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Danny Wilmer feature
It’s been 50 years or so since Danny Wilmer, an assistant coach on Virginia’s football team, was a standout recruiter who played a major role in the Cavaliers reaching respectability.
UVa’s boss during that time was head coach George Welsh, who did not have the kind of player talent that Wilmer and some of his fellow assistants had been able to make UVa competititive.
UVa did not have as much success during the period that Al Groh was the next head head coach, but the program continued to have success from a system that had been established.
Two of the most prominent recruits during the Welsh years were Tiki and Ronde Barber from Cave Spring High School.
‘He was a big factor in their commitment,” their mother, Geraldine, said of Wilmer’s recruiting.
Both are in the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, and Ronde Barber is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Martinsville-bred Shawn Moore, another Wilmer recruit, was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy.
Moore, who is involved with Virginia’s football program, notes that Wilmer had “recruited every kid in Southwest Virginia” during the late 1980s .”.Along with the Barbers, other players from Roanoke who were recruited for UVa by Wilmer included Randy Foley and Kirk Martin. Wilmer also recruited future 10-year NFL player Ed Reynolds, out of Drewry Mason in Martinsville.
Wilmer was on the UVa staff from 1984-2001. Welsh was at UVa from 1982-2000.
Wilmer previously had served as an assistant at James Madison, where one of his proteges was Bryan Stinespring, who recently was named head coach at Roanoke College, which is adding football this year.
“Danny recruited me to JMU,” Stinespring pointed out recently.
Wilmer was a graduate of Parry McCluer HIgh School in Buena Vista and later went to Staunton Military Academy before playing at East Carolina. He was an assistant coach at Western New Mexico. He later served at Virginia from 1984-95.
One of Wilmer’s colleagues at UVa was the much-traveled Phil Elmassian, who coached at Virginia from 1987-90. The Cavalier were ranked No. 1 in the country in 1990.
“I worked hard at recruiting,” Elmassian said in a recent interviews. “At certain schools, particularly, I did a good job, but I was never on that level. He was the best. He needs to be put in the Virginia, UVa hall of fame.
“Trust me. He brought more NFL players into that program than anybody. Anybody.
“It’s sad, the way his life ended up, with someone extorting money from him. It was a very low, profile story, but I had heard about it. The last time I saw Andy was at the George Welsh celebration of life. That was about five- or six years ago.”