I just returned from a very busy two days at the Board of Visitors meeting, and of course the main point you'll all be interested in was the review of the university's debt capacity and credit rating. I'll do my best to run through the accounting as best I can.
Wait, we hired a football coach? OK, fine, I'll change topics.
Monday morning, there was a buzz in the air. There had already been talk that a deal was basically done, but no one could really point to a solid source of that information; it just seemed like the general chatter and common knowledge.
I knew something was up when I saw J. Pearson's phone light up shortly after we all sat down and called the first open committee meeting to order. He jumped up from his seat and headed to a back hallway reserved for BOV members (we get our own snacks!). He returned a few minutes later to whisper to Ryan McCarthy, who quickly joined J in the hallway. For those keeping score at home, J and Ryan were tasked by Rector John Rocovich to work with our administration to formulate the funding plan that we now know as "Invest to Win" back in September.
The shoulder taps and hallway exits continued - President Sands, Kay Heidbreder, and the rector himself.
It was unusual to see so many Board members and key university figures hopping up during an ongoing committee meeting, even if they aren't formally part of the committee (though the rector is an ex officio member of any committee when he is in attendance). Even stranger was to see President Sands on his phone; he generally does not do that during BOV meetings. His phone discipline and attention span are admirable.
I may or may not have been texting Joe at this point.
During a break, the chatter intensified. Everyone knew what was going on but no one really had any detail outside of the key negotiators in the process named above. Lunch time came and speculation had been that the Executive Committee closed session was related to James Franklin's hire. I can tell you two things: (1) I don't know what the topic of that meeting was, and (2) I know it wasn't related to James Franklin. The contradiction there only makes sense if you know some of the backdrop of things going on, but I can't elaborate on that.
In any case, after lunch it seemed like it was a done deal. At 2:00 PM, J went over to Kay and showed her his phone. She smiled, breathed a sigh of (apparent) relief, and gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Kay then went around the room and briefly chatted with President Sands and Rector Rocovich. Just before 3:00 PM, overheard in the hallway was "they signed the DocuSign." Made sense why the president and rector were on their phones immediately after Kay got their attention. To my knowledge, PSU reps were the last to sign regarding the terms of the buyout.
TKP broke the story at 3:13 PM. Take that for what you will.
It was a fun day to be a fan of Hokie football.
Coach Franklin made a brief appearance at the BOV open session yesterday and was very well received. His entry was delayed slightly because J and Ted Hanson were down the hall, buying him some Hokie swag from a pop-up bookstore shop. We thought they were ready to come in, but I guess they had to make sure they got the size right. Coach Franklin's remarks were live-streamed and you can watch them online, but he then went around the room and shook hands will all BOV members (including us constituent reps) and introduced himself, humbly, saying "nice to meet you, I'm James" and similar. I welcomed him and said we were glad to have him here. Big smile, and off he went.
The BOV amended the personnel changes report in closed session yesterday, and I have it on good authority that the amendment was to officially approve Coach Franklin's contract. I had replied with a quick "no" when asked by someone here if his contract could simply be lumped under an existing agenda item. That was a bit of a quick reply that lacked nuance, but it was still accurate. The closed session of the Academics, Research, and Student Affairs Committee considered only changes in faculty appointments, endowed positions, tenure, etc. You can't lump a football coach into that and say it's the same agenda item. The BOV can, however, make a change in closed session to an existing item before it. That's what they did, and they approved it in open session as required by law.
Best of luck to Coach Franklin, and welcome to him and his family. We hope Blacksburg and Hokie Nation treat you well and that you have many years of success on the gridiron.
Go Hokies!
Comments
Fun read, thanks for sharing!
I pretty much nailed it
https://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/1333150#comment-1333150
There are a good many reasons I love this site outside of my semi-frequent postings (hehe), and you sir are one of them. Having you as a TKP memeber, sharing your insights is validation enough for my annual subscription.
For all other folks whose contribution is also greatly appreciated, I mean no disrespect. I'm just giving our Eddie Van Halen some individual props.
Thank you, Good Sir!
What kind of snacks?
Pretty much the same stuff that is out for the general public, we just have our own table to ensure we have easy access to it during the meeting. Breakfast items in the morning (small pastries, coffee) and various things for the afternoon (there was some pretty awesome guacamole on Monday). And coffee, always coffee.
What kind of bacon is provided?
The real kind.
So turkey?
Pie
Asking the real questions
I aspire to be this way.
I immediately thought of my own atrocious phone discipline...
my aspiration and my tkp membership are at odds... especially with so many reasons to be F5ing now
I will never be this way. Good thing they don't allow phones in my building. I would've been fired a long time ago.
"As soon as I read this on my phone, I reached for my phone."
I really love this kind of behind the scenes insight. I know it isn't everyone's thing, but there is a lot of work that goes into running big complex organizations and glimpses into the process are interesting.
Appreciate your work and your sharing
Bonus quote/mild paraphrase from a BOV member (said in private so I'll keep it anonymous): "Coach Franklin is meticulous. He dots every i and crosses every t. I have no doubt he's going to run the football program like he ran this negotiation. Nothing is signed until he understands every detail and gets everything he wants. He reminds me a bit of Buzz in that sense. He's going to shake things up."
THIS makes me very happy to hear and thank you so much for sharing. I won't go down the whole "failing to prepare is..." speech but as a 25 year executive attention to detail is a considerable factor between success and failure. Raising the standards for how we are organized, how we prepare, our clarity in communication in terms of role, expectations, etc. alone will significantly alter our trajectory for near-term gains and even more critical, build the foundation for long-term success. Stoked! Glad to have a pro in the coaching room again.
Great read from the TKP 🐐,
When Disney finds out how TKP scooped Thamel
Joe has other well-placed #sauces, it was not 100% me, but I had something to do with it.
Sons of Saturday gave credit to Thamel for breaking it and in the comments I said "Pete Thamel my ass. Joe Lanza of thekeyplay.com broke the news.
To be fair, both of them were all over this.
But Joe clearly sent out the actual announcement first.
Much respect!! I continue to follow your career and I am delighted by your accomplishments. Keep up the great work with the BCHM graduate program and the biomolecule modeling research.
And it is definitely also really neat to see TKP has a BOV insider to break big news.
Tech also approved two new buildings at that meeting. So they are spending some money.
Yeah with the rumors that Franklin wants to completely overhaul the football facilities here, I wouldn't be surprised if VTGM is going to be busy with facilities approvals over the next 12 months
Definitely, the two buildings approved to my recollection had nothing to do with sports.
Both residential. The first is a 600-bed upfit of an existing building (they're adding a floor) and the other 600 beds comes from a brand new building. Will be a couple of years out until those are ready. Campbell Hall is also getting a partial renovation.
They are also adding an additional building at Vetmed but that was probably last years approval. All I know is we are busy keeping up with this new work at Tech.
Yeah that one is in early stages. Coming up soon though. The new approvals were for forms, and the Vet Med project was shown as part of the capital plan.
Where's the new one going?
I was there over the weekend again with my daughter (open house), and it's still stunning just how much has been added to the campus since I was there (waaaay back in the 1900s).
I believe it will be near the Inn.
Most if not all the new buildings I think are either going adjacent to the existing VetMed (for Vet Med part 2) or over on the golf course.
Campbell needed a renovation in 1973
Man, you'd think they'd put in a floor at first when they built it.
Next you're gonna tell me that the ceiling is the roof!
How does this play into the full cancellation of the massive project over by the drone park? Wasn't that going to be several dorm buildings and learning spaces now fully cancelled?
Yes, the Student Life Village was canceled. There is a ton of drama and legitimate concern over whether that was valid or appropriate. I won't get into that here; it gets a bit political. There is also legitimate eye-rolling over the argument that "$20M is too much to spend so we need to be fiscally prudent and not spend so much" to cancel the SLV, but then all that money went over to athletics a few months later...
In the wake of that decision, there was a bit of a backpedal that said "oops, we actually do need on-campus housing after all." Hence some of the approvals that have come through - Campbell renovation, additional 1200 beds, and discussions of other renovations in Slusher, Pritchard, and Hoge down the road.
You're telling me that Blacksburg isnt equipped with enough empty apartments for Tech to become a commuter school? How could this happen
/s
Where in the wide world of sports is Hoge?
Used to be named Lee, renamed a few years ago when Claudius Lee was found out to have been a member of a student chapter of the Klan.
oops
double post 🫠 doh
with a name like Claudius what did we expect?
Blazing Saddles is a great one
While I agree Blazing Saddles is great, this is actually from Dejango Unchained.
Oh touche
I always assumed people were outraged thinking it was named after r e lee and then discovered the other lee as part of the outrage
In the age of dinosaurs, I was in Lee for the two years I was in on-campus housing. Great location and the Prairie quad was awesome -close to Diertick; huge open spacee(before they added three buildings on the half towards War Memorial Gym; easy walk to Cassell/Lane and the intramural fields. Was not coed back then (...then again given me being who I am , maybe it was in a 'stealth manner' lol...). Also since my freshman year class was the last year of VA drinking age being still 18(I was in the 'grandfathered class), so we could have alcohol openly on campus!
I spent 2 years on the top floor of Lee (when it was Galileo) and it was a great experience.... even though it was before the renovated and made it a lot nicer a few years later. It was really nice location compared to the dining options and central to a lot of the other dorms and you could look out my window and see all of campus which was cool.
I spent my freshman and sophomore years on the first floor of Lee in 86-87 and 87-88 when it was co-ed by floor. Good times.
Back when you could have a keg in a dorm.
Define 'could.'
-Class of 2009.
At least in 83-85v when I was on campus, you were not 'supposed' to have actual kegs in the dorms(though I know of a few who did- running the tap from the closet). But you could definitely have canned/bottled beer in your room (and we most certainly did!) Biggest party we had in one room was when 8 of us finished 7-8 cases of Shaefer (the champagne of beers!) and made a pyramid about 3 feet tall in the floor
The Champagne of Beers is actually Miller High Life.
My freshman year, well year one of my freshman year(s), Beast Light Blue Label was on sale for like $5.49 a case. My dorm mate, who I knew since Kindergarten, and I had an older hometown buddy at VT (who was also 21) buy us many cases of the Beast Light.
We took one of the dorm closet set of drawers and stacked one on top of another in one closet and then stacked the case from floor to ceiling in the other closet.
The rule was simple. If you take one out of the dorm fridge you went into the closet and grabbed one to replace it. For a good while, we had a running supply of piping cold beers.
I can attest to this. Lived in O'Shag in 89/90 and 90/91. We had a theme party on half the 3rd floor. Called it Welcome to the Jungle Party. We broke off branches of the nearby trees and bent them in order to fit from floor to ceiling all up and down the hallway to give it the "jungle" appearance. We removed the medicine cabinets between two neighboring rooms with the keg in one so two rooms could house people and distribute beers without opening the doors. We used the rooms across from these rooms as spill over for guests. We blasted music and drank our assess off.
Our RA was very lax and was often not there hanging with his girlfriend elsewhere. His name was Brad and Brad was cool as shit.
I was Head RA of O'Shag for 2 years after you. I can proudly say the spirit of Brad lived on. During my time that place was essentially a co-ed dorm and I personally would help freshman find cool parties to go to on the weekend to help them meet girls or boys. You can't shape young men's minds without shapely young bodies.
We pulled so many antics on the 3rd floor. We got away with quite a bit. A few examples....we would put towels along the dorm room doors, spill water throughout the hallway, squeeze dish soap on the floor all along the hall and then run and slide from one end to the other.
We took off the bathroom door from its hinges, the door was solid and heavy AF, we tried to launch it out the 3rd floor window but it got stuck when most of it was shoved out but the weight of it dangling jammed it in the window.
We had a balloon winger and we were launching into the female dorm behind us. Believe it's was Johnson aka, the Virgin Vault and one of the balloons broke the dorm room window and water went everywhere.
We did all sorts of stuff. Lots of fun. Made long term friendships from that floor.
🤣🤣
well I was there late 90s and those things I would not have been able to cover up and would have resulted in some sort of disciplinary action. But personally love the stories and wish I was there.
Risk Management became a thing in the early 90's and many of the more "outrageous" antics on campus and in Greek Life went the way of the dinosaur and was probably for the better.
Another huge event was the Pritchard mattress wars that were legendary in the 80's and ventured into the 90's but that too, I believe become folklore.
Yes, mattress wars was a legend told in the RA circle during my time. there were a few that still thrown in but if I remember correctly someone managed to toss a vending machine in the Pritchard hole and then everything got sealed off.
Definitely sounds like much more hijinks had in your day though!
Yeah, I got to experience some of the craziness that fell off in the early 90's. My brother, God rest his soul, was at VT in the 80's. My wife has siblings who were there in the 80's. It was definitely a different time. I'm sure the 70's Hokies would chime in and have a similar viewpoint about their hay day too...
I was in Pritchard 78-81. That Pritchard hole was called the pit. Soda machine and a console TV were just some of the things thrown in the pit the ground was always layered with debris. The screens on the dorm room windows on the pit were screwed on and if the RA found one unscrewed, you got written up. Many a drunk student was dared to run into the pit and touch the far wall and run out. You hear man the pit and shit would start flying out the windows trying to hit the drunk. Went back many years later to show my family the infamous pit. Major disappointment that it was all cleaned up.
Believe I had friends tangentially involved in that incident. Yes the 1980s were fun years to be in college! BT had JUST started (and was much less extensive(only three main routes/loops- N and S Main; Toms creek loops A and B , and Hethwood/Foxridge to ...cant remember the opposite terminus). After bar closing stops at the elementary school playground on Tom's Creek; the epic spring block parties esp Stonegate and Bargerfest; South Main Cafe/117 South Main; the baseball field being near the tennis courts/Cassell and 'the hill' to watch from; Slusher Beach (which was still surrounded by female only dorms; being on quarters not semesters(I liked those better personally); more open space(probably twice as many buildings now as then-there was a building freeze for most of the decade of the 80s; some of my classes were in former storage rooms and others in the Lyric theater.
Feel free to share some of your own old memories!
The football players would bring cases of beer and a two person slingshot to the hill out side right field and hurl water balloons at opposing outfielders. Good times.
The spring block parties are amongst my favorite VT memories. I was at one at a newer apartment complex (don't remember the name) and Bruce Smith sat and chatted with us sitting on the tailgate of my pickup. (We were friends with the Barefoots from Princess Anne High in VB which was why Smith was even in our orbit.)
I also remember the Dietrick special: "Roast Beef au Jus with juice".
Another 'brush with greatness !
My roommate played on an intramural softball team that had Bobby Beecher as 2nd baseman and Bimbo Coles at shortstop. Hung out at their practices and games . Also watched Bimbo play quarters for shots
of Mad Dog 20/20!!
I was on the 8th floor of O'Shag that no one knew existed (and I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to). A few times a week someone would walk up to my door looking around because they didn't believe it was there until they saw it with their eyes. There were 3 rooms all of them were at least 50% larger than your standard dorm room and the RA (who was not as cool as you or Brad) was on the floor below. It was awesome. The only two major drawbacks were that the elevator didn't go up to our floor (made move in/move out awful) and there was only 1 shower in the bathroom because there was only 7 people between the 3 rooms. Made for interesting logistics to get a shower, but it was pretty cool. My dorm was the one everyone pregamed in before going out to parties since the RA never came up there. We never could figure out how to unlock the door to the roof, though...
I never went up there but folks talked about as if they were mythical. And yes, when it was spoken of how large the rooms were, jealousy set in. Haha.
I'm curious how much larger than my corner Vawter dorm room was. I think it was room 270 or 271, but we had almost a room and a half worth of space and it was glorious.
Yeah that top floor was interesting. the guys in my time were pretty tame up there but also if I remember correctly the RA had moved up there. was definitely jealous of the room size but they told me I had to be accessible and live on ground floor.
Got it. FKA Lee Hall. I'm an Old Hokie, just over here so-la-rexing.
The conditions in Slusher are what drove my daughter into never swearing to never living in a
formdorm again.Yeah, living in a form is overrated.
Edit: I just got a giggle from that and had to share it.
Slusher left a lot to be desired in 2009, I can't imagine how it's holding up now. Great view from the roof though.
She was top floor, not too bad if an elevator worked. Finally found the source of a smell, window was leaking into the heater unit below the window. Never could get them to clean the mold out or fix the leak. They weekly had to clean the water out of the unit. Heater never worked and temps got down to 50F in the room.
I was the 11th floor. I remember intentionally deactivating the thermostat so the heater would turn off because the upper floors would be scorching late winter and early spring. Though, to my knowledge, we had a functionong window.
Edit: The fire alarms were such a pain in the ass.
I was only on the 4th floor of Thomas and we essentially ran the one fan in/one fan out setup except for like Jan-Feb
What year were you on the 4th floor of Thomas? I was there in 2004-2005.
I lived there in 2000-2001
RIP Thomas Hall. 5th floor... as far away from females on campus as a freshman could be.
You say that, but I distinctly remember going to the bathroom one night at like two in the morning and there was a chick on her phone in there.
I went used the urinal anyway, if she was going to be in there, she knew what she signed up for.
From Airplane: Point/Counterpoint on popular TV news show 60 Minutes by faux conservative-minded James Kirkpatrick (William Tregoe) to liberal-minded Shana Alexander (off-screen):
]You think they were bad when YOU were there....shoulda been there the year that dorm fire alarms were first installed in my sophomore year 1984! FIFTY false alarms in Lee in JUST the fall quarter! Some pranks; some set off by steam from showers; some from smoke from cigars. One of the latter of those was on move-in day. Watching the fire truck navigate down Washington Street with maybe six to twelve inches clearance on each side due to the double parked cars angled out into the roadway. Props to that driver!
So many false alarms, most including me stopped going outside for them especially the middle of the night ones. And once I literally actually slept through it and only found out the next day that it had gone off (alcohol may or may not have been involved...)
At least the 11 flights of stairs warmed us up before having to sit on the curb at 2am in the winter.
I'd guess ~75% of our fire alarms were microwavable popcorns or people that had no business operating the oven in the shared kitchen.
We weren't even allowed to have hotplates in dorms much less microwaves much less REAL ovens. Not to mention that each floor had two communal bathrooms with no dividers in the shower area- just an open room with 8 shower heads-one on each end of the floor. For 160 people for each floor
The oven was a terrible idea IMO and I'm sure a holdover from Slusher originally being all female and so on and so forth.
what are fire alarms?
we had a fire in the trashcan at the end of the hall in lower third floor Vawter. just opened the windows for cross ventilation.
no, it didn't work very well
There were so many fire alarms pulled in Rashe hall my freshman year in the middle of the night that we started ignoring them and just not going outside.
I just ignored them as I was on the first floor and could go out the window if I had to if there ever was a real fire.
Good, we need more on-campus housing
GuitarDude!! Can we resurrect this discussion?
Can the university use Frank as collateral?
Feels like we've been doing that for the better part of two decades.
Haha...new Frank, I meant
Can't put a value on "priceless."
Tell that to the Louvre
Someone should also tell them not to set their passwords as "Louvre"
They got hung up since it couldn't be any of their last 10 passwords and panicked.
They could've gotten creative and went "L0uvre"
Long and short is we're improving on liquid assets, we have sufficient debt capacity to take on more debt if needed, to the tune of a couple hundred million, and we're staying below the Virginia law-mandated 7% debt ratio and the BOV-mandated 6% ratio (we're at 4.92%). FY25 fiscal performance is consistent with an AA+ credit rating (we are required to maintain AA- or better).
See p. 723-749 of the following BOV materials: https://bov.vt.edu/assets/Materials-November%2017-18,%202025-46.pdf
Great Summary! Thanks for following up on my request. Leg!
The title of Jerry Falwell Jr's sex tape.
🎵That's me in the corner🎵
Falwell would be in a precarious spot if he lost his religion.
(Not going any closer to CGs, just working with the song lyrics!)
Man it would be so college savage if we had that song in the playlist for every athletic matchup (may they be few) against Biberty
I thought it was a Hamilton reference - I sure hope VTGuitarman didn't have a Falwell Jr experience in BOV meetings!
You got it. I didn't have time to photoshop Franklin's face onto Leslie Odom Jr. Alas.
Mostly an inside joke for myself. A former colleague described the importance of my service as "being in the room where it happens."
DEAD. Take your leg.
Which leg did I just give this thread>
Oh, right
Terrible
Let he who never said "guess what? Chicken butt" cast the first stone
I mean
Can't forget Degeneration X and everybody making an X over their crotch and saying SUCK IT!
Oh you didn't know?!?!?!
Your ass better caaaaaallll soooomebodyyyyy
This is ban worthy, or at least nuke worthy, right?
Username is perfect for this particular situation.
Trigger warning needed. I'm still mad about falling for my 6 year old son's setup yesterday:
"Hey dad, what is 6 times 7?"
"42"
"What year is it going to be in 42 years?"
"Oh, I guess that would be two thousand- ugh... " *face palm*
"SIX SEVEN SIX SEVEN"
Anyways he's grounded until he's older than 7.
I have completely destroyed my younger daughter's enjoyment of the 67 meme. I made 67 references constantly for about a week. Now, she never references 67, and when I (occasionally) send her a 67 meme, her default response is "No". #ParentingWin
Fool proof strategy.
Fully dip as an adult in what the youth finds cool and they will cease to find it cool.
Yup, the only way to battle that is by fighting fire with a blazing inferno. If they think the parents find it cool, it immediately becomes the most uncool thing imaginable.
I've tried that, but my kids are too damn stubborn.
Was literally just having the same conversation with my son in the Christiansburg taco bell. He said it's amazing how many of the students in hus classes say it or snicker when a professor says something about 67.
Apparently, the new meme is 41, from Blizzy Boi's "41 Song (Saks Freestyle)" where he raps:
I'm currently in the process of collecting 41 memes, and will be inundating my kids with them over the next few days.
I'd throw a gif of the hand movement up, but I can't find one that's not on TikTok.
Excellent story. Thanks for sharing!