Princess Anne High’s Buster O’Brien was a prolific passer long before the passing game took flight

Most high school football teams in South Hampton Roads in the 1960s thrived with a simple game plan: power football.

The “three yards and a cloud of dust” mantra, coined by Ohio State coach Woody Hayes a decade earlier, and rugged running offenses still ruled the game.

But out at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, Buster O’Brien arrived at quarterback, and the Cavaliers took to the air. O’Brien passed, and passed often, on his way to the top of the Virginia High School League and South Hampton Roads leaderboards, and he stayed alone there for decades before more pass-happy programs came along.

O’Brien took the reins as a sophomore in 1961 and, by the end of his high school career in 1963, had piled up 5,435 passing yards.

“We didn’t throw as much as they do today, but we threw more than anyone else did,” O’Brien told The Pilot in 2012 .

O’Brien, who went on to star for the University of Richmond before becoming a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and a longtime circuit court judge in Virginia Beach, died Monday. He was 78.

O’Brien is a member of the VHSL Hall of Fame, the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and the University of Richmond Hall of Fame. He served as a circuit court judge in Virginia Beach until his mandatory retirement at age 73. He left Richmond as the Spiders’ all-time leader in every passing category and was the Southern Conference Player of the Year in 1968.

“Buster O’Brien represented the best of Richmond Athletics: a tremendous man, a gifted athlete and a steady captain who led his team to titles on the field and then led his community as a judge and state delegate,” University of Richmond Vice President and Director of Athletics John P. Hardt said in a statement released by the school this week. “He will be deeply missed.”

William R. O’Brien was born in 1946 in Norfolk and in 1960 was a freshman at Princess Anne High, where he was the freshman quarterback on the junior varsity. The Cavaliers’ varsity squad won just a game in 1960 under coach Pete Sachon, who arrived at PA after guiding teams at Newport News, Wilson (Portsmouth) and Norview (Norfolk) high schools. Sachon had won a state title with Wilson in 1954 and another with Norview the following year — state championships were determined by a points system.

O’Brien, who went by “Buster” back then and into his 70s, found a connection with receiver Charlie Carr, and soon the Cavaliers were the area’s most prolific passing offense. And it wasn’t close.

“The passing game started to develop, and (Sachon) just let me go,” O’Brien said. “I don’t know that he ever called a play for me in three years. I’m sure he must have, but I don’t remember it.”

O’Brien and Carr rewrote the record books.

O’Brien threw 21 touchdown passes as a sophomore, setting South Hampton Roads’ single-season record and the career record.

“It was just something that just clicked,” Carr once told The Pilot of those early seasons.

Sachon “was a pioneer in many ways. Those were the days of the old Wing-T and the ground and pound.”

As seniors, O’Brien and Carr helped Princess Anne finish 9-1 and win the Eastern District title. O’Brien threw for 538 yards and seven touchdowns in his final game, while Carr caught 17 passes for 261 yards in the finale.

O’Brien left Princess Anne with 5,435 career passing yards and 61 career regular-season touchdown passes — both the most in South Hampton Roads history at the time, and for long after.

In 1990, Wilson’s Aaron Sparrow finished his career with 78 regular-season TD throws to surpass O’Brien. O’Brien’s passing-yards mark stood on top even longer: Western Branch’s Ryan Pond finished with 5,739 from 2000-03 to pass him.

By 2019, seven other South Hampton Roads quarterbacks had thrown for more than 5,000 yards and pushed O’Brien further down the list.

The VHSL’s all-time top 10 in passing yards now feature no quarterbacks who played before the mid-1990s, and all 10 have more than 9,000 career yards. The state’s career leader in passing touchdowns is Tristan Evans-Trujillo of Woodbridge’s Freedom High with 121, followed by Oscar Smith’s Phillip Sims with 119. Five others have at least 100, and each of the top seven on the list played after 2003.

O’Brien’s name remains in the VHSL record book, though. His 568 yards against Warwick on Nov. 15, 1963, rank third on the single-game list, and his seven touchdown passes in that game are tied for fifth all-time with a dozen others.

“I don’t think any of us appreciated it at the time,” said Carr, who played for North Carolina and later became the athletic director at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

O’Brien was at Notre Dame for a year before transferring closer to home to the University of Richmond.

O’Brien’s college marks also have mostly been passed in recent years. But his 4,424 career passing yards still rank ninth at UR, and his 688 career passes are eighth.

In the 1968 Tangerine Bowl, O’Brien threw for 447 yards and four touchdowns on 38-of-58 passing as the Spiders knocked off 17th-ranked Ohio University 49-42. Richmond (8-3) finished that season ranked 20th in the Associated Press national poll.

O’Brien, who obtained his law degree from William & Mary, was a state delegate from 1980-85, a trial lawyer for more than 20 years and a circuit court judge for 21 years.

Jami Frankenberry, sports editor at The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, can be reached at jami.frankenberry@pilotonline.com .