#Hokies have hired Kennesaw State coach Pete D'Amour as its new softball coach. Worked at Missouri as an assistant while Tech AD Whit Babcock was there.— Mike Barber (@RTD_MikeBarber) May 31, 2018
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Kennesaw St. was above .600 3 of the past 4 seasons and nearly .700 last season.
After looking at his bio he seems to be a pitching guru and a VERY solid recruiter!
Does Angela Tincher still have a role on the staff?
Who knows, but I feel like she should always have a role as long as she wants it.
Welcome to Blacksburg...Go Hokies!!!!!
This appears to be a great hire on paper and it sounds like he is ready for the challenge. Hopefully he isn't as bad as Fuente. /s
Let's give them both 53 games before the seat gets hot...
/s
but when will we stop giving the defense a pass?!
In the spirt of unpopular opinions on twitter, I'll say it.
I hope we're not spending any more on this guy than the last. I don't care if we win 50 games in girls softball or 0. I want more recruiting support staff for football.
I want every Tech sport to do good
That's a terrible opinion. Want to just cut all Olympic sports too?
I said cut? News to me.
I want a top flight football team which will pull significantly more money, and will improve VT's situation across the board athletically and academically. Significant investment in non-revenue producing sports has a very minimal ROI, and according to everyone the last month or so, the only thing holding VT back is money.
its not a popular opinion, but I agree. Football (and in part Basketball) funds the Olympic sports until we have a massive endowment. A top notch softball program isn't going to help the overall $$ issue
Ehh, 250k in more HR costs wont get us a football title no matter what it is spent on. But it could make the difference for softball. In the past decade 4 different schools (OU, Arizona State, Washington, and Alabama) all won their first ever WCWS titles. Now a lot of that is driven by their rosters, but that is where more money on the smaller roster sports can produce immediate impacts and this isnt as dominated by a small handful of schools like WBball, or say Swimming and Diving or the B1G+OKST in Wrestling.
If Whit feels the pieces are in place for this to be VT's first team title lets invest as called for and go from there.
That was never claimed - but it would certainly help. That's at least 5 positions of support staff. There isn't going to be one panacea that gets our athletic budget in line with our competition, so why not do what we can? Slowing the additional investment (not limiting current spending) on non-revenue producing sports, charging $5 a head to the Spring Game, utilize social media a little better in asking for donations...etc. Start putting some of those things together and we easily may have another million/year.
Thinking 'this won't get us a NC, so we shouldn't consider it' isn't the approach we need to continue to build the program.
I'm going to have to side with Whit on this one.
That's fine, and I haven't even seen contract details, so I don't know what (if any) we're paying additionally, but for the posters who's go-to excuse is 'we don't have the money for XYZ,' these are decisions to at least be mindful of.
Then maybe say something like... "I really hope that Whit takes the salary of this coach into consideration because of the ramifications it could have for the Football Team Staff. I hope our ladies softball team is successful, but I think our football team being successful is more important for Revenue and donations."
Everything doesn't have to be so black and white and negative.
- Post Police
A word to the wise is sufficient.
Softball was trending in the wrong direction.
Whit is attempting to fix that.
I'm all for it, and I trust his judgment. It was time to make a change and he made it.
We don't, but we still have things like Title IX to consider as well and while we CAN spend less money on Olympic sports or even remove teams for budgetary reasons, it won't be at the cost of women's athletics, and is more likely to come at the expense of football.
Not saying anyone is advocating that, btw, just saying it's not as clear cut as "we should take the money from this non-revenue sport".
Totally agree. Which is why I mentioned specifically not to do that. I'm just a little wary of the potential of bringing in a guy for a few 100k a more a year.
Football raises the tide for all sports (and the institution as a whole). To ignore the needs of FB in the name of a few more wins in a non-revenue producing sport seems like a tough call to make. I'd get it if we were on the cusp of a national championship, but we're not in this case.
Nobody at VT is ignoring the needs of football.
Not ignoring, but not optimizing.
Do colleges get rewards for how they place in the Directors Cup standings, because if so this could/would also be the reason we are trying to spend money on olympic sports, so it could help ROI a little bit.
There are no direct monetary awards from the Directors Cup but I imagine its a lot easier to request donations if you are consistently in the top five. The biggest issue there is that unless you are competing in almost all the sports recognized and at a top level in those you don't stand a chance. Essentially you have to be Stanford or Stanford.
Stanford has won every Director's Cup since the second year it was awarded. They were second to North Carolina in 1993. They have essentially clinched it for this season too although it technically has not been awarded yet. That is 24 out of 25. Dominating the Cup isn't just a D1 thing though, Grand Valley State has won 12 of the last 14 at DII, Williams has won all but 2 of the Cups at DIII. The only one that has been fairly widely won is the NAIA.
Whit has a stake in the Director's Cup now with the contract extension and in every Olympic sports pursuit of a title. The extension now has it that if the Hokies finish in the top 30 in the cup, it adds $50K to Whit's base salary. If they finish in the top 25, it increases to $100K. The wording makes it seem like these are permanent increases, so between now and 2024, he has the chance to add as much as $700K annually if the Hokies finish in the top 25 in the cup every year. Currently this year, the Hokies are 21st so Whit stands to see that $100K for this season at least. There are currently 8 ACC teams in the top 25. The Hokies are fifth behind NC State, Notre Dame, Duke and Florida State. UVA is currently 24th. His original contract called for a $15K bonus for a National title in any Olympic Sport, but I think the reup has that up to $25K now.
I am sold on this guys desire to be here based on his history with Whit and his desire to be closer to his childhood home but I am not sure finding a coach known for being a pitching guru is what this team needed. The Lady Hokies finished 3rd in the ACC in team ERA and were fairly highly rated in many of the other pitching categories with the help of Tincher. The problem the last two seasons was the inability to hit the ball and some serious defensive woes.
The Hokies top starting pitcher this season gave up 70 runs in 187 innings pitched which is pretty amazing on the front of things, but when you realize she only gave up 46 earned runs it begins to paint a different story. That's 24 unearned runs for their top pitcher. On the season as a whole, they gave up 52 unearned runs on 171 runs allowed, or almost a third of the total allowed. The sad part for these pitchers is they held opponents to an amazing .198 batting average yet still lost more than they won.
Offensively they only managed to hit .242 as a team. The team finished 23-30 but the big difference was the inability to score runs. They managed 3 or fewer runs in 37 of their 53 games. They were shut out completely 9 times. These are the areas that have to improve or it doesn't matter if the pitching is great.