• Michigan: 107,601 seats, 110,842 average, 10 claimed titles including 2023. This morning: 3-2, 0-2 in the Big Ten, after losses to Iowa and Minnesota. (Correct record would be 2-3.)
• Penn State: 106,572 seats, 107,093 average, titles in 1982 and 1986. This morning: 3-2, 0-2, including a 34-13 loss to Northwestern.
• Auburn: about 88,000 seats, 88,043 average, titles in 1957 and 2010. This morning: 3-2, 1-2 in the SEC, after a 24-14 loss at Tennessee.
• Oklahoma: 80,000-plus seats, 83,534 average, 7 titles. This morning: 2-2, 0-1 in the SEC.
• Clemson: 81,500 seats, 79,142 average, titles in 1981, 2016, and 2018. This morning: 3-2, 2-1 in the ACC, after a 41-13 home loss to Miami.
Those 80,000-100,000-seat crowds reflect rabid fans and massive financial pipelines. A full Big House or Beaver Stadium throws off more ticket, parking, concession, and donor money on one Saturday than Scott Stadium does in a month. That money buys facilities, staff, NIL, and roster retention. Virginia is trying to play in that league. TE walked into something none of those coaches had to carry. The program rebuilt people, not just a depth chart. 3-9, 5-7, then 11-3. Picked 14th in the ACC before last season. Finished alone atop it.
A 38-7 night in Tallahassee has to be fixed before Syracuse. It is not proof that a coach who just delivered the best season in school history is unfit for the Power 4, or that the AD who hired him got it wrong.
Michigan, Oklahoma, Penn State, Auburn, and Clemson, with an embarrassment of riches, all woke up this morning with a loss, the same or worse record, and unhappy fans. Football is a complicated, tough sport. Go Hoos! 🔶🔷 @UVAFootball
A game like yesterday absolutely does reflect on leadership at every level. Leaders have bad days, and leaders miss the mark. Coach Elliott would be the first to agree with that.
The jump is to go from that reality to asserting that Coach Elliott and his staff are not capable of coaching a Power 4 football team. Those assertions were made after the 2023 season, after the 2024 season, and now are surfacing again.
Somehow, we skip over the fact that 2025 is objective evidence that he and his staff can coach at a high level. Winning 11 games at the Power 4 level and a good bowl game is extremely hard to do.
This is a fair critique. It comes from a UVA supporter who knows football and can offer technical analysis. It is not from the “oh I have never been a Tony Elliott supporter” garbage that surfaces after a tough loss. I am with you about being on board with this team until the wheels fall off. I believe in Tony Elliott and I believe they will recover from this setback. Go Hoos! 🔶🔷
