Photo courtesy of the University of Virginia

Adams Abdulrazaaq helped Virginia tie for the overall title at the ACC championships by winning the 110-meter high hurdles.

Photo courtesy of the University of Virginia

Mike Timms and his Virginia men's lacrosse teammates have 13-2 record going into the NCAA tourney.

There went the neighborhood, Brian O'Connor likes to joke.

When a house on his street came on the market three years ago, the University of Virginia baseball coach knew just the person to call -- his hall mate at UVa's McCue Center, men's tennis coach Brian Boland.

Boland bought the house, and now he and O'Connor are neighbors, as well as friendly rivals.

"We rib each other pretty good," O'Connor said.

O'Connor has the better lawn -- he's a baseball guy, after all. But Boland has the higher-ranked team. His tennis squad is No. 1 in the nation, 10 spots ahead of O'Connor's baseball team.

At Virginia this spring, they've had plenty of company in that elite neighborhood. Men's lacrosse, which enjoyed an extended run at No. 1, is ranked fourth in the nation this week. The women's lacrosse team is No. 9. The women's golf team is No. 3 going into next week's NCAA regionals, and the women's rowing squad is 15th. Men's track and field came out of nowhere earlier this month to tie Florida State for the ACC championship.

True, the marquee sports in Charlottesville have fallen on hard times. The football team won just five games last season and the men's basketball team went 10-18 and finished 11th in the ACC.

But with their across-the-board success this year, the Cavaliers have been kings of the spring.

"This spring has been astonishing in a lot of ways," said Dom Starsia, the longtime men's lacrosse coach. "It does create a competitive atmosphere that is healthy for everybody."

"All of us have had a lot of success of late," O'Connor said. "You obviously root for your other coaches and teams to do well. It seems we've all set pretty high standards."

Virginia has set them across the board -- and put its money where its mouth is.

"If there's a common thread, it's that we've been able to provide the necessary support in terms of what it takes to have a successful sports program generally," athletic director Craig Littlepage said.

All of Virginia's programs are fully funded, with the maximum number of coaches and scholarships allowable. The Cavaliers have also spent generously on facilities, raising all the necessary money through private donors.

Boyd Tinsley, violinist for the Dave Matthews Band, was the primary benefactor of a $7.5 million expansion of the school's indoor tennis facility. Two anonymous donations of $2 million funded construction of a new baseball stadium completed in 2002. The golf teams have an $850,000 short-game practice facility.

All represent major investments in sports that were on shaky ground less than a decade ago. How shaky? In the spring of 2001, a university task force was recommending the school drop baseball and men's tennis to club status. That recommendation wasn't followed, and that same year, women's golf was added as a varsity sport.

While improved facilities have helped those teams thrive, the sports have also benefited from an injection of energetic young coaching talent. Littlepage hired Boland in 2002 and O'Connor in 2004. Women's golf coach Kim Lewellen is in her second year. Men's track coach Jason Vigilante is in his first.

Starsia, who came to Virginia in 1993, is the graybeard of the bunch, at 57. With three national championships, he's also the coach the others flock to for advice.

"I wanted to learn everything I could from Dom," Boland said. "Even though our sports are different, we're both still in the same business in terms of working with young people, managing players, recruiting, trying to accomplish things around the Grounds."

Starsia joked that he saw Boland more in recent years than he did his wife. Their offices were next to one another in the McCue Center for a time until O'Connor moved to University Hall.

Boland "is an emotional, energetic guy -- a bit of a bull in a china shop," Starsia said. "You've got to move the china out of the way and give him room to operate."

Boland's team, which couldn't crack the top 75 when he took over, has won three straight ACC titles and grabbed the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament Tuesday.

Other teams at Virginia are also gearing up for postseason play. With so many teams among the nation's elite, Virginia appears poised for a strong showing in the national director's cup, which is rewarded annually to the school with the best overall athletics program. The Cavaliers were 19th following the winter season after finishing 17th last year and 13th in 2007.

Littlepage said a top 10 showing is the goal this year. He calls the cup the "gold standard" for overall excellence.

At the same time, he acknowledges it's not always the standard fans look to. Given a choice, many would undoubtedly take a single BCS bowl game or a men's basketball Final Four appearance over any number of track or tennis championships .

"There are fans who would measure a program's success by how you're doing in football and how you're doing in men's basketball, and I understand that," Littlepage said. "Certainly, those are the sports that drive the engine in terms of generating revenue for your entire program, and you have to have success in those sports over the long haul."

Virginia's working on it, having made a coaching change in men's basketball and overhauling the assistant coaching ranks in football, including hiring a new offensive coordinator. The goals of being good in football and men's basketball and in the "non-revenue" sports as well are not mutually exclusive, and most fans recognize that, said Richard Litton, Tidewater district chair for the Virginia Athletics Foundation, the athletic department's fundraising arm.

"If you look at the numbers year by year, it's self-evident that people aren't putting their wallets away just because the football team has a bad year," he said.

Starsia said he realizes that when the marquee sports are down and other programs are thriving, some could get the idea that the school has misplaced priorities.

"People want to deride the director's cup sometimes," he said. "I think we should explain it in terms of championships. Over the last 7-8 years, I believe we have the most ACC championships overall.

"Whether you're a football guy or not, you can appreciate championships."