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Jim Cavanaugh is a member of the William & Mary Sports Hall of Fame.  He was a very good football player for the Tribe back in his day, and he has coached at a lot of major programs in the area including UVA, Maryland, NC State and UNC.  But Virginia Tech fans know him best as the man who recruited Richmond and the Virginia Peninsula during the heyday of Virginia Tech football.

What do Michael Vick, the Lewis brothers, the Adibis, Chris Ellis, DJ Parker, Jim Davis, Bryan Randall, Duane Brown, Macho Harris, Blake DeChristopher, Ernest Wilford, the Shumans, the Hopkins, John Graves, Antone Exum, Davon Morgan and Jimmy Williams have in common?  They, along with countless others, were recruited to Virginia Tech by Jim Cavanaugh.  Not only was he responsible for personally recruiting many of Virginia Tech’s top players from the 1997 class through his retirement, but he also served as Frank Beamer’s recruiting coordinator from 2002 through 2010.  Quite a bit of the talent that called Blacksburg home during that era was here thanks in large part to the efforts of “Coach Cav.”

I once described Cavanaugh as one of the three legs of Virginia Tech’s tripod, along with Frank Beamer and Bud Foster.  As arguably the top recruiter at the pinnacle of Virginia Tech football, he played a huge role in the success of the program.  He still hasn’t been inducted into the Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame, and I can’t figure out why.

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