AFP Podcasts

UVA Athletics isn’t sorry; Abigail Spanberger needs to tell us what she’ll do

Two topics on the news podcast today:

• It has been made abundantly clear to me that UVA Athletics does not want to say anything, publicly, privately or otherwise, regarding the finding of misconduct against associate head swim coach Gary Taylor.
• I have had it up to, wherever, with Virginia Democratstelling me, several times a day, everything that Winsome Earle-Sears is doing wrong. Main issue for me here being: they never tell me what the person who I want to be governor, Abigail Spanberger, wants to do that’s right.

NASCAR charter lawsuit latest

An appeals court lifted an injunction in the antitrust suit filed by the owners of 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports against NASCAR, which could put the status of the two race teams in doubt ahead of the beginning of the trial in December.

Rod Mullins joins me for the podcast to break down the latest developments in the case/.

Rod also reports on the pending closure of the company that produces the grandfather clocks presented to winners at Cup Series races at Martinsville Speedway and the preparations for the 2025 MLB Speedway Classic.

The show wraps with a recap of Shane van Gisbergen’s win in Chicago, and a look ahead to this weekend’s action in Ponoma.

UVA President Jim Ryan resigns

UVA President Jim Ryan, whose contract was extended in 2022, before the MAGAs started gaining power on the BOV, was a goner; the only question was, how?

There was plenty to work with – the issues with leadership at UVA Health, which led to the resignation of its CEO, Craig Kent, in February; the failures on several fronts that factored into the entirely preventable shooting deaths of three UVA Football players in 2022.

Turns out, the leverage point would be DEI, with a pair of UVA alums in the Trump DOJ, Gregory Brown, the deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, and Harmeet K. Dhillon, a civil-rights lawyer in the department, leading the charge on that front.

 

Richard Petty didn’t like Shane Van Gisbergen clinching a NASCAR playoff spot

NASCAR legend Richard Petty seems to think Shane Van Gisbergen did something wrong when Van Gisbergen won his way into the 2025 Cup Series playoffs this past weekend.

We talk about that, plus break down Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s one-off this coming weekend as a crew chief at Pocono.

Inside the decision to cancel the Augusta County Library Pride event

Butch Wells, a member of the Augusta County Board of Supervisors, called me on Wednesday to address the controversial cancellation of a planned Pride Month event at the Augusta County Library that had been scheduled for this past Monday.

The explanation for how things went down last week on this doesn’t put anybody involved in the decision to pull the plug on the Pride Month event in a positive light.

Cav Aquatics, UVA Swimming coach Gary Taylor on probation

Still no news on the status of Gary Taylor, the head coach of Cavalier Aquatics, the Piedmont Family YMCA competitive swim team, and an assistant coach with UVA Swimming, who is currently serving a two-year probation handed down by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

AFP was the first to report on the investigation that concluded with Taylor admitting to emotional misconduct while coaching swimmers from 2015 to 2022 at North Carolina State, Auburn and Cavalier Aquatics.

On the podcast, I report on what we know about the case, and the silence from UVA Athletics and the local YMCA.

VSP, FBI, Homeland Security involved in Harrisonburg immigrant raid

Eight immigrants went to work in Harrisonburg on Tuesday morning and didn’t return home that night.

Crystal Graham tracked down the story of what happened to them, talking with a witness at the scene where the FBI and Homeland Security detained the eight, and threatened locals who tried to intervene to inform the immigrants of their rights.

Bartender, drag queen finds home in Staunton

The Alejandro Queen will bring all her showmanship to the stage – big hair and makeup and elaborate clothing – Saturday night at The Foundry in Waynesboro.

On the pod: I speak with AFP editor Crystal Graham, who interviewed Alejandro Circelli, the Staunton man behind The Alejandro Queen, to talk about how he became a drag performer, his life as a gay man in the conservative Shenandoah Valley, and the importance of LGBTQ+ allies.

Brian O’Connor got his bag of money from Mississippi State

The world learned Thursday night that Brian O’Connor, who had signed an extension with UVA just last June that paid him $1.4 million a year, making him the eight-highest-paid coach in college baseball, is now the second-highest-paid coach in college baseball, at $2.9 million a year.

Mississippi State Athletics went out of its way to make this public – which is to say, they didn’t make reporters file a FOIA request and wait five days to get a copy of the term sheet.

The former Mississippi Agricultural & Mechanical College wanted everybody to know that it had poached its new baseball coach from a blue blood with a $14.2 billion endowment.

The shocking annual salary, and four-year contract, puts a different perspective on the hue and cry from O’Connor from last fall and into the spring about Carla Williams not being willing to give him the resources he needed to be able to compete.

Everything I know about what’s happening with UVA Baseball

I’d much rather be writing about UVA Baseball getting ready for another Super Regional weekend, but things didn’t work out as expected.

Instead, the news is, Brian O’Connor left town in the middle of the night for Mississippi State, supposedly because Mississippi State is a better situation baseball-wise.

I’ve been covering this from all possible angles – examining the money, the impact of the move on O’Connor’s legacy, and where UVA goes to for its next baseball coach.