Cavalier Corner

October 2015

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High School — being a pretty scary sight when they were younger. "Ross has always been a big, huge, red-headed guy," he said with a smile. "Ross was always the biggest guy on the field during his day at Cox and Great Neck in middle school. He was just huge. "I remember when I faced him in middle school for the first time. I believe it was a scrimmage, and Ross was the tallest, biggest kid out there," Dean said. "He was bigger than the coaches, and he basically destroyed me that game. "But I was pretty small. I didn't hit my growth spurt until later." Burbank hasn't let him forget about that first encounter. "We joke about it pretty often still," Dean said. "But Ross has always been a load. At Cox, he was a big guy, and I played against him a lot all four years." Since both guys played both offense and de- fense, they got a fairly large dose of each other every year. And yet, even during their respective recruitments, they weren't exactly great friends. "We had a much more competitive relationship than one where we said we'd go hit the movies or the mall or whatever," Burbank recalled. "We always knew who each other were, all the way back to middle school, and every game we lined up against each other." "We actually didn't know too much about each other when we committed," Dean added. "We knew of each other, and we always competed against each other. We'd see each other on visits, but we didn't really have that many conversations. "There was an understanding that we were from the same area, and we could both come to UVa and do big things together. We didn't know that was how it was going to play out." By the time they each arrived on Grounds in the summer of 2011, there was a strong contingent of talent from Virginia Beach and the overall "757" heading for Charlottesville. It was then that the

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