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My biggest reservation about Chesney is less about him, and more a general rule of caution for me -- when a coach takes over a well-oiled machine. We haven't seen enough to know if he is going to sustain and elevate a program, or win early and decline. We saw the latter happen with Fuente, so we know that story all too well.

I like a winner, I like someone who is familiar with the region, etc. I simply do not know how much of JMU's continued success is the foundation laid before him, and how much is his own coaching and development prowess.

It's the main reason why I keep coming back to Mullen. He's *done it* at a program with some similar issues to VT in Miss State (though he did have the SEC patch on the chest). He's won at Florida, and while he underperformed there as a recruiter, that is an uber-high standard that he would not be expected to meet here. Plus, the portal, NIL and rev share have fundamentally altered the player acquisition, where Mullen's shortcomings as an individual recruiter probably won't always matter as much. To be clear, he isn't even a "bad" recruiter, by any means, he simply isn't known as an elite one.

Maybe start out watching every remaining game this season and next season on TV and possibly attending one game next season. Thats where I'm at.

I hear you, I really do, but I am of the firm belief that HNW individuals and universities who have already "made the plunge" aren't going to level up in the immediate future.

Why do I say this?.....I believe the insane amount of money has been committed/established. I think it's now more of a sit back and see what results we get from this. I just do not think this level of money will be supported year in and year out long term or even mid-term. The amount of money being thrown around is just ludicrous for kids at the collegiate level. If it goes up with let's say ~ 10 organizations, it will be modest. I think we will see a leveling off over the next 2-5 years.

Now, I could be way, way off, and if I am, then mankind has lost its mind.

Well the $120m lump sum is what makes up the 4 x $30m 'Philanthropy' funding source we see on the proposed annual budgets.

I do have the same question about what comes next in 2029, but if I had to guess, they are planning to have that money come from somewhere else starting in 2030, which could be an indication of where they see us ending up should the ACC dissolve by the end of the decade.

Hopefully we use some of the $120 million to hire people that will know how to get the Hokie Club rolling.

Agree that a head coach is likely to continue having recruiting responsibilities even in a GM lead world. Even if you're mostly playing for the paycheck, trusting the coach to be able to develop you and give you opportunities to showcase yourself and win games is still going to be an important factor in a recruit's decision. There could be a eventuality where the head coach doesn't spend as much time on recruiting as the GM regarding player evaluation, but the head coach probably still needs the recruiting ability to convincingly sell the program to recruits to be able to close on the targets identified by the GM, whenever there are competing offers in the same price range.

Yeah and it must be pretty far along to the point of just finishing up the paperwork if its being included in this BoV proposal. You don't include that in your budget forecast over the next 4 years if you don't already have the assurances its happening.

Great story. Memories never forgotten.

I have many from the OBX as well. My brother and I were VA Beach surfers in the late 70s. VA Beach would be 1 ft, we'd drive to Nags Head it would be 2-3 ft, and then further down Rte 12 and its be 3-4 ft+ in Rodanthe or Buxton/Frisco (if it was a S or SE swell).
Once we could drive we bought a beat up station wagon and drove to the OBX surfing almost every weekend - summer, winter, fall, spring, didn't matter - through our last high school years. We camped most times (Cape Point or Frisco Woods), sometimes it was just a day trip. We surfed A LOT!
Then when we went to college in the early 80s we would go down all summer long and do a 2 week camp trip just before we headed off to college.

We surfed some pretty serious hurricane swells over those years. Hurricane David and Frederick in the late 70s brought 15-20 ft to the Buxton groins. We were on it. I remember camping one of those trips and was surfing the groins one night at 2 ft, fun and then all of a sudden, a set of 10 waves at 4 ft+ catches everyone inside. Then a lull of about 10 minutes and then a repeat cleanup set. Were all looking at each other - wait, something is up! By dark its 5-6 ft corduroy to the horizon. The next 5 days were epic ground swell, with well overhead every day. Surfed our brains out that trip. Back then the lighthouse was in its original location and open to climbing the stairs to the top. I did that the second day and took a few pictures with my Nikon F. Impressive seeing Parallel 5-6 ft lines from horizon to horizon stacked as far east as you could see. Memories!

Caught some great fish from the beach on many of those trips and had them for dinner same day. Usually we had black drum, flounder, and blues. Super fresh and tasty.

Saw some crazy fish while surfing also. The OBX is where I once paddled next to a sawfish - craziest, ugliest fish I ever saw, He was pretty close and that beak looked dangerous. I paddled away from him quickly. Saw plenty of sharks in the lineup as well. During that long duration swell I mentioned above, I remember that 1st night as the swell arrived seeing a LARGE dorsal fin outside the lineup cruising North past the groins. With the sun to the West, he lit up so we could all see him. That dorsal fine was 18" out of the water. He cruised on and didn't mess with anyone (there were many surfers in the water).

Took a look at TSL last night and some of their insiders are saying the philanthropy portion is being paid by a yet to be announced $120m lump sum that Whit has been working on for a while. Someone is stepping up bigly to get this ball rolling.

It's always darkest before the dawn?

Make no mistake, this happens in industry all the time, too. People know what the problems are, have ideas about fixes, but it takes management a long time to get on board and then they fire the figurehead and infuse the place with new ideas and money. Oftentimes the leader couldn't get the funding to do what they actually wanted to do, but they take the heat.

lol that is kinda funny tho. gotta respect the troll-job

First spring break with my now wife, we decided to head to Hatteras for a week's camping. Big storm came through and the road was becoming flooded seriously enough to halt traffic and shut the road down. We were the last vehicle allowed through. We were in a Ford Custom sedan, 4WD vehicles being pretty rare in those days. We'd drive until the road would rise enough to come out of the water where we'd stop, let the water out of the car, walk the dog and grab another beer before going on at maybe 10-15 mph due to the lack of traction in the water which poured into the floorboards. We passed a couple of stranded jeeps along the way, and basically stayed on the road bed by lining up between the power poles and what road signs there were. Once there, however, we couldn't go back up the coast because the road remained closed for several days after we had to get back to VT. The trip back to Chesapeake where my parents lived was brutal. Ferry to Ocracoke, then the Swan Island ferry and a brutal trip home was the result. It was '73 and we were newly in love, so it ended up being a good trip with no crowds, but the trip through the flooded road still resonates as I see episodic closures down there. Yeah, the car took a major hit and my bag of, well, herbal "medicine" I'd stashed under the seat was unusable, but the trip was epic and we got high on love (yeah, gag me with a spoon, right?).