Interesting Gazette article on the school wanting to raise its profile.

https://www.vagazette.com/news/va-vg-wm-...story.html

Putting the Shaver issue aside, and putting aside any other broken china, I can’t remember any W&M administrators ever giving public voice to the concept of W&M athletics’ success (as measured by the sports universe) as is voiced in this article. Kudos!

I agree. Not trying to dredge up the Shaver issue again, but this article says the administration is finally going to attempt what I have been screaming about to AD's all the way back to John Randolph. Use athletics as one mean to promote the school.

I always got the same lockstep answer. "We don't have the money."

I am all in on this type of focus for the program and support it fully.

By the way, nice article. The Gazette kinda redeemed themselves, after that last fluff piece that came out a few days ago.

Yes, nice to see actual research, interviews, and analysis behind an article.

Winning would be great and would certainly help a lot with recognition and giving. But, I think we need to incrementally increase our undergraduate enrollment to 10,000. Private schools can get away with 6,000 students.



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"The college gave London a $350,000 loan to pay Howard University when he quit as head coach. The college has said it will forgive the buyout at a rate of $70,000 each year. If London leaves in less than five years, he’ll be on the hook for the remainder of the loan."

So, as long as London stays, we paid his $350,000 buyout.

10k undergrads is way different than 6k... not sure that is a good move

(06-28-2019 06:07 PM)soccerguy315 Wrote:  10k undergrads is way different than 6k... not sure that is a good move

I’d hate to see us get to 10k. Small, public, and great.

Also, BillyMac, agreed that I 100% support spending money to grow the program. But man...Paying Tony 1M+ to not coach for us and paying London 350k to not coach for Howard seems egregious and reeks of reckless spending and poorly allocating resources to me.

I’ve never wanted to be more wrong when it comes to Tribe Athletics.

I have to disagree that the Gazette "redeemed" themselves with this article. First off, one of the two authors is Steve Roberts --- he also wrote the "fluff" piece several days ago. This article, as far as I'm concerned, might as well also have been written by the athletic department. Same quotes, same storyline that we have gotten several times already. Moreover, when they list the retired/resigned coaches who have left within the last 12 months, they continue to leave out John Daly (WSoc) and Tyler Thomson (WTen). Thomson resigned less than 12 months ago. Daly "retired" more than 12 months ago but the proper form would be to list him and expand the timeframe a few extra months. In other words, the Tribe has replaced six head coaches since Huge got here.

Another problem with the article is that the graphs did not identify the teams/sports on the x axis in all cases (at least not on my computer). I was left to assume that the bars with the biggest football expenditures were UVA and Tech but otherwise I couldn't tell Liberty from JMU from ODU (and I could tell VCU only because they had no football expenditures).

However, the biggest problem that I had with the article was this early paragraph (bold mine):

"The athletic department’s strategic review audit in 2018 indicated the program has plenty of needs before it can make it to the top: funding, proper facilities, competitive coaching salaries, dedicated student-athletes, support for students and staff, community buy-in and broad media coverage among them."

I have been following Tribe sports since 1974 and the one thing that has been consistent throughout that entire time is that the student-athletes have always been super dedicated. Dedication from the student-athletes is NOT a need, it is a given.

Edit -- If that verbiage above actually came out of the W&M Strategic Review itself, then whoever wrote that should be severely reprimanded and is also obviously a person with a very short term experience with the College.

(06-28-2019 10:54 PM)Zorch Wrote:  I have to disagree that the Gazette "redeemed" themselves with this article. First off, one of the two authors is Steve Roberts --- he also wrote the "fluff" piece several days ago. This article, as far as I'm concerned, might as well also have been written by the athletic department. Same quotes, same storyline that we have gotten several times already. Moreover, when they list the retired/resigned coaches who have left within the last 12 months, they continue to leave out John Daly (WSoc) and Tyler Thomson (WTen). Thomson resigned less than 12 months ago. Daly "retired" more than 12 months ago but the proper form would be to list him and expand the timeframe a few extra months. In other words, the Tribe has replaced six head coaches since Huge got here.

Another problem with the article is that the graphs did not identify the teams/sports on the x axis in all cases (at least not on my computer). I was left to assume that the bars with the biggest football expenditures were UVA and Tech but otherwise I couldn't tell Liberty from JMU from ODU (and I could tell VCU only because they had no football expenditures).

However, the biggest problem that I had with the article was this early paragraph (bold mine):

"The athletic department’s strategic review audit in 2018 indicated the program has plenty of needs before it can make it to the top: funding, proper facilities, competitive coaching salaries, dedicated student-athletes, support for students and staff, community buy-in and broad media coverage among them."

I have been following Tribe sports since 1974 and the one thing that has been consistent throughout that entire time is that the student-athletes have always been super dedicated. Dedication from the student-athletes is NOT a need, it is a given.

Edit -- If that verbiage above actually came out of the W&M Strategic Review itself, then whoever wrote that should be severely reprimanded and is also obviously a person with a very short term experience with the College.

"Dedicated student athletes" probably refers to ones not interested in the student part. Lots of schools talk about academics, but then steer athletes to particular "easy" majors and reduced course loads. I have spoken with parents of athletes who relayed how, once enrolled, their child was discouraged from participating in honors programs that they had been accepted to.

I hope W&M doesn't go down the path of significantly lowering admissions standards for athletes and then just steering them to whatever are the "easy" majors at W&M and just keeping them eligible.

I'd like to see the football and hoops programs win a few championships in my lifetime, but only if the character of the education given doesn't have to change along with it.