Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 20, 1990                   TAG: 9005200066
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

UVA'S WILMER DOESN'T TREAT RECRUITING WITH A CAVALIER ATTITUDE

"I saw the list and said, `My gosh, this couldn't be right,' " said Wilmer's wife, Kaye. "But it was. We must have invited 40-some people."

As coach of the Cavaliers' defensive linemen, Wilmer is in charge of approximately 15 players. He also coached offensive tackles from 1984-85, but Wilmer has left his greatest mark on the program in the area of recruiting.

Of the 88 recruited players in Virginia's program, not counting walk-ons and players originally recruited for basketball, Wilmer was primarily responsible for bringing in 27. Tom O'Brien and Ken Mack, also considered to be among UVa's top recruiters, are next with 13 each.

Wilmer's recruiting has yielded quality as well as quantity. Among the players he has brought to UVa are All-ACC quarterback Shawn Moore, second-team All-ACC choices Ray Roberts and Tony Covington and a total of 10 players who started at some point during the 1989 season.

"If anybody else but Coach Wilmer had recruited me, I don't know if I would have wound up at Virginia," said Roberts, an offensive tackle from Asheville, N.C. "He came to see me more than any other coach, which I thought was pretty considerate since I was Virginia's only recruit from my part of the state."

Wilmer, who grew up in Buena Vista, joined the staff at Virginia after a successful four-year stint at James Madison, where he recruited the likes of defensive end Charles Haley and running back Warren Marshall. Haley owns two Super Bowl rings as a member of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers, and Marshall is the leading rusher in state Division I history.

Haley played at William Campbell High, a Group AA school with a little more than 300 students in rural Naruna, approximately 25 miles south of Lynchburg.

"When I was watching Haley play, I was saying to myself, `Where is everybody?' " Wilmer said. "He was that good. Some coaches feel safer if they know that other schools are looking at a player. But I don't want to see anybody."

One of Wilmer's recruits this year, Halifax County linebacker Stanley Leigh, did not visit another school. But another of his recruits, 6-foot-8, 300-pound Hank Dudgeon from Louisville, Ky., picked the Cavaliers after visiting Southern Cal and Alabama.

"I think it's real easy to pick out the great players," Wilmer said. "The key is projecting a kid who will be as good as one of the great ones. Donnie Reynolds [a UVa defensive end from Laurel Park] has as much potential as Charles Haley."

It takes more than an eye for talent to pick out a Haley or a Reynolds or a Shawn Woodson, who played at Buckingham County and went on to have an outstanding career at James Madison. It takes a willingness to beat the bushes.

On one Friday last fall, Wilmer drove to Chatham to see Hargrave Military Academy play in the afternoon, caught the start of a Heritage High game in Lynchburg, returned to Chatham to see part of the Martinsville-Chatham game, then found a shortcut that enabled him to see the end of the George Washington-Halifax game in South Boston.

"I don't know if he wants to be known as the best recruiter, but he tries his hardest to be," said running back Nikki Fisher, a Wilmer recruit. "Without him recruiting as hard as he does, I don't think we'd be as good a football team."

For every pleasurable recruiting experience, such as the time he won a new car in a raffle at a high school game, Wilmer has three or four tales of woe. Once, while returning from West Virginia by car, he struck and killed a pig. The car later slid off the road and, when Wilmer returned with help, he discovered a window broken and his recruiting files missing.

"I drove over 26,000 miles [while recruiting] last year," said Wilmer, who was a geography major at East Carolina. "It won't be that much this year because they split up some of my area. I still drive 5,000 miles every May. But I miss being comfortable with my family. I'm a pretty private guy."

There is a perception of recruiters as high-pressure salesmen, but Wilmer isn't the least bit slick.

"I don't want to be, either," he said. "I want to be known as a guy who can coach. I don't want to be classified as one-dimensional, just a salesman. Recruiting is tough, but I like the atmosphere of being around the kids and the coaches."

After all, Wilmer was a high school head coach in 1979 at Stuarts Draft. He had been an assistant for four years before that.

"I rely a lot on the high school coaches," Wilmer said. "I've coached at every level: Group A, AA and AAA [in high school], NAIA, Division I-AA and Division I-A. I have a feel for what they're doing. I've taught five or six courses. I've cleaned up. I've taken kids home after practice."

Humility is one of Wilmer's chief attributes. He never rests on past success or takes anything for granted.

"I go through stages," he said. "I'll go through a stage where I'm confident they'll sign; then, there's a stage where I'm scared they'll change their minds. Then, I get scared again before they show up in August. I always ask myself, `Did I do the right thing?'

"One year I think I brought in 11 kids at JMU. But it can't be an ego thing. If I didn't sign anybody, fine, I wouldn't be hurt. I'm not going to be signing anybody just to be signing anybody."

During his early years at James Madison, Wilmer had a recruiting area that encompassed nearly half the state and much of North Carolina. Until recently, his UVa area included all of Virginia west of Lynchburg and western North Carolina.

Wilmer since has yielded far Southwest Virginia to Phil Elmassian, but will keep Henry County, which has sent Virginia the likes of Moore, Fisher and Don Reynolds - and, in the late 1970s, Ed Reynolds and Henry Johnson.

"I think if you look at the people who recruited that area - Danny, Ricky Bustle and Tom Groom of Virginia Tech and myself - we all got out and worked and we didn't knock other people," said former Wake Forest assistant Bob Pruett, now at Mississippi.

"What you hate in recruiting is somebody who comes in at the last minute and signs a kid. That's heartbreaking. But these are the kind of people who go all four quarters."

Virginia never was a factor in North Carolina recruiting until the arrival of the present staff, particularly Mack and Wilmer. But the 1990 team will have seven Wilmer recruits from North Carolina, three of them returning starters.

"It seems like there are so many people in Virginia who encourage kids to go other places," Wilmer said. "We let so many of our best and brightest get away, and I'm not just talking about athletes. But if you'd ever lived outside the state of Virginia, you'd have a better appreciation for how highly this state is regarded."

At last, the football seems to be catching up, although the Cavaliers' success hasn't translated into increased job feelers for coach George Welsh's assistants. Wilmer inquired about the VMI position when it came available two years ago, but was not granted an interview by Keydets athletic director Eric Hyman.

"I want to be a head coach," said Wilmer, 43. "If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. I would need a tremendous break. It's something I would like more than anything. I guess I'll find out the next couple of years."