For the record, I considered taking this column off. I figured I’d get the editors to hang a sign in the spot where they normally put me: “Andy Thompson is out of the office. His column will resume when he comes down from a tree stand in Fluvanna or Prince Edward or Caroline counties or wherever...

Fortune is supposed to favor the bold, and University of Richmond coach Mike London made a bold decision late in yesterday’s game against Villanova that should have won the game for the Spiders. Spiders quarterback Eric Ward is supposed to be the coolest of the cool when the game is on the line,...

Paul Woody hates daylight savings time because the sun sets before he can finish his golf game. But then, nobody can see his hooks and slices.

This past spring, the game department announced that it had found white nose syndrome in bats at two different caves in western and southwestern Virginia. The news was alarming on many fronts, not least of which is that so little is known for certain about the condition - how it is contracted, how it...

GREENVILLE, N.C. Arrrgggh, matey, the Virginia Tech Hokies needed this one. They needed to avoid losing three games in a row. They needed to pay the East Carolina Pirates back for last year’s season-opening loss/embarrassment. They needed to do something to quiet the “Arrrgggh, matey”...

Many talk about reforming college athletics, but for the past 20 years, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics is one of the few organizations that actually PAUL WOODY tries to do something. The Knight Commission conducted a survey of Football Bowl Subdivision school presidents. They preside...

Is it a curse or a blessing to know the sunlight is fading, that you can count your last moments on Earth on one hand? Your body is failing, wracked by a cancer that invaded your liver and spread quickly. You don’t know how long you have, but it doesn’t feel like much. It’s a double-edged...

Like it or not, every deer hunter worth his fox urine cover scent must also be a scholar of chemical attraction. Of course, I aspire to be worth my fox urine cover scent, every last ounce of the bottle currently sitting in my garage next to the red oak acorn wafers and natural cedar incense sticks. To...

BLACKSBURG AVirginia Tech football season that began with national championship dreams, then changed its focus to Atlantic Coast Conference title aspirations has come to this. Can the Hokies make it to the Champs Sports Bowl? The Music City Bowl? If things really go badly in the remaining weeks, will...

A little less than a year ago I wrote about the possible reintroduction of a substantial elk herd in Virginia. The eastern elk, of course, was native to Virginia and much of the eastern United States, but, due to hunting and habitat loss, the subspecies was extirpated from the region before the turn...

Sometimes the other team is just better. Yesterday, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets were better in every regard than the Cavaliers. And just as with the TCU game six weeks ago, the Virginia program was exposed for how wide the chasm is between it and the top 15 teams in the country. The question isn’t...

“We have a new cafeteria that is the most incredible eating facility you’ve ever seen on a college campus,“ Larranaga said. “You walk in, pay one price and there’s a salad bar, a fruit bar, a hamburger and hot dog grill, a pizza place, wraps. It’s got a cappuccino...

LANDOVER, Md. No NFL team is out of the playoff picture six games into the season. But with a 2-4 record and consecutive losses to clubs that had been winless, the Washington Redskins are in serious trouble. And while they are not yet eliminated from the playoff race, it is clear they have eliminated...

When I introduced the Urban Oasis series at the beginning of this year, the goal was to find patches of overlooked wilderness in the Richmond area. There are a surprising number of them - green spaces such as Williams Island, Powhite Park and Tuckahoe Creek that are often missed, even by outdoors lovers....

Sometimes, a team is so good it can overcome bad luck. The best combination is to be lucky at the right times and good at the right times. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the resurgent Virginia Cavaliers. Yesterday at Maryland, on a raw, rainy day, the Cavaliers had luck on their side. For example, wide receiver...

The Flying Squirrels? Hmmm. It will take some getting used to, but it could have been worse. No, really, it could have. Richmond Rhinos? Nah. Richmond Rock Hoppers? What would the mascot have been, a frog? Who wants a frog for a mascot? A princess in search of her Prince Charming, perhaps, but no one...

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts doesn’t reopen until May of next year. The November First Fridays isn’t for three weeks. What’s an art lover to do? Usually the answer to that question would not be, “Go to Orvis.“ But tomorrow it is, especially if you’re into art with...

Just when it seemed U.Va. fans could let the soothing thoughts of the upcoming basketball season wash away another bad gridiron experience, here comes Al Groh, with his contract-renewal offense and hope-for-tomorrow game plans. The Virginia football team should be done. The Cavaliers were embarrassed...

CHARLOTTE So it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished. Byron Westbrook, who spent two seasons on the Washington Redskins practice squad and worked so hard to make the 53-man roster this season, was just doing his job, trying to protect punt returner Antwaan Randle El. And then Westbrook’s...

Throughout the summer and into the early fall, the biggest celebrities in northwestern Powhatan County were a bruin and a buck. In still-rural communities like Pine Tree and Trenholm, the pair was as well known as any Hollywood A-List couple. “A few people had set up cameras in the woods up there...

Youth will be served, but more often than not, experience carries the day. With 1:07 left in the game and victory just six yards away for the James Madison Dukes, redshirt freshman quarterback Justin Thorpe took the snap, stepped back, then darted up the middle. He was almost around Richmond nose tackle...

Imagine with me a day in the not so distant future. The ballpark debate has been settled. A gleaming stadium sits overlooking the floodwall and the river in Manchester. It’s April. Opening day. A day of pure promise. Your young son and daughter are ready, have been for hours. “Daddy, can...

Full Throttle, an “energy drink”, is the sponsor of the National Hot Rod Association, and a more perfect combination of product and sport could not be found. Everything about the NHRA is full throttle. There is no following another driver for a couple of laps, or a couple of hundred laps,...

Now that we’ve gotten the bad nicknames out of the way for Richmond’s new baseball team, we can move on to the really good ones. You know, the ones that dazzle you. The ones that make you say, “Wow. Cool. Different. I like it.“ What? Say again? Pardon me? Those were the good nicknames?...

The first rule of any game is “Don’t beat yourself.“ The William and Mary Tribe football team no doubt was thinking about that rule on the long drive home to Wil liamsburg last night. The Tribe was caught looking on Villanova’s first play from scrimmage yesterday and trailed 7-0...

As societal ills go, littering might not be up there with violent crime, political corruption or purse snatching, but there is something particularly galling about it. Really, how hard is it not to litter? Don’t flick your cigarette butt out the car window. Is that too much to ask? At least actuarial...

Funny the images that stay with you from childhood. Any time someone mentions the Civil War, there’s this snapshot that flits across my brain of being in my parents’ TV room watching the Ken Burns documentary on the subject. It’s nothing more specific than that, but I remember my whole...

Walk into any crowded room and you will find someone who has experienced the ravages of cancer, either first-hand or through PAUL WOODY a family member or friend. Cancer never is far from anyone’s mind. No one is surprised to receive the diagnosis. Shocked. Saddened. Frightened, perhaps, but not...

The Olympics are the greatest of the world’s sports events, and the site for the 2016 Summer Games will be Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo. The International Olympic Committee votes Friday. The vote here is for Chicago. Imagine athletes from every part of the globe riding the ‘L’...

The Marching Virginians, 330 strong, weren’t allowed to march and play their music on the Lane Stadium field. Instead, they performed from their end zone seats out of deference to a field that was all but underwater. And speaking of submerged, how about those Miami Hurricanes? They came here as...