Photo by Hugh Morton

Left to right, ACC coaches Red Wilson of Duke, Bill Curry of Georgia Tech, Dick Bestwick of Virginia, Monte Kiffin of N.C. State and Al Groh of Wake Forest and Danny Ford of Clemson at the ACC coaches meetings at Grandfather Mountain, N.C., in May 1981. Curry is now a college football analyst for ESPN, Kiffin is defensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Groh is the head coach at Virginia.

Somehow there was a communications breakdown and former Virginia football player Mike Brancati did not learn until Friday morning that ex-coach Dick Bestwick would be in Charlottesville later in the day for a reunion.

By mid-afternoon, Brancati had rearranged his schedule and was headed north on Interstate 81 without any clear idea of the agenda.

"I wasn't even one of his players," said Brancati, who had been recruited out of Salem's Andrew Lewis High School by Sonny Randle, "but I wouldn't have picked up and gone up there for any other reason."

Bestwick wasn't as outrageous as his predecessor, Randle, nor as successful as his successor, George Welsh, but he was charismatic enough to have attracted at least 75 former players to the reunion.

Chances are, they were inspired at Bestwick's efforts to return to Charlottesville after telling organizer Jim Taylor as late as March 2, that he would be physically unable to attend.

Bestwick learned Aug. 29, 2003, that he has transverse myelitis (TM) an inflammation of the spinal cord that afflicts approximately 1.5 million Americans.

"It constantly feels that I'm so tight that I'm going to split open," said Bestwick, who first thought to see a doctor when he started stumbling on his daily, 2-mile walk. "It feels like I'm experiencing an electric shock. I deal with pain 24-7."

Bestwick originally was told that TM can disappear in 2-3 months, "but maybe that was wishful thinking," he said.

"For me, it will be four years in August. I don't anticipate it will go away. There are times when I've thought, 'Holy Christ, how can I continue to do this?'"

Bestwick noted that an elderly acquaintance and chronic pain-sufferer took his life earlier this year. Bestwick, 77, does not view that as an option.

"I'm too mean," he said. "Too ornery."

And, he might have added, too busy.

Bestwick, formerly the top assistant to University of Georgia athletic director Vince Dooley, is retired in Athens, Ga., but regularly writes a newspaper column for the Athens Banner-Herald.

A recent phone interview interrupted his research for a column on Florida's back-to-back NCAA men's basketball championships and why Georgia could or could not have enjoyed similar success.

"So I guess I can rightly accuse him of crossing over to the dark side?" Al Groh, the Cavaliers' current head coach, asked.

Groh added that he would enjoy reading Bestwick's Georgia-Florida comparisons, but not all of Bestwick's columns pertain to sport.

An online search of the Banner-Herald column archives reveals an April 7 Bestwick column entitled, "Diplomacy, not instinct, needed in war on terror."

As Bestwick's friends might imagine, his political columns generally have a Democratic flavor. That dates back to his western Pennsylvania upbringing.

Bestwick, a longtime Georgia Tech assistant to Bobby Dodd, remembers that he interviewed for the Virginia job on three occasions before he was named to succeed Randle after the 1975 season.

When Bestwick's 1979 team finished 6-5, it marked the Cavaliers' second winning season in 27 years. That year, Virginia won at Georgia.

The next year, UVa won at Tennessee.

How many nonconference teams have posted victories in Athens and Knoxville in back-to-back seasons?

"Maybe his [overall] record wasn't 80-30," Groh said, "but you raise a very good point."

Bestwick had a 16-49-1 record in six seasons as Virginia's head coach, including a 1-10-1 mark in his last season, 1981.

He had time remaining on his contract, but when then-athletic director Dick Schultz proposed a restructured contract that would expire if Virginia didn't win six games in '82, principle told Bestwick to walk.

He never coached again, serving as executive director of the Peach Bowl before a brief stint as athletic director at the University of South Carolina.

"In Dick's case, he came here, he gave it the very best he had, his heart was in it to the fullest and he should be appreciated for that," said Groh, who became an ACC head coach for the first time in 1981 at Wake Forest. "I'm very respectful of what it takes to hold the position, regardless of what the outcomes are."

It was only fitting that the Bestwick reunion included a golf outing because golf was one of Bestwick's passions. For many years after he left UVa, he would head to Southwest Virginia's Groundhog Mountain each summer to play golf with his old sportswriter cronies.

He misses the gamesmanship as much as the birdies and bogeys.

"I always remember him as a pretty energetic guy," said Brancati, the assistant principal at Cave Spring Middle School. "It's hard to imagine him as anything else."

Bestwick doesn't always use the cane he carries with him, but TM makes it difficult for him to sit for long stretches, which is why he dreaded the drive north for the reunion.

Eventually, it was set up for his daughter to drive him from Athens to Hickory, N.C., and for his grandson to take him the rest of the way.

At the end of his journey, there were plenty of former players waiting to ease his pain.

"I'm 77, and from a mental standpoint, I've never felt better," Bestwick said. "If I didn't have this stuff, I feel I'd be coaching for somebody."

For one weekend in April, he still is.

Sewell sitting out spring game

Quarterback Jameel Sewell is one of four 2006 Virginia starters who are being held out of the Cavaliers' spring football game at 2 p.m. today at Scott Stadium.

Also being held out of action are wide receiver Kevin Ogletree, who recently underwent reconstructive knee surgery; outside linebacker Clint Sintim, who had offseason shoulder surgery, and tight end Tom Santi, who does not have a single incapacitating injury.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Marc Verica will line up behind the first-team offensive line against a defense that includes most of last year's No. 1 defense.

Gates open at noon for a host of fan-friendly activities.