The typical hiring cycle for a University President is 6-12 months. BoV is trying to get the hire made before there is any turnover on the BoV (terms end July 1) and (I'm guessing this is what the post is about) before the 2026 primary/general elections start (so new candidates/elected officials won't factor into the mix).
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This was inevitable once Sands announcement was made.
Thought we would be farther into the new President search before this was announced, but the timing makes me think (hope) that this has been in the works for a while and the BoV are already zeroing in on some candidates.
Whit did some very good things while here (mostly early on) but his inability to effectively manage Football became obvious and couldn't continue.
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I do think Whit did plenty of good things here particularly in non-football areas but he was proven reactive again and again to the changing landscape of revenue sports...I also have to give him credit for (albeit at his own doing and way late) outlining how far behind we were and what funds we needed to have to compete in football again.
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Agree, but it wasn't just the ADs - every athletic department, every university president, every BoV, every state legislature had a different set of circumstances, and very few were lucky enough to have the right combo to figure it out early and adjust to the new landscape.
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How do we feel about the fact that he's staying through 2029 as a special advisor to the new president and AD? Does this help with implementing the new Invest to Win financial vision?
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It doesn't concern me. The actual level of advising the new president and ad receive from whit will only be known by them. It could just be an easy way to ease him out gracefully after a long and dutiful, if not resoundingly successful, tenure.
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No real concern. I've been in organizations where a prominent person needed to be fired but it was messy for various reasons so they just moved that person to another role they created and called it a promotion.
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I feel great about it. Whit has a ton of institutional knowledge that no one else has. Either he's being paid to be a big help, or he's being paid to quietly sit on the sidelines (not talk to media, not go to other schools, etc) or both.
Whatever the case, it's fine.
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That was announced at the BOV meeting on 4/13. I was surprised I hadn't seen anyone mention it here.
#Hokies AD Whit Babcock is at the lectern for his presentation. Going through his roster of lieutenants in the athletic department. Says long-time VT employee John Ballein will be retiring in June.β Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) April 13, 2026
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I obviously don't think Whit was infallible, but I do think he was a scapegoat and often handcuffed.
I do believe he elevated us in the post-weaver years, but ultimately, the decision Weaver made in 2010/11 to stay in the ACC instead of the SEC doomed us. Whit worked with what he had. I think he did better than most would have, but ultimately he couldn't fundraise enough to get us over the ACC hump.
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I watched/read a lot of interviews. This whole thing has been fascinating. So a narrative emerging is aggressive BOV members didn't like direction the school was going with athletics. Sands wasn't focused on it and turned it over to Whit. Whit wasn't really able to effect change all while the industry was rushing past him and his skill set. We needed a reset. But Sands protected him / delegated athletics to him. In order to make change it had to start at top with Sands and then Whit.
So in summary we fired our president, who oversees and educational institution, because of football. Is this mostly true? Or were there things Sands did on the educational side we didn't like. I graduated in 2003 and VT as an academic institution is miles ahead of where it was when I graduated, but maybe there's more to the story.
And yes, I get football is not just revenue from sports but marketing for new student applications.
Anyone on here have a POV on this?
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I'm curious (honestly) if you could expand your opinion. I always thought of Sands as a strong "academics first" president, and the web crawl backs that assumption:
| U.S. News National Ranking | Improved 20 spots (tied #51 overall, #21 public) |
| Undergraduate Enrollment | +30% |
| Undergraduate Applications | +200% |
| Research Expenditures | +70% |
| Endowment | +185% (surpassing $2 billion) |
| Capital Construction | 15 projects, 1.9 million sq. ft. |
| Regional Economic Impact (Roanoke) | $214M β $475M |
Hidden in those numbers is the Alexandria campus which, for those that haven't been there, is an absolute gorgeous facility.
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1. Changed invent the future to know your place
2. Bloated the administration to increase costs to students with no impact on education
3. Resided over wasteful capital projects that have ridiculous amenities to drive up costs for students
4. Increased the student body beyond the capacity of the university... While somehow still having costs explode
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2. Bloated the administration to increase costs to students with no impact on education
3. Resided over wasteful capital projects that have ridiculous amenities to drive up costs for students
Is there a single top 100 university that doesn't have a 'bloated administration' or hasn't heavily invested in amenities?
Everyone wants to blame universities. No one wants to blame the consumer. Parents hear that State U has 1-10 advisor to student ratio, but lesser State U has a 1-125 ratio, and the latter school is at an immediate disadvantage.
I don't have any data, but I get the impression that people just don't budget shop when it comes to 'the college experience' (TM), and the market is just responding.
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And just like his statement on athletics direction... He is in position to impact that. What is the point of the arms race of amenities for students? Sure if all the prices are high then at the same price point then you see "which expensive af university comes with better stuff". I guarantee you that being a high quality education with cost effective housing will get people to come (the reason I chose VT over other options 17 years ago).
What is the point of spending billions to reject more students? You want an artificially low acceptance rate for your aau application? Is that truly a good roi for the students now paying insane costs for the same or worse education than I got?
He is supposed to be the adult in the room and he was not. "Oh no I had to spend hundreds of millions on luxury amenities because *gestures broadly* they made me. Sorry students but im gonna need an extra 100k from each of you over 4 years."
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I guarantee you that being a high quality education with cost effective housing will get people to come (the reason I chose VT over other options 17 years ago).
VT is currently the 51st best school in USNews, and the bottom quartile for tuition cost amongst the top 100.
We all agree that it's unreasonable to expect the football team to be top 25 in the nation on a top 60 budget. The same applies to academics.
Without legislative changes at the state and federal level... I don't see a way to lower cost of attendance without impacting quality of degree/reputation.
What is the point of spending billions to reject more students? You want an artificially low acceptance rate for your aau application?
I think this was rhetorical, but yes, unfortunately most of the 'reputable' ranking organizations/methodologies incentivize schools with a lower acceptance rate
Is that truly a good roi for the students now paying insane costs for the same or worse education than I got?
Current students? Eh. Graduates? Maybe, but still eh.
He is supposed to be the adult in the room and he was not. "Oh no I had to spend hundreds of millions on luxury amenities because *gestures broadly* they made me. Sorry students but im gonna need an extra 100k from each of you over 4 years."
From my perspective, it seems like there's a misalignment of goals/incentives. I doesn't seem like Sands/VT has any incentive to lower tuition. They won't get more money from the state gov't, they won't get access to more/better research grants, the school's ranking won't go up... Not sure what Sands was supposed to do?
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That is not the mission of the university though. An institution that prepares students for jobs at an accessible price is a community college. Tech's mission is broader than that.
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"Inspired by our land-grant identity and guided by our motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech is an inclusive community of knowledge, discovery, and creativity dedicated to improving the quality of life and the human condition within the Commonwealth of Virginia and throughout the world."
All of the above are accomplished through creating access to knowledge and building on it through research. Public funding for universities exists to support public access to and development of knowledge.
The purpose of college is not for students to live in a resort for 4 years, and if anything, that is counter to the mission.
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To point (b) here, the university has steadily received less funding per student over the past 30 years or so. If you've got a problem with tuition going up, that's something you should take up with elected officials. Costs rise, support from taxpayer dollars has fallen. You do the math. VT is still one of the most affordable universities in the state, all things considered, and we compare well nationally, particularly in light of the value of our degree (hireability and starting salary).
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As a dad with 2 girls of the age where I am comparison shopping, this is 100% correct. VT is high on the "Good school" grade and one of the more reasonably priced from a tuition standpoint.
One thing to perhaps pass on. My daughter takes advantage of almost none of the "Amenities" that cost so much.
Her experience with the dorm (Slusher) and medical services (counterproductive) her first year has her swearing to never going to anything on campus that does not directly deal with her studies, eating, or the basketball or football venues.
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I mean shifert has always sucked .... but there is so many great things on campus, concerts, symphonies, art shows, cultural exhibits, guest speakers, gyms, intermurals, dining halls, student groups, etc that keeping ones head down for their studies is a great way to forgo the education VT provides.
My parents were professors, amd I grew up going to things on college campuses so I am speaking from a place of privilege, and yes some people don't have the luxury to do all that there is to offer, but a degree is a small part of the education a university should be providing students. College is one of thenlast times most people have to truly explore anything amd find out who they want to be. You will meet people from all walks of life and different cultures and viewpoints and no matter what your interest is there is likely some one there that shares it. Very few people know who they always to be at 20, heck they dont know at 30, or often 40. But there is time and resource to explore while in college.
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I agree but this generation has issues that those of us adventurous types do not match up with.
When I was her age, I asked to go live in Japan, bought a motorcycle when I got there and took a trip on Mindanao by myself where I hired some guys to take me by canoe up the Pagsanjan river just because I felt like it. I climbed Mt Fuji on a whim my second day in that country. I went and adventurized my 20's.
I met a guy in Virginia Beach that knew me because he remembered the nut that would drive up Rt5 on a motorcycle with full scuba gear strapped to it.
I had a long term girlfriend ask me to marry her but I declined because I knew I was restless and would be a terrible husband. I waited until my mid 30's because adventure awaited.
A bunch of her friends her age do not want drivers licenses. COVID ruined the drive of the girl that would jump into swimming pools over her head at 2 year old. This generation is different.
Nobody sings songs in their generation telling them the memories of an old man are the deeds of a man in his prime.
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I wouldn't say i'm adventurous. But I am curious. Though I have a close friend my age that got fed up being a lawyer and wanted to find a new career by taking personality tests instead of doing the job. If you want to know something, expirence it. Its like he wanted to find his favorite ice cream flavor with out eating ice cream. So while it might be more prevalent in this generation, holing up has always existed.
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A bunch of my friends have had multiple careers.
I was inspired by the book Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I thought the title meant you should rise to the top of multiple careers. Something has been beat out of people. From my perspective, they almost want to be spectators of their own lives.
Hell the basic thing that I ride my motorcycle to work almost year round. A manager was worried about me drive home at 5 AM. I told him it was OK, I set a strict rule that if the projected temp was below 35F, I would drive my truck. The threat of frostbite was too quick below that temp. He was horrified.
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Nothing wrong with having multiple careers. Thats not a generational thing to me, every generation has it. But trying to decide what you want to do without trying it seems to be a newer phenomenon to me, but thay could just be my world view and lack their of.
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She was in Slusher. Top room of the tower with a constantly broken elevator and window leaked so bad I setup a bin to catch the water and HVAC that did not work. The bathrooms were shit as the cleaning staff would not come up when the elevators were broken. They brought their own TP and she was reluctant to take a shower because of mold.
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That's interesting. Did she invite up some Roanoke Times reporters to take photos and write a story? That's what we threatened the Housing department with when we had bare concrete floors and electrical problems had half the circuits not working after an unfinished renovation.
They quickly changed their tune from, "There's nothing we can do until Winter break" to "We'll get the electric fixed ASAP."
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Pretty good idea but she was having sufficient problems acclimating to her new home and the workload of her classes and really didn't want me complicating things for her. She decided to resign herself to her fate and just move off campus.
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My problem was they prescribed me the medicines that I am allergic to. Literally only allergic to two medicines and they handed me bottles of both of them. They wanted me to have generic rather than the more expensive alternatives.
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Ive never heard any one have a positive thing to say about shifert, are we sure it is amenity and not just the bare minimum put on place to over some government mandate? (or insurance reduction?)
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I didn't go often but I had no issues with schiffert. I one time got really sick on Sunday night, so ended up going to the hospital. They did absolutely nothing. Did a rapid strep test, said it came back negative but with a 20% it was a false negative and told me to go to schiffert on THURSDAY if I didn't feel better. Well, the next morning I couldn't even swallow my throat was so swollen and had no energy so I shuffled over. I had a fever of 103 and they immediately got me ibuprofen. They weren't sure if it was viral or bacterial, so decided to draw blood and test it. 20 minutes later, said it looked bacterial, wrote me a prescription, and in 48 hours I was feeling better.
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Most auxiliary services on campus (Schiffert, Cook Counseling, etc) are wildly overburdened. They can handle basic illnesses but not much else. And the demand is extraordinary. They do the best with what they've got. We can't expand services without massive increases in cost. Auxiliaries have to pay for themselves, so it would require a huge increase in student fees to cover it. And of course, everyone will scream about that, so the fees stay lower than they should be, and people scream about the services...repeat.
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That's fine and understandable but, they need to set that expectation instead of having these kids arrive with them and their parents expecting support do that when they are just trying to figure out how to live without the direct support of their parents and having a little culture shock, they get the freshman crud a couple weeks after arriving to find out they do not have the medical support we expected.
As a parent it's frustrating as hell not being able to help them and deal with the shock when they discover they are 100% alone. I could have planned ahead and arranged for proper medical support ahead of time. Thank god it was just the freshman crud and not something serious.
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With the laws changed since I went and kids can be on their parents medical insurance, I would set my kid up with a doctor that was close to campus or a bus route. And I dont know if that is VTs stance but if it was then a lot of the burden can be removed and the students that can't use parents health care can get better care via the school.
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She is on my insurance but, when I asked, I was not told to expect that there would be no response from VT medical, I was informed that I could rely on them.
My daughter has a primary care doctor in Roanoke but cannot travel there when ill. She has no car and so transportation is a significant limitation.
Teledoc us the correct answer in her case.
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Yes, I am just comparing VT now to when I went snd had no insurance because none was available so I relied on VT medical, but now it is trivial for most kids to have insurance via thier parents while in college. So VT should have pivoted, hell doctors should have opened up near college campuses after the laws changed to support the changes and provide care. Think of the selling points that parents would eat up. Doctors specializing in to adult care. Walkable from campus, don't have to deal with the wait of VT medical etc.
I dont understand the medical industry, but per Guitarman there is a supply and demand issue and now there are valid payment methods to support this. And VT should support this monthly can give better medical care to those who can't be on their parents plans. I have a lot of reasons why VT wouldn't publicly support this but they should at best turn a blind eye to doctors advertising to new students.
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Is there a single top 100 university that doesn't have a 'bloated administration' or hasn't heavily invested in amenities?
No, and that's a big part of the problem. But at the end of the day, "all the other kids are doing it" isn't an example of good leadership.
people just don't budget shop when it comes to 'the college experience' (TM), and the market is just responding.
This I agree with. And, university presidents can't force Uncle $ugar out of the college loan business. And until that happens there won't be market pressure to control prices.
But maybe there is some hope. My oldest (HS freshman) has a friend (HS junior) who is good enough to get in most anywhere (example: MIT is a legit possibility), who is leaning towards doing a year of CC to knock out basic stuff at CC prices, and he's not the only one. Limited sample size, obviously, but if more kids & parents learn what "ROI" means, maybe the market will shift. Lotta emotion tied up in these decisions, though, and still too many parents that don't realize that the formula that worked well for previous generations isn't working nearly as well now.
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The crazy part is I think Princeton is now cheaper than Rutgers. The big Ivy league survive on their endowments and can afford to keep lower tuitions because they aren't in a war to be bigger and better than everybody else.
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Having price-compared VT and Cornell recently, and at our income level, I can say that Cornell would be more than twice the cost of VT at almost $100k/year.
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Well that is historically accurate in 93 when I was deciding on where to go. Cornell was twice the price of Tech then as well. Hindsight of 30 years, what would life have been life if I had gone there instead of Tech. I was able to afford Tech on working and my savings to avoid loans. I would have needed loans if I had gone there instead.
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I've considered talking to my daughter about that route, but with her participating in the Chesapeake Bay Governor's School, and all of her classes there being dual enrollment (she'll graduate just a class or two shy of an Associate's Degree), I'm not sure that there's anything for her to gain from another year, essentially, of CC. It's all math and science there, and I guess she could work on core curriculum, but I think this is one case where what she needs is the "college experience", and working out coping techniques with her anxiety. She's been getting a lot better in that respect, but I think she's ready for the next step. I don't think another year of living at home and doing CC will help as much there.
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But at the end of the day, "all the other kids are doing it" isn't an example of good leadership.
IMO it's not analogous to peer pressure. Rather, it's analogous to the prisoner dilemma at scale.
And, university presidents can't force Uncle $ugar out of the college loan business. And until that happens there won't be market pressure to control prices.
Yep - from my perspective (which is potentially quite ignorant) this is something that has to be solved by law makers at the state and federal level.
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This I agree with. And, university presidents can't force Uncle $ugar out of the college loan business. And until that happens there won't be market pressure to control prices.
As someone who has been in the student loan business for over 40 years, I cannot agree more. I have posted on this topic previously, the government is making billions off of the backs of student and parents and not too many people talk about it. When my company participated in the federal Stafford student loan business, it was an extremely competitive marketplace. If you didn't offer the best loan products to schools and students, you were out of business pretty quickly. We paid all the upfront loan origination fees for borrowers, bought down interest rates, provided millions in scholarships, etc. Hell, at one time we were even able to offer private student loans at Prime - 0.5%. We also developed special programs for some schools in which the schools themselves would subsidize the interest rates for their students. None of these types of discounts or "give back" programs are available any longer, and our cost of funds back then (privately raised lines of credit) was much, much higher than the Feds.
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Colleges are competing for students, so they are building to attract students and I agree they probably arent budget shopping on the whole.
I will say that every organization organization I have been apart of either company or the government or whatever their is bloat. However, from outside people rarely see what the actual bloat is.
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Right. When it stops impressing 17 year olds, the arms race will stop. This is not new. Frank wrote in one of his books about losing a recruit to an ice cream machine in another school's cafeteria and made the calls to get one at VT the next day.
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You'd be right. I know a lot, and none of it I can say here. I'm on the search committee for the new president and I've got a lot of the behind the scenes. One day I'll do a breakdown of it for you but I can't yet.
And I'll go to my grave saying Tim Sands elevated the hell out of Virginia Tech. On the academic side, we are light-years ahead of where we used to be in terms of scope, quality, and impact. Athletics is sort of impossible for anyone right now outside of a lucky few, most of whom are cheating in some way. He once told me he spent 50% of his time dealing with athletics. The regulatory and legal environment changed almost daily, and still does. If anyone thinks they can do a better job, I look forward to reading your application here soon. It's truly almost impossible to be a university president in the current environment. Be glad for who we had in Sands. I hope we can get someone as good to take up the mantle.
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How do we add a requirement that we merge the academic and sports logos into the one that is most recognizable like alot of other top universities have?
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Its been a while but I remember the pylon logo. According to the official visual brand site we've got three - The university seal, the university logo, and the athletics logo. The 2nd link gets into a bit more history - the pylon logo was adopted in 1991, and I think the replacement was the new flying VT logo that nearly caused a revolt across the alumni base (I still dont care for it).
Yeah, that's why I was confused by the "get it back" comment. They haven't been the same, so we can't go back to being the same.
I also don't like the rounded VT. It is too similar to the athletic logo. Either use the same logo (not a bad choice) or have one that is different enough (like the pylons, also not a bad choice). The rounded logo always felt like a very expensive half-measure.
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On the academic side, we are light-years ahead of where we used to be in terms of scope, quality, and impact.
I had a professor/friend of a friend tell me in the Stegar era, our spend for professors and academics was quite similar to our athletic spend (my words, not hers): significantly lower than peer institutions, and you were expected to like it because you had the honor to live in Blacksburg.
I've heard Sands changed that.
It's truly almost impossible to be a university president in the current environment
Facts. This is a miserable job right now. The pay is great compared to most jobs, but people with the intelligence and political savviness necessary to be a university president can land similar (or better) pay with half the hassle.
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VT was in the bottom 25% among peer institutions in terms of faculty compensation when Sands took the job. I don't have our current numbers but we're at least in the top half now. He made it a priority. You can't run a university on the "up from your bootstraps, everyone should love it here" mentality. Sands came in at least a decade behind academically and athletically and closed the gap admirably.
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Yeah i noticed that as well while doing my search on the logos. The more I dig the more i realize how much our branding team has really bungled things the last decade+
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This is exactly the connection I made in the early Fuente years.
It's one of the reasons I've been so sympathetic towards Whit over the years; I think the expectation that we can (rather, should) do more with less had seemingly infected leadership throughout the entire university, as well as donors throughout the entire university.
If just seems like VT has tried to sheepishly resist the arm race by meeting the minimum financial commitment for years (a complaining about it on the way). This is another reason why you can miss me with the complaints of administrative bloat or facilities spending - everyone's doing it; it's an arms race.
Either your strategy is product differentiation (be a top 100 academic school, be a top 25 football program, and pay to be there) or its price differentiation (be an affordable degree, cheap athletic dept, etc, that is just 'good enough')
Want to be great? Gotta invest. Gotta be competitive.
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I think Whit, like Sands, did a lot of good for VT but they both had some notable missteps that overshadowed their tenures.
Whit took over for an AD that started when VT was a G5 school, Sands is one president removed from a guy thay became president because the faculty couldn't choose so they decided to make it one of their own. That is no reflection on Torgeson, but on how VT ended up with their president.
I dont know the feeling on campus but we have had a ton of change and progress in the last 30 years and not a lot of change in the leadership in that time. It takes a lot to get the boulder to move but much easier to keep it moving. There are probably a lot of people that don't want the boulder moving which makes it even harder. I think that the next AD and president will both have easier times because of the work that Sands and Whit did, who benefited from Steger and Weaver.
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Torgeson was great. He was promoted to Pres while still actually teaching that semester. He would come into his class and bitch about being the President about half the time while still covering the needs of the class. He was always up for a Tennis game with whoever wanted to play.
The biggest thing that he probably did was increase the President's salary to the point that people like Steger and Sands were willing to come to Tech. Of course, Torgeson also donated the entire increase to the base pay of President of the University back to the University.
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After careful consideration and consultation with my wife and family, if offered, I would have to respectfully decline the position as President of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
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Tbh, I think Sands had just run his course. He was likely going to retire in 2027 at the end of his contract anyway. He did a lot of positive for the academic side in his tenure, no doubt. But there was a lot to not like - the logo/rebrand was a massive expensive flop. We had a pretty serious goal of AAU membership which he was never able to materialize, and frankly just may not happen at this point. Increased undergrad enrollment too much and too quickly for housing and town infrastructure. And then at the end of the day, didn't really get VT athletics. He just deferred to Whit to manage that side of the house, who couldn't keep pace with the evolution of major college athletics. Both he and Whit reached their ceiling here and things were stagnating. It was time for a change on all fronts, IMO, as both were nearing retirement anyway.
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How much of this did Franklin know when he was hired?
It seems like the same BoV members who were eager for leadership change were the ones most responsible for hiring Franklin, but how much did they divulge?
I.e. I'm wondering if Franklin is sitting back looking at this and wondering what the hell he got himself into??
While one would imagine he will have quite a bit of input into the new A.D. hire, he certainly won't have much of anything to do with the new President choice and that individual could have as much influence over his tenure as anyone.
For a guy who is so detailed-oriented, this is introducing a lot of unknown into his world...hopefully not giving him second thoughts.
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Same thing I'm wondering.. coaches often leave due to uncertainty with who the AD is. How much advanced knowledge did he have when he was brought on. And how will the new changes impact his tenure.
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If I were a betting man, which I am, I'd put money down that Franklin knew all of this during the hiring process and those board members that were aggressively working to convince him to come to Blacksburg were informing him of the current situation and the plan to make adjustments so that everything would be in "alignment." If you remember, there was a forest fire of smoke around Whit retiring during the coaching search.
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I know everyone is celebrating this, and I don't fault people for doing so. But Whit did some great things with our non-rev sports. And, by all counts, made a homerun hire with Justin Fuente (everyone thought so anyway). It just didn't work out.
His biggest flaw(s) IMO were: (1) He wasn't great at messaging. It's beyond comprehension that someone in that position is completely incapable of handling the messaging of the athletic department, including his own self. It was an embarrassment. And (2) As stated above, he was incredibly reactionary. Was that 100% his fault? Or, was he operating within a system that simply handcuffed him? I don't know. But what I do know is that if you want to play in the big sandbox you'd better be a bulldog.
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IMO, Chris Coleman hits the point the best: Yes he gave life to nonrev sports, but his biggest flaw was running a dysfunctional department with limited accountability. He made some good hires and made some mistakes hiring, but arguably the way the Athletics department was run is to blame for some of the hires not working out (fuente especially).
I have long been a believer that a successful AD is a lot more than just "hiring the right person" and then chill out until you make another hire.
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After listening to the TSL pod this morning, I was about to add point 3, accountability. There's no accountability for people half assing their jobs, all the way down the org chart. And it seems like when people left the athletic dept., they weren't replaced and the employees who picked up those tasks weren't held accountable, because they were doing so much and wearing so many hats that if they made a mistake, then, "Well, aw shucks, it's no big deal. You're doing so much and helping us out so much so we don't have to back fill the position that was vacated."
That's one way to turn a good culture into a bad one fast.
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Whit's tenure to me is best marked by two chapters - before 2020, and after. He came onboard and made a splash hire immediately with Buzz to invigorate the basketball program, had the unenviable task of having to replace a legend in Beamer - and did so with an on-paper slam dunk hire at the time. He invested more in the non-rev sports and built the foundation for a more well-rounded athletics department.
But the TSL podcast really hit on this point - 2020 seemed to break Whit. That was a horrible year for everyone for a multitude of reasons. But just looking at VT athletics, the 2019 Duke debacle and subsequent Baylor drama with Fu really signaled the beginning of the end of the Fu era. It was obvious it wasn't going to work out by 2019-2020. Then all of the headache with budget cuts, COVID, layoffs, etc. The 2020 Fu retention press conference was truly the day Whit lost the support of the fan base. And from there, things could have gone one of two ways. He could have worked to be a better communicator and win back the fans, bring the Hokie Club back to life to reinvigorate donors, and really focus on fixing the football program. But they went the opposite - he retreated (basically abandoned social media) from the fans, Hokie Club and the management of the AD as a whole stagnated and regressed, and he allowed John Ballein to influence him too much with the hiring of Pry. CC at TSL said it best - that hire was just not going to work, and it feels like those years were essentially wasted time. Add onto that the rise of the NIL/revenue sharing era. We did not rise to the challenge in the post-COVID era as an athletics department.
So while Whit definitely deserves some credit for accomplishments during his tenure, it really was the tale of two halves.
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Maybe he realized that we were just doomed when those above him stepped in to stop him from firing Fuente at that 2020 press conference. Yeah he could have handled the next few years better, but I wonder if that moment was when he just knew that things would have to get worse before they got better, and new blood would be needed.
Not defending Whit exactly, but your comment made me think about it, and man it would be tough to be working at a football school where the football HC is one of the most important people in the whole organization, and you're told at the last moment that you can't fire him, even though his performance very clearly warranted it. The odds of him improving things from that point onward had to be very low, no matter what actions he took post-2020.
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In FY19 (which includes the 2020 football season) the SEC was pulling ~$45m/school while the ACC was pulling in ~$32m/school. Five years later, the ACC distributed ~$45m/school, while the SEC distributed >$70m/school (and growing)
In 2021, athletes are allowed to transfer without sitting out
In 2021, the NCAA starts allowing NIL
The college football landscape drastically shifted right in year 6(?) of Whit's 12(?) year tenure.
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Totally agree. I'm starting to have this theory that COVID directly or indirectly led to so much landslide change in everything just because people were cooped up and pissed off at the world. Don't want to get too far out of bounds here, but just looking at college athletics, how do we enter a global pandemic and come out on the other side with massive changes in NIL, revenue sharing, seismic conference realignment, etc... The TSL pod hinted at this a bit with CC saying people were mad with VT athletics in 2020 just given the losing record, state of the program, retaining Fu. But it was magnified 10x because everyone was already angry about everything.
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The internet and media started the angry before covid, covid just ignited the powder keg so to speak. If youre to busy being mad ad stupid shit like Justin Fuente you dont have time to be mad at what you actually should be mad about (like lack of state funding for higher education, a common talking point in other threads here)
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Just connecting some dots...I could see that a lot of people realized the magnitude of the money getting passed around in college sports when games were played for the sake of the TV contracts, which then led to people wondering (louder) why the players weren't getting a share of it, and then it snowballed from there.
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I think this is it. The walls came down on the sausage factory; the lie became too obvious to ignore. Naivety and ignorance were impossible.
Edit: this shut down forecast did a really good episode recently on the failure of amateurism over the history of the NCAA, and they talked about the Todd Gurley saga being a huge turning point in public opinion
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I'd concur. Very poor communicator and, as others have said, his biggest flaw was the lack of accountability in the A.D. I can personally attest that the criticism of VT having a culture of promoting friends and family is 100% accurate.
He definitely upgraded our fundraising (which was very much needed, we were asleep at the wheel in Weaver's later years). But I don't why it took so long to bring the Hokie Club under their wings or why we hired two HC heads with no prior fundraising experience (that also had other major job responsibilities). Chris Coleman talks about this stuff all the time. There was just no effort to bring in any outside voices.
Structurally, I think he left VT better than he found it. But part of that was because the coach he hired bombed so bad that it forced the university leadership to take the reigns.
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First off, this is a hilarious video (hilarious in the Kristen Bell laughing then crying gif way).
Second, this pairs really well with what VTJ12 said above about splitting Whit's tenure into before and after COVID. Virtually all of the bad stuff in that video is post-2020. I get that recency bias will make you put more stuff from the last few years into a joke video like this, but man stuff really did get bad recently compared to pre-2020, when we hired guys like Buzz and Fuente
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May your weights always weigh the same, no matter where life takes you next (yes I know, special advisor to the special person in the same special place, whatever)
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Babcock's previous contract was a byzantine mish-mash of several calculations, so it was hard to come up with an annual figure. Estimated in the $1.2M range. With retention bonuses and such, the #Hokies are probably saving about $1 million in this new setup.β Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) April 29, 2026
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Boom. My sauce told me approximately two months ago it would happen this summer. I said it would happen three weeks ago on the Sands retirement thread. I'm going to go buy a lottery ticket.
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Comments
James Franklin better be on the hiring committee for the next AD
Need to get a new president in so we can look for new AD.
Yeah the timing is a little weird? Would think they'd name a president first who would then hire an AD?
iirc they are hoping to have the new president before the new board members start so that they don't have a delay in hiring new AD
I will not violate the CGs, but I'd prefer that this not happen.
The typical hiring cycle for a University President is 6-12 months. BoV is trying to get the hire made before there is any turnover on the BoV (terms end July 1) and (I'm guessing this is what the post is about) before the 2026 primary/general elections start (so new candidates/elected officials won't factor into the mix).
That's silly
I'm with you on both counts.
He never lies
It's been long overdue. At least it finally has happened
This was inevitable once Sands announcement was made.
Thought we would be farther into the new President search before this was announced, but the timing makes me think (hope) that this has been in the works for a while and the BoV are already zeroing in on some candidates.
Whit did some very good things while here (mostly early on) but his inability to effectively manage Football became obvious and couldn't continue.
I do think Whit did plenty of good things here particularly in non-football areas but he was proven reactive again and again to the changing landscape of revenue sports...I also have to give him credit for (albeit at his own doing and way late) outlining how far behind we were and what funds we needed to have to compete in football again.
I am going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, CFB changed so far and so rapidly, only a handful of people were able to keep up.
Agree, but it wasn't just the ADs - every athletic department, every university president, every BoV, every state legislature had a different set of circumstances, and very few were lucky enough to have the right combo to figure it out early and adjust to the new landscape.
I do wonder how much of that is Whit vs Sands.
Franklin hired. Big money invested. Sands out. Whit out. All signs are here as the prophets foretold. The era of Hokie Sports Dominance is upon us
James Franklin after preaching alignment and then Sands and Babcock retiring.
that's the Saban playbook, right?
How do we feel about the fact that he's staying through 2029 as a special advisor to the new president and AD? Does this help with implementing the new Invest to Win financial vision?
Just because he advises, doesn't mean anyone has to listen.
Seriously, I am ok with it. My guess is the role will not involve him coming in everyday. Anthing that smoothes the transition is positive.
It doesn't concern me. The actual level of advising the new president and ad receive from whit will only be known by them. It could just be an easy way to ease him out gracefully after a long and dutiful, if not resoundingly successful, tenure.
I am betting he is going to assist in overseeing the Olympic sports.
No real concern. I've been in organizations where a prominent person needed to be fired but it was messy for various reasons so they just moved that person to another role they created and called it a promotion.
Is that not the standard? Cause it feels like that
if this is the new version of Ballein then i'm out
I feel great about it. Whit has a ton of institutional knowledge that no one else has. Either he's being paid to be a big help, or he's being paid to quietly sit on the sidelines (not talk to media, not go to other schools, etc) or both.
Whatever the case, it's fine.
I'm OK with it.
He has good institutional knowledge. Good for us to have, and not for anyone else to have.
There are some other long term staff "retiring" and leaving I've heard also.
lets hope it is the right ones
Ballein is name I've heard.
Ah, darn.
That was announced at the BOV meeting on 4/13. I was surprised I hadn't seen anyone mention it here.
Twelve years too late
I picked up the news about Ballein's retirement timeline months ago.. can't remember whether it was here on TKP or from TSL.
I definitely saw it reported on here that his office was empty. I didn't know the credibility of those posts, but I definitely remember reading it.
I obviously don't think Whit was infallible, but I do think he was a scapegoat and often handcuffed.
I do believe he elevated us in the post-weaver years, but ultimately, the decision Weaver made in 2010/11 to stay in the ACC instead of the SEC doomed us. Whit worked with what he had. I think he did better than most would have, but ultimately he couldn't fundraise enough to get us over the ACC hump.
Related to the Balleins... Well the wife was walking her dog on campus 10:30 this morning so she's obviously all in on hoops transfer portal etc. /S
Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you
I watched/read a lot of interviews. This whole thing has been fascinating. So a narrative emerging is aggressive BOV members didn't like direction the school was going with athletics. Sands wasn't focused on it and turned it over to Whit. Whit wasn't really able to effect change all while the industry was rushing past him and his skill set. We needed a reset. But Sands protected him / delegated athletics to him. In order to make change it had to start at top with Sands and then Whit.
So in summary we fired our president, who oversees and educational institution, because of football. Is this mostly true? Or were there things Sands did on the educational side we didn't like. I graduated in 2003 and VT as an academic institution is miles ahead of where it was when I graduated, but maybe there's more to the story.
And yes, I get football is not just revenue from sports but marketing for new student applications.
Anyone on here have a POV on this?
I have disliked sands for most things he has done
I'm curious (honestly) if you could expand your opinion. I always thought of Sands as a strong "academics first" president, and the web crawl backs that assumption:
| U.S. News National Ranking | Improved 20 spots (tied #51 overall, #21 public) |
| Undergraduate Enrollment | +30% |
| Undergraduate Applications | +200% |
| Research Expenditures | +70% |
| Endowment | +185% (surpassing $2 billion) |
| Capital Construction | 15 projects, 1.9 million sq. ft. |
| Regional Economic Impact (Roanoke) | $214M β $475M |
Hidden in those numbers is the Alexandria campus which, for those that haven't been there, is an absolute gorgeous facility.
1. Changed invent the future to know your place
2. Bloated the administration to increase costs to students with no impact on education
3. Resided over wasteful capital projects that have ridiculous amenities to drive up costs for students
4. Increased the student body beyond the capacity of the university... While somehow still having costs explode
Is there a single top 100 university that doesn't have a 'bloated administration' or hasn't heavily invested in amenities?
Everyone wants to blame universities. No one wants to blame the consumer. Parents hear that State U has 1-10 advisor to student ratio, but lesser State U has a 1-125 ratio, and the latter school is at an immediate disadvantage.
I don't have any data, but I get the impression that people just don't budget shop when it comes to 'the college experience' (TM), and the market is just responding.
little of column a and a little of column b
And just like his statement on athletics direction... He is in position to impact that. What is the point of the arms race of amenities for students? Sure if all the prices are high then at the same price point then you see "which expensive af university comes with better stuff". I guarantee you that being a high quality education with cost effective housing will get people to come (the reason I chose VT over other options 17 years ago).
What is the point of spending billions to reject more students? You want an artificially low acceptance rate for your aau application? Is that truly a good roi for the students now paying insane costs for the same or worse education than I got?
He is supposed to be the adult in the room and he was not. "Oh no I had to spend hundreds of millions on luxury amenities because *gestures broadly* they made me. Sorry students but im gonna need an extra 100k from each of you over 4 years."
VT is currently the 51st best school in USNews, and the bottom quartile for tuition cost amongst the top 100.
We all agree that it's unreasonable to expect the football team to be top 25 in the nation on a top 60 budget. The same applies to academics.
Without legislative changes at the state and federal level... I don't see a way to lower cost of attendance without impacting quality of degree/reputation.
I think this was rhetorical, but yes, unfortunately most of the 'reputable' ranking organizations/methodologies incentivize schools with a lower acceptance rate
Current students? Eh. Graduates? Maybe, but still eh.
From my perspective, it seems like there's a misalignment of goals/incentives. I doesn't seem like Sands/VT has any incentive to lower tuition. They won't get more money from the state gov't, they won't get access to more/better research grants, the school's ranking won't go up... Not sure what Sands was supposed to do?
He was supposed to run an institution that teaches students skills that will prepare them for jobs at an accessible price.
That is not the mission of the university though. An institution that prepares students for jobs at an accessible price is a community college. Tech's mission is broader than that.
"Inspired by our land-grant identity and guided by our motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech is an inclusive community of knowledge, discovery, and creativity dedicated to improving the quality of life and the human condition within the Commonwealth of Virginia and throughout the world."
All of the above are accomplished through creating access to knowledge and building on it through research. Public funding for universities exists to support public access to and development of knowledge.
The purpose of college is not for students to live in a resort for 4 years, and if anything, that is counter to the mission.
This mission has been lost as (a) the university started chasing national rankings and (b) their government funding got cut.
To point (b) here, the university has steadily received less funding per student over the past 30 years or so. If you've got a problem with tuition going up, that's something you should take up with elected officials. Costs rise, support from taxpayer dollars has fallen. You do the math. VT is still one of the most affordable universities in the state, all things considered, and we compare well nationally, particularly in light of the value of our degree (hireability and starting salary).
As a dad with 2 girls of the age where I am comparison shopping, this is 100% correct. VT is high on the "Good school" grade and one of the more reasonably priced from a tuition standpoint.
One thing to perhaps pass on. My daughter takes advantage of almost none of the "Amenities" that cost so much.
Her experience with the dorm (Slusher) and medical services (counterproductive) her first year has her swearing to never going to anything on campus that does not directly deal with her studies, eating, or the basketball or football venues.
I mean shifert has always sucked .... but there is so many great things on campus, concerts, symphonies, art shows, cultural exhibits, guest speakers, gyms, intermurals, dining halls, student groups, etc that keeping ones head down for their studies is a great way to forgo the education VT provides.
My parents were professors, amd I grew up going to things on college campuses so I am speaking from a place of privilege, and yes some people don't have the luxury to do all that there is to offer, but a degree is a small part of the education a university should be providing students. College is one of thenlast times most people have to truly explore anything amd find out who they want to be. You will meet people from all walks of life and different cultures and viewpoints and no matter what your interest is there is likely some one there that shares it. Very few people know who they always to be at 20, heck they dont know at 30, or often 40. But there is time and resource to explore while in college.
I agree but this generation has issues that those of us adventurous types do not match up with.
When I was her age, I asked to go live in Japan, bought a motorcycle when I got there and took a trip on Mindanao by myself where I hired some guys to take me by canoe up the Pagsanjan river just because I felt like it. I climbed Mt Fuji on a whim my second day in that country. I went and adventurized my 20's.
I met a guy in Virginia Beach that knew me because he remembered the nut that would drive up Rt5 on a motorcycle with full scuba gear strapped to it.
I had a long term girlfriend ask me to marry her but I declined because I knew I was restless and would be a terrible husband. I waited until my mid 30's because adventure awaited.
A bunch of her friends her age do not want drivers licenses. COVID ruined the drive of the girl that would jump into swimming pools over her head at 2 year old. This generation is different.
Nobody sings songs in their generation telling them the memories of an old man are the deeds of a man in his prime.
I wouldn't say i'm adventurous. But I am curious. Though I have a close friend my age that got fed up being a lawyer and wanted to find a new career by taking personality tests instead of doing the job. If you want to know something, expirence it. Its like he wanted to find his favorite ice cream flavor with out eating ice cream. So while it might be more prevalent in this generation, holing up has always existed.
A bunch of my friends have had multiple careers.
I was inspired by the book Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I thought the title meant you should rise to the top of multiple careers. Something has been beat out of people. From my perspective, they almost want to be spectators of their own lives.
Hell the basic thing that I ride my motorcycle to work almost year round. A manager was worried about me drive home at 5 AM. I told him it was OK, I set a strict rule that if the projected temp was below 35F, I would drive my truck. The threat of frostbite was too quick below that temp. He was horrified.
Nothing wrong with having multiple careers. Thats not a generational thing to me, every generation has it. But trying to decide what you want to do without trying it seems to be a newer phenomenon to me, but thay could just be my world view and lack their of.
She was in Slusher. Top room of the tower with a constantly broken elevator and window leaked so bad I setup a bin to catch the water and HVAC that did not work. The bathrooms were shit as the cleaning staff would not come up when the elevators were broken. They brought their own TP and she was reluctant to take a shower because of mold.
That's interesting. Did she invite up some Roanoke Times reporters to take photos and write a story? That's what we threatened the Housing department with when we had bare concrete floors and electrical problems had half the circuits not working after an unfinished renovation.
They quickly changed their tune from, "There's nothing we can do until Winter break" to "We'll get the electric fixed ASAP."
Pretty good idea but she was having sufficient problems acclimating to her new home and the workload of her classes and really didn't want me complicating things for her. She decided to resign herself to her fate and just move off campus.
I used Tech medical services once in my four years and almost had to threaten to sue to get the right medicine.
Yup, she ended up walking way up to Prices fork to an urgent care for flu medication. The people at VT medical wouldn't even see her.
I got an extra teledoc program so she doesn't have to rely on the med service at VT.
I found the opposite. They'd prescribe me anything. Too hungover? Here's promethizine π
Came here to say this lol
Excuse me, I have a *cough* can I have some promethazine?
My problem was they prescribed me the medicines that I am allergic to. Literally only allergic to two medicines and they handed me bottles of both of them. They wanted me to have generic rather than the more expensive alternatives.
Ive never heard any one have a positive thing to say about shifert, are we sure it is amenity and not just the bare minimum put on place to over some government mandate? (or insurance reduction?)
I didn't go often but I had no issues with schiffert. I one time got really sick on Sunday night, so ended up going to the hospital. They did absolutely nothing. Did a rapid strep test, said it came back negative but with a 20% it was a false negative and told me to go to schiffert on THURSDAY if I didn't feel better. Well, the next morning I couldn't even swallow my throat was so swollen and had no energy so I shuffled over. I had a fever of 103 and they immediately got me ibuprofen. They weren't sure if it was viral or bacterial, so decided to draw blood and test it. 20 minutes later, said it looked bacterial, wrote me a prescription, and in 48 hours I was feeling better.
Most auxiliary services on campus (Schiffert, Cook Counseling, etc) are wildly overburdened. They can handle basic illnesses but not much else. And the demand is extraordinary. They do the best with what they've got. We can't expand services without massive increases in cost. Auxiliaries have to pay for themselves, so it would require a huge increase in student fees to cover it. And of course, everyone will scream about that, so the fees stay lower than they should be, and people scream about the services...repeat.
That's fine and understandable but, they need to set that expectation instead of having these kids arrive with them and their parents expecting support do that when they are just trying to figure out how to live without the direct support of their parents and having a little culture shock, they get the freshman crud a couple weeks after arriving to find out they do not have the medical support we expected.
As a parent it's frustrating as hell not being able to help them and deal with the shock when they discover they are 100% alone. I could have planned ahead and arranged for proper medical support ahead of time. Thank god it was just the freshman crud and not something serious.
With the laws changed since I went and kids can be on their parents medical insurance, I would set my kid up with a doctor that was close to campus or a bus route. And I dont know if that is VTs stance but if it was then a lot of the burden can be removed and the students that can't use parents health care can get better care via the school.
She is on my insurance but, when I asked, I was not told to expect that there would be no response from VT medical, I was informed that I could rely on them.
My daughter has a primary care doctor in Roanoke but cannot travel there when ill. She has no car and so transportation is a significant limitation.
Teledoc us the correct answer in her case.
Yes, I am just comparing VT now to when I went snd had no insurance because none was available so I relied on VT medical, but now it is trivial for most kids to have insurance via thier parents while in college. So VT should have pivoted, hell doctors should have opened up near college campuses after the laws changed to support the changes and provide care. Think of the selling points that parents would eat up. Doctors specializing in to adult care. Walkable from campus, don't have to deal with the wait of VT medical etc.
I dont understand the medical industry, but per Guitarman there is a supply and demand issue and now there are valid payment methods to support this. And VT should support this monthly can give better medical care to those who can't be on their parents plans. I have a lot of reasons why VT wouldn't publicly support this but they should at best turn a blind eye to doctors advertising to new students.
No, and that's a big part of the problem. But at the end of the day, "all the other kids are doing it" isn't an example of good leadership.
This I agree with. And, university presidents can't force Uncle $ugar out of the college loan business. And until that happens there won't be market pressure to control prices.
But maybe there is some hope. My oldest (HS freshman) has a friend (HS junior) who is good enough to get in most anywhere (example: MIT is a legit possibility), who is leaning towards doing a year of CC to knock out basic stuff at CC prices, and he's not the only one. Limited sample size, obviously, but if more kids & parents learn what "ROI" means, maybe the market will shift. Lotta emotion tied up in these decisions, though, and still too many parents that don't realize that the formula that worked well for previous generations isn't working nearly as well now.
The crazy part is I think Princeton is now cheaper than Rutgers. The big Ivy league survive on their endowments and can afford to keep lower tuitions because they aren't in a war to be bigger and better than everybody else.
Having price-compared VT and Cornell recently, and at our income level, I can say that Cornell would be more than twice the cost of VT at almost $100k/year.
Well that is historically accurate in 93 when I was deciding on where to go. Cornell was twice the price of Tech then as well. Hindsight of 30 years, what would life have been life if I had gone there instead of Tech. I was able to afford Tech on working and my savings to avoid loans. I would have needed loans if I had gone there instead.
I've considered talking to my daughter about that route, but with her participating in the Chesapeake Bay Governor's School, and all of her classes there being dual enrollment (she'll graduate just a class or two shy of an Associate's Degree), I'm not sure that there's anything for her to gain from another year, essentially, of CC. It's all math and science there, and I guess she could work on core curriculum, but I think this is one case where what she needs is the "college experience", and working out coping techniques with her anxiety. She's been getting a lot better in that respect, but I think she's ready for the next step. I don't think another year of living at home and doing CC will help as much there.
IMO it's not analogous to peer pressure. Rather, it's analogous to the prisoner dilemma at scale.
Yep - from my perspective (which is potentially quite ignorant) this is something that has to be solved by law makers at the state and federal level.
100% agree. Unfortunately that group's track record is abysmal and trending down.
yeah but...we voted for them Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
This I agree with. And, university presidents can't force Uncle $ugar out of the college loan business. And until that happens there won't be market pressure to control prices.
As someone who has been in the student loan business for over 40 years, I cannot agree more. I have posted on this topic previously, the government is making billions off of the backs of student and parents and not too many people talk about it. When my company participated in the federal Stafford student loan business, it was an extremely competitive marketplace. If you didn't offer the best loan products to schools and students, you were out of business pretty quickly. We paid all the upfront loan origination fees for borrowers, bought down interest rates, provided millions in scholarships, etc. Hell, at one time we were even able to offer private student loans at Prime - 0.5%. We also developed special programs for some schools in which the schools themselves would subsidize the interest rates for their students. None of these types of discounts or "give back" programs are available any longer, and our cost of funds back then (privately raised lines of credit) was much, much higher than the Feds.
Colleges are competing for students, so they are building to attract students and I agree they probably arent budget shopping on the whole.
I will say that every organization organization I have been apart of either company or the government or whatever their is bloat. However, from outside people rarely see what the actual bloat is.
Right. When it stops impressing 17 year olds, the arms race will stop. This is not new. Frank wrote in one of his books about losing a recruit to an ice cream machine in another school's cafeteria and made the calls to get one at VT the next day.
I'm waiting for Guitarman to chime in. Don't know how much he'll be able to say safely though.......I'm guessing not much.
You'd be right. I know a lot, and none of it I can say here. I'm on the search committee for the new president and I've got a lot of the behind the scenes. One day I'll do a breakdown of it for you but I can't yet.
And I'll go to my grave saying Tim Sands elevated the hell out of Virginia Tech. On the academic side, we are light-years ahead of where we used to be in terms of scope, quality, and impact. Athletics is sort of impossible for anyone right now outside of a lucky few, most of whom are cheating in some way. He once told me he spent 50% of his time dealing with athletics. The regulatory and legal environment changed almost daily, and still does. If anyone thinks they can do a better job, I look forward to reading your application here soon. It's truly almost impossible to be a university president in the current environment. Be glad for who we had in Sands. I hope we can get someone as good to take up the mantle.
How do we add a requirement that we merge the academic and sports logos into the one that is most recognizable like alot of other top universities have?
You mean how do we get it back? That's probably the one thing that happened during Sands' tenure that frustrated me.
Wasn't the academic logo the pylons before the shift to rounded VT?
Yes. Most schools used to have two separate logos.
Its been a while but I remember the pylon logo. According to the official visual brand site we've got three - The university seal, the university logo, and the athletics logo. The 2nd link gets into a bit more history - the pylon logo was adopted in 1991, and I think the replacement was the new flying VT logo that nearly caused a revolt across the alumni base (I still dont care for it).
https://brand.vt.edu/licensing/university-trademarks.html#guidelines
https://www.vt.edu/about/traditions.html
Yeah, that's why I was confused by the "get it back" comment. They haven't been the same, so we can't go back to being the same.
I also don't like the rounded VT. It is too similar to the athletic logo. Either use the same logo (not a bad choice) or have one that is different enough (like the pylons, also not a bad choice). The rounded logo always felt like a very expensive half-measure.
If we are not careful to clarify what we are wishing for, we will end up with one unified logo - the curly VT.
I had a professor/friend of a friend tell me in the Stegar era, our spend for professors and academics was quite similar to our athletic spend (my words, not hers): significantly lower than peer institutions, and you were expected to like it because you had the honor to live in Blacksburg.
I've heard Sands changed that.
Facts. This is a miserable job right now. The pay is great compared to most jobs, but people with the intelligence and political savviness necessary to be a university president can land similar (or better) pay with half the hassle.
VT was in the bottom 25% among peer institutions in terms of faculty compensation when Sands took the job. I don't have our current numbers but we're at least in the top half now. He made it a priority. You can't run a university on the "up from your bootstraps, everyone should love it here" mentality. Sands came in at least a decade behind academically and athletically and closed the gap admirably.
wonderful, this wasn't just a football/athletics mindset
Maybe instead of "Invent the Future" the new president can institute "Change the Mindset" as the new slogan
We already got rid of that
Yeah i noticed that as well while doing my search on the logos. The more I dig the more i realize how much our branding team has really bungled things the last decade+
This is exactly the connection I made in the early Fuente years.
It's one of the reasons I've been so sympathetic towards Whit over the years; I think the expectation that we can (rather, should) do more with less had seemingly infected leadership throughout the entire university, as well as donors throughout the entire university.
If just seems like VT has tried to sheepishly resist the arm race by meeting the minimum financial commitment for years (a complaining about it on the way). This is another reason why you can miss me with the complaints of administrative bloat or facilities spending - everyone's doing it; it's an arms race.
Either your strategy is product differentiation (be a top 100 academic school, be a top 25 football program, and pay to be there) or its price differentiation (be an affordable degree, cheap athletic dept, etc, that is just 'good enough')
Want to be great? Gotta invest. Gotta be competitive.
I think Whit, like Sands, did a lot of good for VT but they both had some notable missteps that overshadowed their tenures.
Whit took over for an AD that started when VT was a G5 school, Sands is one president removed from a guy thay became president because the faculty couldn't choose so they decided to make it one of their own. That is no reflection on Torgeson, but on how VT ended up with their president.
I dont know the feeling on campus but we have had a ton of change and progress in the last 30 years and not a lot of change in the leadership in that time. It takes a lot to get the boulder to move but much easier to keep it moving. There are probably a lot of people that don't want the boulder moving which makes it even harder. I think that the next AD and president will both have easier times because of the work that Sands and Whit did, who benefited from Steger and Weaver.
Torgeson was great. He was promoted to Pres while still actually teaching that semester. He would come into his class and bitch about being the President about half the time while still covering the needs of the class. He was always up for a Tennis game with whoever wanted to play.
The biggest thing that he probably did was increase the President's salary to the point that people like Steger and Sands were willing to come to Tech. Of course, Torgeson also donated the entire increase to the base pay of President of the University back to the University.
put me in coach
After careful consideration and consultation with my wife and family, if offered, I would have to respectfully decline the position as President of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Tbh, I think Sands had just run his course. He was likely going to retire in 2027 at the end of his contract anyway. He did a lot of positive for the academic side in his tenure, no doubt. But there was a lot to not like - the logo/rebrand was a massive expensive flop. We had a pretty serious goal of AAU membership which he was never able to materialize, and frankly just may not happen at this point. Increased undergrad enrollment too much and too quickly for housing and town infrastructure. And then at the end of the day, didn't really get VT athletics. He just deferred to Whit to manage that side of the house, who couldn't keep pace with the evolution of major college athletics. Both he and Whit reached their ceiling here and things were stagnating. It was time for a change on all fronts, IMO, as both were nearing retirement anyway.
So...here's the question I have....
How much of this did Franklin know when he was hired?
It seems like the same BoV members who were eager for leadership change were the ones most responsible for hiring Franklin, but how much did they divulge?
I.e. I'm wondering if Franklin is sitting back looking at this and wondering what the hell he got himself into??
While one would imagine he will have quite a bit of input into the new A.D. hire, he certainly won't have much of anything to do with the new President choice and that individual could have as much influence over his tenure as anyone.
For a guy who is so detailed-oriented, this is introducing a lot of unknown into his world...hopefully not giving him second thoughts.
Same thing I'm wondering.. coaches often leave due to uncertainty with who the AD is. How much advanced knowledge did he have when he was brought on. And how will the new changes impact his tenure.
If I were a betting man, which I am, I'd put money down that Franklin knew all of this during the hiring process and those board members that were aggressively working to convince him to come to Blacksburg were informing him of the current situation and the plan to make adjustments so that everything would be in "alignment." If you remember, there was a forest fire of smoke around Whit retiring during the coaching search.
I'd guess all of it except perhaps the exact dates before the 27 fiscal year
I know everyone is celebrating this, and I don't fault people for doing so. But Whit did some great things with our non-rev sports. And, by all counts, made a homerun hire with Justin Fuente (everyone thought so anyway). It just didn't work out.
His biggest flaw(s) IMO were: (1) He wasn't great at messaging. It's beyond comprehension that someone in that position is completely incapable of handling the messaging of the athletic department, including his own self. It was an embarrassment. And (2) As stated above, he was incredibly reactionary. Was that 100% his fault? Or, was he operating within a system that simply handcuffed him? I don't know. But what I do know is that if you want to play in the big sandbox you'd better be a bulldog.
IMO, Chris Coleman hits the point the best: Yes he gave life to nonrev sports, but his biggest flaw was running a dysfunctional department with limited accountability. He made some good hires and made some mistakes hiring, but arguably the way the Athletics department was run is to blame for some of the hires not working out (fuente especially).
I have long been a believer that a successful AD is a lot more than just "hiring the right person" and then chill out until you make another hire.
After listening to the TSL pod this morning, I was about to add point 3, accountability. There's no accountability for people half assing their jobs, all the way down the org chart. And it seems like when people left the athletic dept., they weren't replaced and the employees who picked up those tasks weren't held accountable, because they were doing so much and wearing so many hats that if they made a mistake, then, "Well, aw shucks, it's no big deal. You're doing so much and helping us out so much so we don't have to back fill the position that was vacated."
That's one way to turn a good culture into a bad one fast.
Whit's tenure to me is best marked by two chapters - before 2020, and after. He came onboard and made a splash hire immediately with Buzz to invigorate the basketball program, had the unenviable task of having to replace a legend in Beamer - and did so with an on-paper slam dunk hire at the time. He invested more in the non-rev sports and built the foundation for a more well-rounded athletics department.
But the TSL podcast really hit on this point - 2020 seemed to break Whit. That was a horrible year for everyone for a multitude of reasons. But just looking at VT athletics, the 2019 Duke debacle and subsequent Baylor drama with Fu really signaled the beginning of the end of the Fu era. It was obvious it wasn't going to work out by 2019-2020. Then all of the headache with budget cuts, COVID, layoffs, etc. The 2020 Fu retention press conference was truly the day Whit lost the support of the fan base. And from there, things could have gone one of two ways. He could have worked to be a better communicator and win back the fans, bring the Hokie Club back to life to reinvigorate donors, and really focus on fixing the football program. But they went the opposite - he retreated (basically abandoned social media) from the fans, Hokie Club and the management of the AD as a whole stagnated and regressed, and he allowed John Ballein to influence him too much with the hiring of Pry. CC at TSL said it best - that hire was just not going to work, and it feels like those years were essentially wasted time. Add onto that the rise of the NIL/revenue sharing era. We did not rise to the challenge in the post-COVID era as an athletics department.
So while Whit definitely deserves some credit for accomplishments during his tenure, it really was the tale of two halves.
Maybe he realized that we were just doomed when those above him stepped in to stop him from firing Fuente at that 2020 press conference. Yeah he could have handled the next few years better, but I wonder if that moment was when he just knew that things would have to get worse before they got better, and new blood would be needed.
Not defending Whit exactly, but your comment made me think about it, and man it would be tough to be working at a football school where the football HC is one of the most important people in the whole organization, and you're told at the last moment that you can't fire him, even though his performance very clearly warranted it. The odds of him improving things from that point onward had to be very low, no matter what actions he took post-2020.
It's not just COVID:
The college football landscape drastically shifted right in year 6(?) of Whit's 12(?) year tenure.
Totally agree. I'm starting to have this theory that COVID directly or indirectly led to so much landslide change in everything just because people were cooped up and pissed off at the world. Don't want to get too far out of bounds here, but just looking at college athletics, how do we enter a global pandemic and come out on the other side with massive changes in NIL, revenue sharing, seismic conference realignment, etc... The TSL pod hinted at this a bit with CC saying people were mad with VT athletics in 2020 just given the losing record, state of the program, retaining Fu. But it was magnified 10x because everyone was already angry about everything.
The internet and media started the angry before covid, covid just ignited the powder keg so to speak. If youre to busy being mad ad stupid shit like Justin Fuente you dont have time to be mad at what you actually should be mad about (like lack of state funding for higher education, a common talking point in other threads here)
Just connecting some dots...I could see that a lot of people realized the magnitude of the money getting passed around in college sports when games were played for the sake of the TV contracts, which then led to people wondering (louder) why the players weren't getting a share of it, and then it snowballed from there.
I think this is it. The walls came down on the sausage factory; the lie became too obvious to ignore. Naivety and ignorance were impossible.
Edit: this shut down forecast did a really good episode recently on the failure of amateurism over the history of the NCAA, and they talked about the Todd Gurley saga being a huge turning point in public opinion
Do you have a link to that?
It's paywalled, but I think they let you name your own price. They recommend $4/month.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/fullcast-lore-154498368
Thanks, this type of discourse is like booze to me.
It's so good. Fullcast is ironically at their best when they're covering serious topics.
Great post. Right on the money
I was under the impression that Buzz was the one who reached out to Whit and Virginia Tech. I thought that hire fell into Whit's lap.
I'd concur. Very poor communicator and, as others have said, his biggest flaw was the lack of accountability in the A.D. I can personally attest that the criticism of VT having a culture of promoting friends and family is 100% accurate.
He definitely upgraded our fundraising (which was very much needed, we were asleep at the wheel in Weaver's later years). But I don't why it took so long to bring the Hokie Club under their wings or why we hired two HC heads with no prior fundraising experience (that also had other major job responsibilities). Chris Coleman talks about this stuff all the time. There was just no effort to bring in any outside voices.
Structurally, I think he left VT better than he found it. But part of that was because the coach he hired bombed so bad that it forced the university leadership to take the reigns.
part of that was because the coach he hired bombed so bad that it forced the university leadership to take the reigns
So then task failed successfully, right???
First off, this is a hilarious video (hilarious in the Kristen Bell laughing then crying gif way).
Second, this pairs really well with what VTJ12 said above about splitting Whit's tenure into before and after COVID. Virtually all of the bad stuff in that video is post-2020. I get that recency bias will make you put more stuff from the last few years into a joke video like this, but man stuff really did get bad recently compared to pre-2020, when we hired guys like Buzz and Fuente
Good riddance
Godspeed, good sir.
May your weights always weigh the same, no matter where life takes you next (yes I know, special advisor to the special person in the same special place, whatever)
So long, Whithaniel. Hopefully his replacement can help rescue basketball, and his beloved baseball.
Typical golden parachute but contractually works out well for VT rather than paying a straight buy out.
I would love to be slowly fired like that
Boom. My sauce told me approximately two months ago it would happen this summer. I said it would happen three weeks ago on the Sands retirement thread. I'm going to go buy a lottery ticket.
that only works if your friend gives you the numbers
They say Anthropic Claude is some good stuff. I don't know if it's lottery good, though.