For those who do not use Twitter, or may have missed it, athletic director Whit Babcock has been active in the last week and I thought his tweets were worth sharing/discussing as they directly pertain to some of the conversations that were happening here during the hiring process.
It appears he is serious about revitalizing the fundraising efforts of the Hokie Club. There was ths tweet:
Made my @hokieclub pledge today. Proud to do it. Are you in? #Hokies— Whit Babcock (@WhitBabcock) February 19, 2014
And he also retweeted a few fans:
@ryriosvt: @WhitBabcock Just sent 1st donation in yrs to Hokie Club this a.m. Hoping for a great return on investment. Go Hokies! / Thk u!— Whit Babcock (@WhitBabcock) February 14, 2014
@WhitBabcock @hokieclub This grad student just made his 1st donation! #letsGoHokies— Daniel Booth (@4D_BO) February 20, 2014
@WhitBabcock @hokieclub All in since 2004 Golden Hokie. Let's do this.— Doug Weigold (@Hokienc86) February 20, 2014
Fundraising and improving the Hokie Club outreach, particularly to younger alumni, was a major priority for many of us and these tweets seem to indicate that Mr. Babcock is on the same page.
He also just tweeted this:
Had to sneak down & take a look. Will be rockin' in 185 days!Can't wait! See you there! #entersandman #hokies pic.twitter.com/LnTnM8Gcfk— Whit Babcock (@WhitBabcock) February 26, 2014
It's great to see him embracing Virginia Tech's football tradition, and actively working to generate excitement among the fan base. Although it's sill very early, it's certainly looking like the search committee made an excellent selection.
Go Hokies!
*Edit: Sorry about all the edits.. accidentally hit save way before I was finished editing.
Comments
If I was Whit my first order of business would be to move my office into the tunnel. My second order of business would be to figure out a way to build my house completely out of Hokie stone.
Looking at this now I can see why the search committee never called me back.
Cross section of Whit's brain:
Fanbase:
It may not seem like much, but little things like this go a long way for fanbases and Alumni. Simply placing yourself out there in the community or interwebs and being vocal about things like joining the HokieClub is a great step.
somebody should ask him to make all of the non televised games night games instead of 1:30 games.
actually got goose bumps reading this one.
Little does he know that place will be Rocking in 59 days!!!! Welcome to the big league, where Spring Games matter!
I've seen him tweeting and it's made me very, very happy. If anything, it's addressing one of the biggest concerns with his predecessor - Weaver just wasn't great at reaching out to/connecting with the fan base as a whole - and letting people know in a small but highly visible way that things are not just going to be going along same-old, same-old. He's serious about connecting with the fans, he's serious about not just maintaining, but improving the athletics department and the quality of its products, and this is just further proof to me that the selection committee pulled a Bendon Hayden and absolutely crushed this one out of the park.
This is true and I have serious issues with Jim "fans don't want Thursday games, let's schedule ECU for eternity, cancel StickItIn,games should be played always at noon" Weaver, but he did a hell of job laying the foundation we have. It may be a few years past the best timing but we needed his work to allow someone like Whit to come in and be transformative, and that couldn't be done if not on a solid foundation.
You forgot the "kinda-screwed-the-pooch-with-the-hoops-program" part of his name in there.
haha... true. was sticking to football let downs only
No question, Weaver did a great job and was the perfect guy to get the program into the ACC and where we are now. That said, now it's time for a younger guy with a vision for really taking the athletics department to the next level.
And that man's name is BABCOCK(giggity).
BABCOCK...time to stick it in...again.
Holy shit, did I just come up with that!?
go ahead and give yourself a good pat on the back
Exactly