Prickly public persona doomed Leitao

Several images come to mind when most people think of former Virginia coach Dave Leitao.

There are the ones of Leitao berating his players in front of 14,000 fans. There are the ones of Leitao being curt with the media. There are the ones of Leitao cursing at officials and sometimes even his own athletic trainers.

In most of the mental snapshots, the 6-foot-7 Leitao comes across as angry and menacing.

Very few people have images of a jovial Leitao — even during the team’s run to a share of the ACC regular-season championship in 2007.

In the end, the negative perception might have been one of the final factors that led to his downfall.

The unfortunate part for Leitao is that the people closest to him — even the players who have left the program on seemingly bad terms — say that behind closed doors, Leitao, for the most part, is a really good guy.

But Leitao only allowed a select few into his inner circle. If you weren’t in that small contingent, you were basically left on the outside looking in.

And when that happened, it was only natural for outsiders to believe that Leitao’s personality off the court was the same as it was on the court and in front of television cameras.

“Not everybody saw coach Leitao off the court,” said Virginia sophomore Mike Scott. “Most people [saw] him yelling or whatever during games.

“But if you went upstairs and talked to him, he’s calm, cool, laughing and joking. We used to joke around all the time. Most people don’t see that. In the games, he’s just amped up and competing and wanting to win.”

Scott and Leitao had numerous verbal spats during games — so many that some insiders surmised that Scott would have transferred if Leitao hadn’t departed. However, Scott dispelled that notion emphatically.

“It may have seemed a lot of times like we were having feuds on the court, but what coach and player don’t do that?” Scott said. “He just challenged me a lot and wanted me to compete.”

Initially, ACC rookie of the year Sylven Landesberg said he was a bit confused with some of Leitao’s tactics.

“I would wonder, ‘Why would he yell at me for this or get on me for that?’” Landesberg said. “It took me a while to understand that it was a point of motivation.”

Added freshman Sammy Zeglinski: “His competitiveness was unmatched. He just really taught me how to compete.”

Former Virginia player Will Harris, who is now at Albany, said he had problems with Leitao’s player rotations and substitution patterns but never any issues with his personality.

“I felt for him,” said Harris, when asked how he had reacted to Leitao’s departure. “I like him as a person. He just got a rough deal.”

The flip side to the sentiments from Leitao’s inner circle were those from the outer one.

Former Virginia radio color commentator Jim Hobgood was often disrespected by Leitao during postgame interviews. In an infamous session in Puerto Rico three seasons ago, Leitao virtually ignored Hobgood, a former UVa player.

“Maybe I’ve reached the age where I take the attitude of, ‘I don’t necessarily need to deal with that any longer,’” said Hobgood a few months back, when asked about his relationship with Leitao.

Hobgood wasn’t alone in his frustrations. A number of former players never made Leitao’s inner circle.

One recent Virginia graduate, a starter for Leitao, e-mailed The Daily Progress shortly after the coach’s departure. “Justice served, ha ha,” the player wrote.

Several former Wahoos who never played for Leitao often complained of his failure to reach out to them and fellow alums.

Donors to the program complained of Leitao’s unfriendliness.

Media members were subjected to a restrictive policy instituted by Leitao assistant Rick Brunson that forbade journalists from stopping by unannounced.

Virginia athletic trainer Jeff Boyer, who used to work with the basketball team, was the victim of a Leitao in-game tirade that led to his being reassigned to the school’s soccer teams.

Over the course of the last four years, a good number of fans were upset with the language that Leitao used on the sidelines with young children present.

One opposing fan from Gonzaga who lives in Spokane, Wash., wrote in to say that in all her years of watching basketball, she had never heard a coach with a dirtier mouth than Leitao’s.

“I can’t repeat any of it,” said former Virginia player J.R. Reynolds, when asked about Leitao’s motivational techniques two years ago.

Virginia junior Jamil Tucker said Leitao’s criticism was always “constructive.”

“It’s nothing to make me feel bad as a person,” said Tucker during the 2007-08 season. “It’s just ways to make me better. As long as I keep that in my mind, it’s never been a problem.”

But to outsiders looking in, maybe it was.