Photo courtesy of Dan Grogan

Former Virginia athletic directors (from left) Gene Corrigan, Jim Copeland and Dick Schultz.

In a seven-year tenure that turned turbulent at times, former Virginia athletic director Jim Copeland was never appreciated as much by his constituents as he was by his peers.

Copeland has no shortage of admirers in the athletic-administration industry, though he's not exactly sure who nominated him for the National Association of College Directors of Athletics' hall of fame.

"I have no idea," said Copeland, inducted at NACDA's annual convention earlier this month. "It was probably all of my friends in the media."

The media took some shots at Copeland during his UVa days, but there was no questioning his accessibility or his honesty.

"There's a pugnacious side to me that probably comes from playing football," Copeland said, "but I think I was always straight with people. It's a lot safer that way."

Copeland, who turned 64 in March, grew up in Charlottesville and moved back to his hometown after his retirement as AD at Southern Methodist University in 2006. It hardly seemed possible that he had been gone for more than 11 years, and that he had served longer at SMU than at any of his other stops.

Copeland also was the athletic director at William and Mary (1981-85) and at Utah (1985-87).

He previously had spent eight seasons in the National Football League as a Cleveland Browns offensive guard, twice playing in NFL championship games.

Upon his retirement, Copeland was hired by then-UVa athletic director Gene Corrigan as a fundraiser.

"I told him I was going to do the job for a year or a year and a half as a fundraiser," Copeland said. "I knew I'd meet people and probably would have an opportunity to get out of athletics."

It turns out, he liked it. He spent four years with the Virginia Student Aid Foundation before taking a job at Missouri as an assistant AD in 1979. Eight years later, he was named to succeed Dick Schultz as Virginia's AD.

Corrigan and Schultz preceded Copeland as NACDA inductees, Schultz while he was NCAA executive director and Corrigan while he was commissioner of the ACC.

It was never Copeland's intention to leave Virginia, but there were times when the job was unpleasant and people were nasty. The transition between former men's basketball coach Terry Holland and his eventual successor, 29-year-old assistant Jeff Jones, was one particularly polarizing issue.

"I'll never get credit for it," Copeland said, "but, J.J. was a hell of a coach."

Jones eventually flamed out, but the Cavaliers were 105-57 in his first five seasons, including an NIT championship and a spot in the regional finals of the NCAA Tournament.

True to his fundraising roots, Copeland looks back fondly on the construction of Klockner Stadium, home to the UVa soccer and lacrosse teams; the McCue Center, a football support facility, and a natatorium for the UVa men's and women's swimming powers.

Then, at a basketball game in December 1994, word leaked out that Copeland would be resigning to take a job at SMU.

Former ACC colleague Dave Braine, now retired in Blacksburg, said it was always his impression that Copeland got the shaft at Virginia. That was the public perception.

"I can't say there weren't people who thought it would be better if I left," Copeland said, "but to say I was forced out and made to leave the position would be incorrect.

"The way the move to SMU worked was, I was contacted by headhunters, not about myself but about other people. That went on for a couple of weeks or maybe a month; then, somebody told them I might be interested in the job.

"They came back to me and said, 'Everybody thinks you're perfect for the job.' I said, 'You're crazy. I've got a great job, I'm in my hometown and why would I move?' But, they convinced me to speak to the people at SMU."

SMU was not long removed from a series of recruiting violations that caused the led to the NCAA giving the Mustangs the "Death Penalty," leaving SMU without football from 1986-88. Copeland warmed to the challenge of remaking SMU's image and thought Dallas was a place where he could finish his career.

"He did a lot of great things at SMU," said Radford athletic director Robert Lineburg, an assistant basketball coach at SMU during the Copeland regime. "He played a big part in changing the culture there and did as good a job as could have been done in getting that program on solid ground."

As he neared the end of his SMU tenure, Copeland began to experience health problems that would have sent anybody into retirement.

He underwent surgery to remove a cancerous kidney and began to experience heart problems that led to a bypass operation when he returned to Charlottesville. He currently suffers from lymphedema, a condition that leads to fluid buildup in his knees.

The cancer is in remission, however, and Copeland says he is able to lead a fairly normal life.

During his Dallas days, Copeland crossed paths with University of Texas basketball coach Rick Barnes, a man he had once courted for the Virginia job. Cavalier fans will always wonder how UVa men's basketball fortunes would have changed if Barnes had come to UVa from Providence in 1990.

"He accepted the job from me in Providence," Copeland said. "Then, he flew back to Charlottesville and met with president [John] Casteen and accepted the job again. I don't know how much more certain you could be."

When Copeland bumped into Barnes on a trip to look at Texas' basketball facilities, Barnes made a point of saying that he had not taken the Virginia job, "so however certain I thought I was, I wasn't certain enough," Copeland said.

In retirement, Copeland does a lot of reading, serves on the Virginia High School League board and is active in his church. He attends several UVa football games each year. After Lineburg was hired as Radford's athletic director, he persuaded Copeland to pay a two-day visit and give his impression of the Highlanders' operation.

"He's been a great mentor for me," Lineburg said. "I still talk to him probably once a month. I can't think of a more valuable resource."