I was taking a look at Hokie Club this morning and saw that there was a difference in the donor numbers and rankings between the main page and the new "Donor Central".
From 2020 to 2021 there was a reduction in donors by 1,767 from 10,924 to 9,157. Is this just incomplete data since March 31st isn't here yet. I also thought we were sitting at the 17,000-18,000 mark as far as HC members.
What am I missing?
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
I have a couple of Golden Hokies that live across the street from me that left after last years debacle of a season and follow on press conference. Maybe others are tired of the state of the program too?
I imagine there are people that pulled their donations due to financial hardships from COVID, and there are also some that realized they didn't miss going to games as much as they thought they would.
That could be the death knoll to many a program.
death knell might be a bit hyperbolic, but it can and will absolutely shift how athletic departments operate.
And others are miffed at the AD accepting and acknowledging clearly that Wake Forest/Purdue football is the standard moving forward. Try hard and maybe pick off UVA now and then. After all, Fuente has it tough at VT- other teams are allowed to walk into Merryman from time to time.
Even our not-so-great last five years is still better than Wake's last five years, in terms of winning percentage (which is probably the high watermark for that team since Jim Caldwell was the head coach). Perdue has one winning season in the last ten years. "Try hard and maybe pick off UVA..." - we've lost to UVA twice in the last 22 years.
I get that it's your shtick, but please quit the hyperbolic bullshit. It's possible to acknowledge the disappointment without saying we're in the Purdue/Vandy/Kansas tier. Wake is close but still not great - we're probably closer to a Pitt or Minnesota, two average teams with high variance.
So you won't argue that Whit has accepted mediocrity, cool. You just don't like the teams I chose. Cool. You got the point- Whit openly acknowledged that there are no expectations - glad you see that.
I'm not thrilled with how the last two seasons have gone, but I also understand that being an actual AD is probably much harder than the armchair analysts think it is. There is a reason why Whit Babcock is generally well regarded by other ADs, and by the people that work with him on a day-to-day basis.
It's hard to say that Whit's accepted mediocrity when he's raised the bar in almost all the sports outside of football. Baseball is ranked, Men's Basketball is ranked, Women's Basketball is on the cusp of being good, Wrestling and Track & Field are championship level currently. That may not matter to you, but it does to me.
Football is entirely different - the scale of it is so much bigger that you can't solely throw money at everything (and that is assuming non-pandemic level funding issues, just look at Texas post-Mack Brown.) My view of the situation: Whit recognizes that more could go into football without hitting massively diminishing returns. The risks of firing CJF now isn't worth the buyout when they are trying to make these investments. I think this year the expectations aren't solely about winning but also making sure the baseline of the team is improving so that if we do make a change there can be expectations. After all, winning is not that easy.
Well maybe in years 10-12 Justin Fuente can win. I'm sure the fans will still be on board then.
Yea I am happy those other sports are doing well, but they cease to exist or don't have the funds to build their programs without football... Whit has done a good job with the other sports, but his track record for football is a lot left to be desired. If the lack of support/excitement/attendance/donorship for football continues its downward trend, the outlook for the non-revenue sports are looking so hot.
Ex. I like how we are spending money to renovate Cassell, but I would honestly have liked them to spend most of it towards the football program for more hirings/current staff that deserves raises (so the important ones don't leave), football facilities, recruiting budget, etc... VT is a football school, even when they suck ass. That is the money maker... you invest as much as you can (in a responsible way) that has the most ROI, and at VT, its football by a thousand miles. Once more money starts pouring in, that's when you should/can allocate more money to the non/less revenue making sports.
To be fair though, Whit stopped short of expressing any clear expectations in his press conference, even when pushed on the subject by the beat reporters. He offered nothing more than a vague "we need to be getting better" comment. It's understandable for fans to be anxious that a mediocre season (read: 6-6, 7-5) is not going to be enough to force Whit to make a change on Fuente.
Doing some parts of your jobs well, but the most important part only mediocre to poor would grade out to poor performance in most jobs
Yes and no. Football is underperforming Virginia Tech expectations but is (unfortunately) on par with just about every other Coastal ACC team not named UNC. It is entirely average. Do I like that? No, not at all.
But... and this is a big one, sometimes the best move is not making a move. I think we underestimate the risks in firing a coach. We just assume it's going to work out for the better. Sometimes it does work out, like UNC bringing back Mack Brown, sometimes it fails spectacularly like ECU firing Ruffin McNeil, Nebraska firing Bo Pelini, Ole Miss firing Cutcliffe to name a few. Other coaching changes are just lateral moves that don't really move the needle one way or the other.
The biggest problem Fuente has had is the recent dropoff in recruiting and retaining talent. There is probably some truth to the opinion that his early classes could be the result of being a fresh face at VT. There is probably truth to be worried that classes in the 40s-50s could become the norm and not the exception (I do think the 2020 class in the 70s is still an exception - add like three more 3* guys and its probably mid-50s - but that's just me). The problem was there were underlying issues in recruiting that Beamer and Foster covered up by being Hall of Fame-caliber coaches. But they can't coach forever. I don't think Fuente has solved them, but (call me crazy) I do think that JC Price, Ryan Smith, and Adam Lechtenberg (and to an extent, Darryl Tapp) have a plan to rebuild recruiting. Moving on now, getting rid of that, could leave the next coach in an even worse hole with fewer resources to fix it because of COVID's impact on budgets.
Even if I am more optimistic than most, I still think that there is a ton of uncertainty around the program which casts a negative light on almost everything we do. I can't tell you that your disappointment, anger, frustration, [insert emotion here] is not valid... it is! But the reasons I keep writing these long ass posts are that I want to try to contextualize my understanding of the faults in VT sports, football in particular, and not couch everything in "We suck, Whit sucks, Dr. Sands is trying to ruin sports..."
I can't get onboard with the argument that the potential of a new coach not working out justifies not making a move. Fu is who he is at this point, and we see the trajectory we are on. The only shot at significantly improving that trajectory is in making a move. Sure, it might not work out, but I would take a 50/50 chance any day over status quo. Plus, the longer this drags on and the worse things get, the harder it will be to dig ourselves out and reinvigorate donors/overall program interest. When apathy creeps in, it's tough to bounce back.
Coaches get a 4-5 year window in today's game to establish their culture and recruit their players. That's plenty of time to see what they can do and where they project. The returns, financially and in performance, diminish significantly after that time period if they can't win. The likelihood of a significant turnaround also decreases. Dragging this out makes the recovery longer and more difficult.
Exactly! And Fuente has had 5 seasons to show us what we can expect. 2021 will be his 6th season as the coach. I think, based on the evidence amassed over the first 5 years, that it is unlikely things will get substantially better. But he's going to be the coach in 2021 so there is a (rather slim) chance he will win 10 games and recruit a top 30 recruiting class. I guess that's what Whit is hoping for. But what will we do when we go 6-6 (or worse) and recruit in the 50s or 60s (or worse)? Fuente has had his 5 year window to establish a culture/identity and recruit talent to fulfil his vision. 5 years in and I don't know his vision. I can't say we have established a culture. I'm not sure what our identity is. And recruiting is nothing to get particularly excited about. According to Whit there is a plan. But I don't have any idea what that plan is. Even if I did, I don't have a vision to compare it to so I wouldn't know whether that plan is good or not. VT football is broken right now and I just don't see any evidence that Fuente is doing anything to fix it. There has been very little progress in 5 years. The Oline has improved. But just about every other facet of VT football has gotten measurably worse. I don't expect a new coach to win in his first 3 seasons. But I do expect a new coach to show measurable progress in multiple areas. Progress is an indicator of future success. Fuente has largely failed to show progress. Therefore, there are no indicators of future success as far as I can tell. He's had 5 years to show us what he's got. I think we've seen the best we're going to get from him at this point. How can we realistically expect that to change in the next 5 years?
Appreciate your opinion. It's well thought it and pretty unbiased. I do disagree and think complacency is worst thing a program can do.
I don't really think they're talking about complacency. They're talking about risk management. Either way, there are going to be differing opinions on which is riskier: keeping a lame duck coach longer, or trying to hire someone who is an unknown. I don't think either side will ever convince the other that one route is more risky than the other. Risk is super subjective and everyone even has a different tolerance for risk.
Ultimately, I think the whole debate around whether to keep Fuente or sack him comes down to each individual's opinion about what could potentially do more long term harm to the program. And frankly, we're all foolish for thinking we can predict the future. Nobody really knows which route will cause more harm. And, fortunately or unfortunately, we'll never know for sure because we'll never be able to live out both scenarios to see. So we will continue arguing about this for a long, long time. Even when Fuente is long-gone there will still be debates and "what-ifs" about whether the pain we're experiencing in the current moment would be worse or not if we had done X on date Y instead of doing Z on date W.
At the end of the day we all want the same thing. We want Hokies football to be fun to watch and successful. Both of these are somewhat subjective, although you can attach some metrics to success. So debates will never end. People will always have different opinions about what is fun. What is successful? How do we get there? And we're never going to know for sure whose opinions are "right" and whose are "wrong"
I know that most people here believe that football is 'the most important part' but a lot of people (include the people who write checks to Whit) may view it differently. I'm sure they all recognize that football is 'most' important, but they might view it as 15% of Whit's job instead of 75-80% (which is how many people here feel).
Just remember that Caldwell was allegedly one of the targets in our HC search
Who? Jim Caldwell? Dave Clawson? Jamey Chadwell? They're three different people.
Clawson, excuse me
Some donors are tired of the myriad of lame excuses that come out of the football program. the product stinks and there are 10 million reasons why Justin Fuente is set up to fail. A million excuses for insane roster turnover. A million excuses. Donors aren't fools.
Thinking that putting less money into the program is going to help the future of the program is a pretty foolish thing. Just saying.
Also the hokie scholarship fund goes towards all of our athletic teams. Last time I checked, we have
56 teams currently ranked in the top 25 (men's soccer, wrestling, womens lax, baseball, softball, basketball).Edit: Corrected to reflect Men's Soccer also being ranked.
We all know football stirs the drink. We all know that. Until Coach Young is in the elite 8 /sweet 16 on the regular, football will be king in Blacksburg- and most P5 schools not named Duke, Kansas, UNC and Kentucky.
While I don't agree with DCWilson's bombastic style he does have some valid points.
This is a two way street. People aren't going to be willing to continue throwing money at a problem that isn't getting any better. VT football has been steadily declining since 2016. That was the high watermark of the Fuente era and things have been getting worse on both the recruiting trail and the gridiron since. There are two types of spending. Investing(speculating, in this case) and consuming. You're talking about investing. DCWilson is talking about consuming. Fans who believe they will get more value for their money in the future will invest their money in the program. Fans who expect to pay for a good product will pay to consume said product. To your point we do need investor-type spenders who are willing to prop up the program in order to achieve the goals that the consumers want to pay to see. But to DCWilson's point, it is important for the program to actually demonstrate that they are using the investments wisely to improve the product enough that the consumers will be willing to pay for it. The trend of the product on the field is a concern. We might just be losing consumer spending at the moment but if the product continues to get worse (and trends are indicating that) investors will eventually start to pull out as well if they start to believe that there is little chance for them to get good value for their money in the future.
It's a vicious cycle but it is what it is. We're living in a capitalist economy. You have to accept the good and the bad that comes with that. VT football needs to strike that balance of funding streams from investors and consumers. When consumer spending goes down that is a harbinger of future declines in investments. That should be a clear signal to the administrators that changes are necessary to keep investors interested. The program absolutely has to demonstrate to the investors that things will improve. And when things do improve, consumer spending will go up again. If nothing changes, investors lose interest and pull out and then you're toast.
Yes, ideally, people will just continue to blindly throw money at VT and hope that things will get better. But things don't work like that. People need to believe that their money is going to be put to good use. If people don't think their money is being used wisely, or if the product they're paying for isn't satisfactory, then you're going to lose their funding. You can't fault people for that. If the program could demonstrate some amount of progress there should follow a stream of investment funding which would yield more progress thus improving the product and leading to more consumer spending. Our concern at the moment is that there is no progress. That is a big f***ing problem.
I guess that's where I'm just a different fan/supporter than you and DC. I'm not donating to the program for a return on investment, I'm donating to support a program that I'm passionate about. Having seen the disparity between our resources and other schools and the adverse effect that has had on our program, the logical decision to me has only been to up my donations since we have started struggling to try and close that gap.
Yet again, I also know my money goes to more than just the football team. If ROI is your main concern then I'd point towards the 5 ranked teams i previously mentioned and the upward trajectory they are on.
I'm grateful for folks like you who are willing and able to donate money to the VT program with no expectation of ROI. I truly am. But we have to be realistic that you are very much in the minority in that regard. Most folks are not going to be willing or able to do that. If VT has a money problem part of addressing that problem is providing evidence through key performance indicators that they are doing the best they can with what they have. Prove to the less willing folks that if they had more money they would be better. The argument that I'm making is that VT hasn't done enough with what they have to entice more folks to give them money. I, and I thnk DC, understand that VT needs money to stay competitive. But VT needs to understand that they need to do a better job selling donors on their vision and they can't just rely on passionate and altruistic donors such as yourself.
I think you would be surprised that i'm not probably in the minority. I think if i was in the minority, Whit would have made a change. If we are looking at this from a purely capitalistic viewpoint, then Whit would have done risk/reward analysis on the financial implications of keeping Fuente. Obviously after doing the research he felt comfortable enough that the majority of donors are more like me and would continue to donate if he retained Fuente and compared that to the long term implications from the potential downside of a coaching change.
I've donated every year since 1998. I donate to support the program too. It's not tied to wins and loses. But when the AD holds a press conference after the first losing season in 27 years- including a home loss to an in-state online religious school that moved to D1 5 minutes ago- and says "I'm pleased" and "This is year zero", I listen. I get the message. That is where VT football is. Losing to Liberty and Wake, and not competitive physically with Pitt or close to Clemson- and the AD is fine with it. That speaks loud and clear to me as a donor. Expectations lowered, so I will plan my donations accordingly.
For those donors looking for ROI, the distinction is the amount you are donating. Certainly some lower level donors are going to have the same thinking, but when you are talking about real return on donations your likely donating millions. If you're at that level I salute you.
But most likely, as with me, we are probably wading in the shallow end of the pool. This is who I took Whit to mean as not counting or whatever he said in that disaster of a press conference.
High level donors want to see their money make the program succeed. There are a few ways to do that. Either you donate for something specific so you can see your money is being used for something you value, you give more money to general fund when pleased to support the growth of a program you are happy with or, and to the point, you withhold funding to voice your displeasure. Withholding may also come in the way of making offers to help with things like payouts for coaches, etc. That's why ADs and HCs, as part of their job description, need to fund raise, otherwise people would just give like you are.
But in my experience it is highly unlikely for a high level donor to operate as you describe.
Telling us we need to put in more to make up for a bad staff that the AD is unwilling to set public expectations for is an even more foolish thing.
I could make a pretty sound argument that donating to an organization already making millions is a pretty foolish thing to do. But, we do it to be better. So, the only thing more foolish would be to pull those donations (making us worse) because we aren't better.
The VT football program pays $2 expecting $3 value but actually getting $1 value. Paying $1 will only guarantee we don't rise above $1 value.
it is well established that people, at large, are dumb. They're ultimately going to act in their best interest. You can call people who continue to invest in a product that isn't improving fools. They could call people who don't want to spend money to help the product improve fools. Ultimately, though, this is capitalism and there needs to be a product that consumers will pay to consume. Investors know that they can get a good return by investing in "good" investments. Good meaning that there are indicators that the product will become popular. Foolish investors throw money at "bad" investments. Bad meaning there are indicators that the product will get worse or that there are no indicators that the product will get better. You don't know who the fools are until the dust settles. But when the product doesn't improve, your investors will be the fools. When it does, everyone else will be the fool. VT needs to make the investors look like geniuses. It's not doing that. The current indicators suggest that VT football is a bad investment. They need to change something to encourage investors to believe it is a good investment.
You're absolutely right that the fools will only be known when the dust settles. The only thing I would argue against your analogy is that investors can recognize a bad investment and reinvest in a more profitable venture. Football fans are emotionally attached and want their specific product to succeed.
This seems like a strange stance to take when you're arguing that we should be investing our money in the program in order to make it better. Perhaps DCWilson is the investor who is aware that it is a bad investment and is investing in more profitable ventures....
Look, I'm not going to argue that VT doesn't need the money. As a fan I would love for everyone to throw money at VT so that VT could hopefully get better. But VT needs to demonstrate that they can take advantage of the resources they do have. Under Fuente, that just hasn't been the case for the football program. If VT can't prove that they're doing more with less than they're not going to get more and they will continue to get worse. We're fans. We want VT to succeed no matter what. But we have to be realistic as well. If VT can't demonstrate that they're making good use of the resources they have what incentive is there, really, for us to give them more resources?
I'm willing to bet that if a major change is made, people would be re-incentivized to invest more. If the football team demonstrates measurable progress that will encourage the fan base and the donor base alike. So far, neither of those has happened. 2021 will be a critical season for Fuente. He badly needs to stop the slide he's been on since 2016 and show that this team is making progress in one form or another. If he doesn't, what then?
You can look at a team and program outside of raw wins and loses though. Are they improving? Are they bringing in better recruits? Is there an identity? Do they compete hard? Are they well coached? If those trent lines are moving up, that's one argument- even if the team is not winning games right away. Look at Duke football- nobody is going to argue they are poorly coached, they actually develop QBs and compete- even though it doesn't translate to W/L or great recruiting- but that's what Duke is. VT? we bounce off of Pitts players trying to tackle them. We have no physicality, we are not a high powered offense, we can't field punts consistently, we don't develop QB's, etc. The line is trending down- to include recruiting. It's not just about W/L.
If we all agree that a donation is an investment, then a donation today is either going to go toward a Fuente led team a few years from now that has proven Whit right, or it is going toward Fuente's replacement that most of the fanbase wants and expects. Either way it is illogical to hold back money as some sort of statement. Now, if you want to talk about donors that are just becoming apathetic and falling away, that is a different and also very real problem. Will they return when we win again or not? I am not sure since the sport in general is slowly losing popularity as younger fans are less engaged.
That's the thing though, Whit isnt showing us that those are the clear two options. Then we would be having a completely different conversation. The root cause is that Whit is showing us option 3 that actually they might do nothing. And their apathy is feeding ours.
If an investment has a 2 or 3 year return window, what exactly has Whit said that indicates he is willing to maintain status quo with no improvement over that same period?
well, for starters, Fuente has been in Blacksburg for 5 years and the measurable metrics have mostly trended down over his tenure. By saying he's standing by this coach and that this coach has "a plan" (but, I'll note, nobody knows that plan) that is pretty clear that he's willing to maintain the status quo with no improvement over that same period. In fact, he's willing to see the exact opposite of improvement and still keep Fuente employed. What is the messaging there?
I try to put myself in a situation where the pandemic didn't exist. In that case, I would agree with you 100% and I also think Whit would have pulled the trigger this year (or the season's results would have been better). But, reality as it is, he didn't. The past years in no way provides evidence that Whit is keeping a .500 coach forever.
It is very hard to assign a win total that is good enough to please the masses. So, I will pose the question this way: if Fuente has an equally bad or worse season in 2021, what percent chance do you give that Whit makes the same choice again? I will say 1.5% chance.
Like I said though, it is hard to say whether 7, 8, 9, 12 wins will be enough to truly change folks' opinions. We can save that discussion until we have witnessed the specifics of the season.
I will agree to this statement. I'll also add that the past years in no way provides evidence that Whit isn't keeping a .500 coach forever.
We just don't know. But there are lots of things we don't know which makes this whole speculative process so much more challenging (and contentious). We don't know what the plan is. We don't know what Fuente's vision is. We don't know why recruiting is struggling so much. We don't know why the team is so inconsistent. Sometimes they look great. Sometimes they look like a .500 high school squad. We just don't know what ails this program. But we do know that it's Fuente's job to figure that out and fix it. I just don't think he's done a good job of that in his 5 years. There were problems with VT football when he arrived in 2016. But there seem to be even more problems with VT football now. We're moving in the wrong direction. That's all I know.
I honestly believe that given the absence of a global pandemic that Whit would have pulled the trigger in December.
However, we are/were in the middle of a pandemic. Whit had just had to over see the elimination of a lot of jobs, and an across the board salary reduction to his ENTIRE department. I think he weighed all of those factors, including an 8 figure payout before he made the decision. The result was trying to put lipstick on a pig and it showed in that press conference.
If we have another mediocre year, the vaccines allow us to start operating normally, and the buyout has dropped to just 7 figures, I believe that Whit will pull the trigger.
Fuente got a stay of execution due to the pandemic. He needs to be coaching and recruiting his way to keep that stay in place.
We know he won't keep him forever, the issue is I don't want to keep him until our reputation is conflated as a .500 team. Dumping a bad coach is a sign to fans, recruits, and the media that you aren't willing to accept accept those results. Right now, we literally are
How about this- forget about the win totals. How about beating an in state FCS school? How about you beat Wake Forest? How about you field a team that doesn't get pushed around by Pitt? How about developing a QB and a passing game? How about recruiting in the top half of the ACC? the w/l will take care of itself if you aren't getting your ass kicked by Liberty.
Ok. But you are still describing arbitrary outcomes. If we pull an upset and then get upset, that is actually normal. At the end if the day we need to be better. And, if we arent better at wins, recruiting, beating in state schools, I have a really hard time believing Whit makes a 2020 decision in 2021. If we are objectively better, but only a little bit, that decision becomes murkier. For instance, lets say next December, BB surprises us, but we still have overall talent limitations leading to a 8-4 record and on track for a top 30 recruiting class....the fanbase would still be divided. What about 9-3 and top 25 recruiting. What about 10-2 but only top 50 recruiting? I can't say until my eye test unfolds. But I do not think he gets another year being the same or worse.
Besides JMU in 2010 what FCS teams has Tech lost to?
The rankings and donor numbers in "donor central" are purely based off of numbers as of 6/3/2020. In the about us section of the Hokie Club, they said there was a 10% increase in membership. I don't think we'll know the 2021-22 numbers until later this spring.
Where did you see the reduced number? I'm only seeing the 10,924 as of 6/3/2020. I don't see any '2021' numbers anywhere - either an increase or a decrease.
It's in Whit's statement in the About Us section on the hokie club main page.
Yeah - I read the hand-wavey 10% increase statement but I couldn't find the original statement
The reporting on those #'s is such a mixed bag. I know in the past there's been different counts for those donating to the Scholarship Fund vs donating to athletics overall
Speaking from my experience - I donated my season ticket purchase last year to the "keep jumping" effort. Little did I know, that did not count towards my Hokie Club membership.
I logged in to renew my tickets (for the 16th year in a row) and found that I was not a Hokie Club member for 2021 even though I donated $1800 in 2020.
Long story short, I had a constructive conversation with a Hokie Club rep followed with an email outlining how ridiculous that was.
If they do that to me I would be livid. I let them keep my donation for last year as it was an annual donation. But I told them to roll the ticket money to this years tickets (as per one of the options). I then made my annual donation for this year.
Much of my conversation with the Hokie Club rep/email was a plea to "make it easy for me to give you money". We have way way too many funds and gimmicks- don't make me have to think about what you are doing with my money, and and certainly don't penalize me for picking the wrong damn fund. Take my money and help make our school better with it, period.
They did resolve the issue, but it was (according to the rep) a system nightmare she had to get manual approvals to correct which she took over a week to accomplish. It's a level of incompetence that is embarrassing, frankly.
I had a similar conversation with one of the reps a few weeks ago. Consistently had difficulty accessing my account, making donations and when I finally gained access, it appeared as if it were my first ever donation. This is the first year I have donated more to wrestling and basketball than to football - but those sports are putting out a better product and a more exciting brand. I don't want to penalize the football team, but DC has good points about accepting mediocrity. Money talks. I don't envy Babcock for his position, I like Fuente the man, but I don't see a gameplan for improving the program. Until that time, I'll donate more to the other sports.
with regard to wrestling donations, I hope you're donating directly to the SERTC and not just to the VTAF/Hokie Club. The money goes much further on the SERTC side.
Isn't SERTC not a Tech athletic foundation?
double negative has me confused... but SERTC is a separate entity from the VT athletic department, that is run by the VT wrestling coaches.
SERTC employs additional post-grad coaches (who are training themselves to compete in events like the Olympics and world championships) and is basically the off-season training & development forum for the VT wrestling team. All the elite wresting programs have an associated 'training center' like SERTC
I don't even know what that is. I did the donation through Hokie Club "Sport Specific Giving" receipts for the last 2 years show Wrestling (OXAC), whatever that means. What is SERTC?
https://www.southeastrtc.com/about-sertc/
While I think it's a great venture it isn't part of the student athletic that I would want to donate to. But to each their own.
If you want to help wrestling specifically the money goes much further through SERTC than through the Hokie Club. The SERTC money can pay for a lot of things that Hokie Club money cannot. This has been very explicitly stated by the coaches.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but the SERTC program is similar to the programs that all other wrestling blue bloods have. While it may seem unorthodox at first compared to other sports, I think it's pretty normal for those familiar to high levels of collegiate wrestling.
This is correct. All the top wrestling programs have a Regional Training Center near by. The top ones are well funded which allows them to bring in resident athletes that are the best wrestlers in the country that train alongside the college team. SERTC has made huge strides bringing in James Green as a resident, keeping Ty Walz on, and getting Nahshon Garrett on part time. That's some of the best guys in the country practicing with the Hokies and it covers lower, middle, and upper weights. It also helps pay for expenses when guys travel for tournaments during the off-season, like when Latona went to Senior Nationals in 2020. It attracts the best recruits who want to compete for World and Olympic Medals in the future. The coaches getting the SERTC up and running at a high level has a direct effect on recruiting and development of Virginia Tech athletes.
Did the same. I'm getting close to retirement and money will be tight in the future. My blood was never Orange and Maroon till we moved here. Love the Hokies and VT as if I was born with it.
Donations for year X have never counted as donations for year X+1
I always expected to donate again in early 2021 for 2021 ticket eligibility, just like I do every year.
The Keep Jumping Campaign converted 2020 season ticket purchase into a 202
01 donation (with bonus priority point accrual). edit: got some further clarity, the Keep Jumping donations apply as a 2021 donation, but do not count as a HSF donationThere was a little bit of confusion for a couple reasons -
1) The Keep Jumping conversion happened during a time period that regular donations would normally count towards 2021 status/tickets. (I always donate in Jan/Feb so I'm not 100% sure about that)
2) the Keep Jumping campaign is a separate donation category* from the Hokie Scholarship Fund, even though it earns priority points, and in the recent past only HSF donations earned points.
*pretty sure this was done for 2 reasons, #1 Keep Jumping's goal is to keep the athletic department afloat in general, not just pay for scholarships. #2 by separating it from HSF the KJ donation is eligible for a tax deduction since its not associated with the perk of being able to buy better tickets
These are both well written explanations of what occurred. The Hokie Club has been primarily a scholarship fund (a poorly funded one) and using donations to the HSF for operating expenesss isn't allowed. Also with the tax code changed getting tickets knocked out tax benefits for many.
The massive increase in the standard deduction has eliminated itemizing for many people. It is kind of amazing.
Great explanation, thank you. This further illustrates my frustration as a working father with 2 small kids without the time to decipher the complexity of these funds. I understand the tax rules just fine - it's the fact that all these "priority points" I was supposedly awarded didn't change the fact that I owed another $400 at time of ticket purchase in form of a donation.
I plan on giving annually in Q4 this year as I have each year since graduation, but had I donated the $400 I would have been downgraded from sliver Hokie to bronze or less - again more unnecessary complexity, IMO.
This is right in line with how they lost all the priority points for Battle at Bristol in their system switch. Nobody decided a backup file from the last system would be a good idea in case some things got dropped or they decided it wasn't worth it to manually enter them to correct the issue. Either way it basically showed me the level of commitment the HC had to holding up their end of the bargains and made me think as soon as they got the dollar of me they would be done with me until it came time for the next squeeze.
They have a new (well, I've come back into the fold) donor in me this first quarter of 2021, so they have that going for them.
After the way the jackass HC rep talked to me on the phone during the whole 2020 season debacle, I came about as close as you can be to walking away without pulling the trigger. Still here for some fucking reason. Not quite sure why. Perhaps I'm deranged?
Agree with the attitude they might present to their "customers." I'm not going to donate to a poorly run organization when some of the people involved (one of the top guys) treats me like I'm less because I wasn't yet in the HC.
I just made my donation a couple days ago. I usually wait until March when I can calculate last year's MAGI and so on to decide on a donation level for this year that is not financially irresponsible.
I'll leave it at this per community guidelines, but I know a lot of people including myself that are tired of all the forced political / social / etc. messaging in college sports and have just decided not to give money to their university anymore because of it.
Aside from that, this past year has obviously been financially rough on a lot of people and giving to VT sports is probably one of the first things to get cut for a lot of folks. Plus, not getting to go to lane stadium and see the team at all makes a huge difference for me too.
Here's Whit talking about his plan for Fuente and the football program as a whole:
Finalized our donation last night and decided to maintain last year's giving vs. increasing.
According to the donor central page, the numbers are based off of 2/18 data, however what's confusing to me is that the number is just donors to the Hokie Scholarship Fund and not Hokie Club members. What's the difference? I thought that in order to become a HC member you had to donate to the HSF?
my understanding is that they track two #'s.. Hokie Club members and a subset of that who are Hokie Scholarship Fund donors.
Your priority point ranking is given in terms of HSF donors, because HSF donations are what make you eligible for priority bonuses on ticket purchases, parking etc.
Any donation ($25 and up?) to the VTAF makes you a Hokie Club member but only Hokie Club members who donate to Hokie Scholarship Fund are "ranked"
That's what I don't understand though. I just logged into HokieClub and clicked the "Make a Donation" link. I have variety of options, but the main ones are:
I don't see an option to donate to a VTAF, just the HSF or the HSF w/o Benefits.