Today we begin our Outreach Campaign to contact W&M leadership and administration about their decision to discontinue 7 Tribe Athletics Programs. We have crafted an email & voicemail template and provided contact information for all the individuals we are trying to reach. https://t.co/U43htbkyWf



#NoRockUnturned

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(09-03-2020 03:30 PM)TDenverFan Wrote:  

(09-03-2020 03:22 PM)Tribal Wrote:  And, don't blame Huge...that would be akin to blaming Trump for the COVID-induced economic despair. Totally unavoidable.

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Yeah, I haven't always been the biggest fan of hers but I agree. Seems like they did this in about as "good" of a way as possible.

Even though there aren't a ton of scholarships here, they're still honoring them. They did try to raise private funds, but weren't able to. The AD and other coaches are also taking paycuts to help with the deficit.

Edit: I realize now Tribal may have been sarcastic, but I stand by what I said

A 6 min call with no Q&A is not handling this in a “good way”. They made no meaningful effort to raise funds to save the sports.

Meanwhile pandemic or not the AD put the department in precarious position by alienating donors and season ticket holders, resulting in reduced revenue, which had to be made up by increased student fees, and increased transfers from the admin. All the while increasing headcount, driving massive personnel turnover, resulting in higher expenses and horrifically bad department moral.

Any AD is fundamentally the GM of a sports entertainment franchise. By any objective measure, Samantha Huge is an abject failure in this regard. Declining revenues, declining ticket sales, declining fundraising (outside a handful of major gifts for capital improvement) + increased expenses and headcount = failure, and would result in termination at any business. Her financial and management performance is among, if not the worst, in FCS athletics.

Not to mention she’s personally had nothing to do through influence or hiring any CAA championships or “national” caliber performance.

(09-11-2020 06:57 AM)Tribfan Wrote:  

(09-03-2020 03:30 PM)TDenverFan Wrote:  

(09-03-2020 03:22 PM)Tribal Wrote:  And, don't blame Huge...that would be akin to blaming Trump for the COVID-induced economic despair. Totally unavoidable.

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Yeah, I haven't always been the biggest fan of hers but I agree. Seems like they did this in about as "good" of a way as possible.

Even though there aren't a ton of scholarships here, they're still honoring them. They did try to raise private funds, but weren't able to. The AD and other coaches are also taking paycuts to help with the deficit.

Edit: I realize now Tribal may have been sarcastic, but I stand by what I said

A 6 min call with no Q&A is not handling this in a “good way”. They made no meaningful effort to raise funds to save the sports.

Meanwhile pandemic or not the AD put the department in precarious position by alienating donors and season ticket holders, resulting in reduced revenue, which had to be made up by increased student fees, and increased transfers from the admin. All the while increasing headcount, driving massive personnel turnover, resulting in higher expenses and horrifically bad department moral.

Any AD is fundamentally the GM of a sports entertainment franchise. By any objective measure, Samantha Huge is an abject failure in this regard. Declining revenues, declining ticket sales, declining fundraising (outside a handful of major gifts for capital improvement) + increased expenses and headcount = failure, and would result in termination at any business. Her financial and management performance is among, if not the worst, in FCS athletics.

Not to mention she’s personally had nothing to do through influence or hiring any CAA championships or “national” caliber performance.

There are plenty of people that felt the move to relieve Tony of his duties was a good decision. For those that didn't (I'm in that camp) it was our choice whether or not we wanted to continue to support the tribe as we had been in the past. Because Huge made that move did not affect how I support the tribe. It isn't actually her fault others decreased their level of support. It was their decision. Plenty simply hoped it was a bad move so she'd be booted too. I don't get that mindset.

Tribfan, so what you’re saying, using Bubba’s logic, we’d like to keep the AD, but it’s not possible?

Tribe3455, I think the mindset was that the AD’s decision was so egregious, that the level of disgust had to be relayed to the powers that be.

Unfortunately, the powers that be have now doubled down on stupid in order to go to a Dance. Fortunately, most of the W&M alumni base, having been educated at W&M, are not as stupid.

Huge performance model has left town. Huge first hire: Korem is out as sr asso. ad after first being demoted of supervisory responsibilities. He ran off or fired ALL previous strength coaches and trainers (except 1 out of 20 resignations), his analytics guy has left, his last hired strength coach just resigned and the department is presently on the 3rd head trainer within one year.

(09-11-2020 07:39 AM)TheRightWay Wrote:  Huge performance model has left town. Huge first hire: Korem is out as sr asso. ad after first being demoted of supervisory responsibilities. He ran off or fired ALL previous strength coaches and trainers (except 1 out of 20 resignations), his analytics guy has left, his last hired strength coach just resigned and the department is presently on the 3rd head trainer within one year.

Who was the last hired strength coach? If you are talking about Kuehne then calling it a resignation is a little bit misleading. He took a bigger job at Arizona. But, point taken on Korem. Was a good intentioned but poor hire. The major turnover in the training room being the worst of it. The strength coaches they do have are really good. Not sure they will keep the rugby guy for long though. EIther way, they are woefully short on s&c coaches.

Men's gymnastics may have trouble from an NCAA perspective surviving much longer. From reading places, there appears to be 15 College teams (Springfield college is DIII but appears to compete with the DI in gymnastics) and 9 club teams (clubs don't compete at NCAAs). At a minimum, I have found Iowa, Minnesota (announced today) and W&M are cutting so down to 12 college teams.

Huge is a classic case of someone who saw how things work at higher level institutions and then tried to emulate them at a much smaller and different type environment. It happens all the time in business. If you look at her playbook, much of it is best practice. How she implemented it was amateur at best. Train wreck is a decent representation.

(09-11-2020 10:50 AM)tribe_pride Wrote:  Men's gymnastics may have trouble from an NCAA perspective surviving much longer. From reading places, there appears to be 15 College teams (Springfield college is DIII but appears to compete with the DI in gymnastics) and 9 club teams (clubs don't compete at NCAAs). At a minimum, I have found Iowa, Minnesota (announced today) and W&M are cutting so down to 12 college teams.

Based on these numbers...even if W&M was sincere about helping student-athletes transfer, there are very few places for them to go (and even if they got a scholarship there, then some other athlete there would lose theirs).

(09-11-2020 11:15 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  Huge is a classic case of someone who saw how things work at higher level institutions and then tried to emulate them at a much smaller and different type environment. It happens all the time in business. If you look at her playbook, much of it is best practice. How she implemented it was amateur at best. Train wreck is a decent representation.

Not sure really what the point of cancelling these sports at the current time. What did we really gain? We are on track for an attractive Kaplan arena, getting good bball recruits and a young promising Bball coach. Arent the bball scholarships already endowed? If this is a money grab, why do it now other than its easy? Seems unnecessary. But maybe she is trying to position this into big-boy mode...Is she shifting this endowed money into a plan for a newly expanded FBS football program?

(09-11-2020 10:50 AM)tribe_pride Wrote:  Men's gymnastics may have trouble from an NCAA perspective surviving much longer. From reading places, there appears to be 15 College teams (Springfield college is DIII but appears to compete with the DI in gymnastics) and 9 club teams (clubs don't compete at NCAAs). At a minimum, I have found Iowa, Minnesota (announced today) and W&M are cutting so down to 12 college teams.

Yeah, I never realized how few schools offered it.

The standings page on the NCAA website directs here - https://roadtonationals.com/results/standingsM/

23 teams total last year, and several have cut their program. There also appear to be a few teams of independent athletes, like NY Alliance, Rocky Mountain, NorCal Alliance, and SC United

(09-11-2020 09:54 AM)Tribe3455 Wrote:  

(09-11-2020 07:39 AM)TheRightWay Wrote:  Huge performance model has left town. Huge first hire: Korem is out as sr asso. ad after first being demoted of supervisory responsibilities. He ran off or fired ALL previous strength coaches and trainers (except 1 out of 20 resignations), his analytics guy has left, his last hired strength coach just resigned and the department is presently on the 3rd head trainer within one year.

Who was the last hired strength coach? If you are talking about Kuehne then calling it a resignation is a little bit misleading. But, point taken on Korem. Was a good intentioned but poor hire. The major turnover in the training room being the worst of it. Not sure they will keep the rugby guy for long though.

Referring to Carney, rugby guys hand pick assistant, who lasted one year as baseball s&c. Rugby guy is stuck at W&M to fulfill UK visa requirements. Why did 12 trainers and 4 s&c staff members ALL RESIGN and pushed out by Huge/Korem model in less than his first year of his
hire!

An opinion piece from Richmond.com

IMO, attacking football & basketball isn't the correct angle. State your claim without going after the two sports that generate attention. I only mention this bc the SAVE 7 group supports this article.


https://richmond.com/opinion/columnists/...ssion=true

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This endowment angle is the one that folks who haven’t followed this closely are noticing. Folks appreciate this for what it is ... a money grab.

Unfortunately, football and basketball are going to be collateral damage unless the College reverses course.

When someone like me loses the passion for W&M football and basketball, imagine what is going on in the community at large.

It is unfathomable to me that we could have such a pro-football and pro-basketball President and AD ... and yet they fail to see that, at its heart, the Athletics Department has always been about the Olympic sports, walk-ons and non-schollies, and shoestring budgets ... and their decisions are putting EVERY sport in peril.

"at its heart, the Athletics Department has always been about the Olympic sports, walk-ons and non-schollies, and shoestring budgets"

Whether you agree or not, the point behind the cuts and other decisions is to change that. Increase budgets and resources for teams that can draw attention to W&M. This could result in better awareness/reputation/ranking for W&M as a whole and create a stronger and more financially sound athletic department. The old way was fine if you aren't concerned about seeking sustainable success for the higher profile sports or want to move to DIII. The new president and board didn't want that. You can disagree with how the actions were taken, but putting all the blame on the AD for the decisions that were made is wrong.

~ signed, Samantha K. Huge

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I've seen the online narrative that cutting these sports is a means for the AD to steal the endowments from the 7 and shift them to other purposes. I admit to being ignorant to how all of this works, but in my limited Google research, it didn't sound like changing the purpose for an endowment was doable without written agreement from the donor and the charity. I didn't gather that just because the purpose of the original endowment was no more that the funding could be used wherever. Can anybody more knowledgeable clarify this?

(09-14-2020 10:28 AM)Old tribe Wrote:  "at its heart, the Athletics Department has always been about the Olympic sports, walk-ons and non-schollies, and shoestring budgets"

Whether you agree or not, the point behind the cuts and other decisions is to change that. Increase budgets and resources for teams that can draw attention to W&M. This could result in better awareness/reputation/ranking for W&M as a whole and create a stronger and more financially sound athletic department. The old way was fine if you aren't concerned about seeking sustainable success for the higher profile sports or want to move to DIII. The new president and board didn't want that. You can disagree with how the actions were taken, but putting all the blame on the AD for the decisions that were made is wrong.

Explain to me how undergoing a divorce with a sizable portion of your athletic alumni base / donor base is going to lead to sustainable success, when the current student body / young alumni have less passion for intercollegiate athletics.

Sorry, not buying it.

This is like a controlled burn to eliminate unwanted items, only it gets out of control, and takes down everything.

If you can’t see the danger here, nothing I can say will enlighten you.

The Shaver decision was high risk. It didn’t pan out.

The Tribe 7 deal is high risk. It won’t pan out.

When all is said and done, you’re going to be saying: where did it all go? Where is everyone?

(09-14-2020 10:59 AM)mrjoolius Wrote:  I've seen the online narrative that cutting these sports is a means for the AD to steal the endowments from the 7 and shift them to other purposes. I admit to being ignorant to how all of this works, but in my limited Google research, it didn't sound like changing the purpose for an endowment was doable without written agreement from the donor and the charity. I didn't gather that just because the purpose of the original endowment was no more that the funding could be used wherever. Can anybody more knowledgeable clarify this?

I don't know about any particular endowment agreements at W&M. However, they almost certainly contain a clause allowing W&M's administration to redirect the funds if the donor's specified use no longer "advance[s] the mission of the university."