Former Virginia basketball player and assistant Chip Conner dies at 81 (2024)

CHARLOTTESVILLE – When people point to the 1971-72 college basketball season as the one that launched Virginia’s program toward the success it would find later in the decade, invariably, they bring up star player Barry Parkhill, who led the team to 21 wins that year.

But Parkhill said that, if not for a lesser-known name, he might never have gotten to UVa from western Pennsylvania.

Parkhill had been invited to work as a counselor at a basketball camp in Gettysburg, one that Virginia head basketball coach Bill Gibson helped run. Gibson was traveling overseas but his lead assistant, Chip Conner, worked the camp and noticed Parkhill during the games the counselors would play.

“The last game I lit it up. I couldn’t do anything wrong,” Parkhill said Tuesday. “The next day, my dad comes to pick me up and Coach Conner comes over and asks me to visit Virginia. I committed to Virginia early on and it was the best decision I ever made, all thanks to Coach Conner.”

Conner, a former high school and Virginia basketball star who later served as an assistant coach for the Cavaliers, died Friday at 81, after a short battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Conner, who starred at Halifax County High School and was named Virginia’s Mr. Basketball in 1960, played at UVa from 1960-64, scoring 1,157 career points. A first-team All-ACC selection as a senior, Conner ranked sixth all-time in scoring in program history at the time of his graduation.

Conner taught and coached at the now-defunct Lane High School in Charlottesville for two years after his playing career ended, then returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach for Gibson.

Still a young man at that point, Conner enjoyed competing with the UVa players. Parkhill, who wore number 40 at Virginia because it was Conner's number as a Cavalier, recalled playing games of horse and one-on-one with Conner, while Jim Hobgood, the second-leading scorer on the 1971-72 team, said Conner would challenge the team away from the court, as well.

Hobgood and teammates Chip Miller and Scott McCandlish devised a variation of softball played with three-man teams.

“We designed the rules to suit our talents,” Hobgood said. “We were rather obnoxious talking about our skill level. Coach Conner decided he was going to put a team together to take us one.”

For his team, Conner recruited a former Virginia baseball player for the lineup.

Hobgood said Conner also was an invaluable resource helping his players navigate the university.

“Coach Conner was the one guy on the staff who actually had attended Virginia,” Hobgood said. “He sort of became our inhouse academic advisor. If you had a question about course registration or things like that, he was sort of our go-to guy.”

In 1974, Conner left Virginia, following Gibson to South Florida. After Gibson’s sudden death prior to the 1975-76 season, Conner took over as the program’s head coach and led the Bulls for five years.

Conner’s first season saw USF go 19-8, but he would not post another winning record there. In all, he went 59-62 with the Bulls before being let go midway through the 1979-80 campaign.

In 1980, Conner and his family moved to the Richmond area where he began a career in real estate. All the while, he stayed in touch with his former players, including Parkhill, and would return to UVa for basketball reunions.

“He was one of my favorite human beings, from the time I was in high school to the time he passed away on Friday,” Parkhill said. “I sort of worshipped the ground he walked on. He was just one of those guys you couldn’t help but like.”