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The Daily OrangeCHASING A DREAM: For Virginia's Starsia, matchup with Cornell means more than just a trip to the finals
By Conor Orr
Posted: 5/22/09, 12:28 PM EST Section: Final Four '09
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - For Dom Starsia, the powerhouse Cornell teams of the late 1970's were a muse.
Watching as head coach Richie Moran's Big Red amassed two straight titles and 10 consecutive conference championships, the future hall-of-famer Starsia, then an assistant coach at Brown, knew he wanted his teams to play like those Cornell squads when he became a head coach himself someday.
"We hosted them in the NCAA finals in 1976, and I was one of the hosts for Cornell," said Starsia, now the head coach at Virginia. "And they rolled out of the bus looking all messy. I mean, they played great, with a lot of passion, energy and discipline, so I always felt like I want my teams to play lacrosse like that."
Thirty-three years and three NCAA championships later, Starsia finds his top-seeded Virginia team facing off against a No. 5 seed Cornell program that cultivated his foyer into coaching. At Gillette Stadium Saturday at 2 p.m. in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament, Starsia will channel his past watching the Big Red in order to propel his Cavaliers to the championship game.
The winner will face either Syracuse or Duke in the national championship Monday.
"That team was profoundly influential, I would say," Starsia said of the old Cornell teams. "That was the beginning of it for me."
Flash forward three decades, and things have changed. Starsia moved south to start a dynasty in Virginia. Moran stepped down at Cornell for future John's Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala and eventually current head coach Jeff Tambroni, and an unspoken bond between Starsia and that untouchable Cornell program distanced.
In Starsia's tenure at Virginia, the two teams have only played once: an 11-10 thriller in favor of the Cavaliers in the quarterfinals of the 2002 NCAA tournament.
But the fading relationship between Starsia and the Big Red was recharged at the end of last season. After Tambroni learned Virginia had lost longtime opponent Princeton from its schedule, he got on the phone and called Starsia in order to fulfill a bit of lacrosse destiny.
Watching as head coach Richie Moran's Big Red amassed two straight titles and 10 consecutive conference championships, the future hall-of-famer Starsia, then an assistant coach at Brown, knew he wanted his teams to play like those Cornell squads when he became a head coach himself someday.
"We hosted them in the NCAA finals in 1976, and I was one of the hosts for Cornell," said Starsia, now the head coach at Virginia. "And they rolled out of the bus looking all messy. I mean, they played great, with a lot of passion, energy and discipline, so I always felt like I want my teams to play lacrosse like that."
Thirty-three years and three NCAA championships later, Starsia finds his top-seeded Virginia team facing off against a No. 5 seed Cornell program that cultivated his foyer into coaching. At Gillette Stadium Saturday at 2 p.m. in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament, Starsia will channel his past watching the Big Red in order to propel his Cavaliers to the championship game.
The winner will face either Syracuse or Duke in the national championship Monday.
"That team was profoundly influential, I would say," Starsia said of the old Cornell teams. "That was the beginning of it for me."
Flash forward three decades, and things have changed. Starsia moved south to start a dynasty in Virginia. Moran stepped down at Cornell for future John's Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala and eventually current head coach Jeff Tambroni, and an unspoken bond between Starsia and that untouchable Cornell program distanced.
In Starsia's tenure at Virginia, the two teams have only played once: an 11-10 thriller in favor of the Cavaliers in the quarterfinals of the 2002 NCAA tournament.
But the fading relationship between Starsia and the Big Red was recharged at the end of last season. After Tambroni learned Virginia had lost longtime opponent Princeton from its schedule, he got on the phone and called Starsia in order to fulfill a bit of lacrosse destiny.
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