WILLIAMSBURG — William and Mary athletic director Terry Driscoll says his department’s most-pressing facility needs are a practice complex for basketball and volleyball, a pool for swimming and diving and a new or refurbished basketball arena.
But Driscoll’s list, detailed this week in a report startling in scope, ambition and candor, has one glaring omission: a new office for the AD.
Spartan doesn’t begin to describe the subterranean dungeon that passes for Driscoll’s workspace at William and Mary Hall. Light peeks in through windows near the ceiling, and the only touch that appears fresh is the yellow paint.
“It’s OK,” Driscoll said with a laugh. “I went to Catholic schools, so I’m used to it. Cinder blocks are my life.”
Besides, Driscoll added, one visit to his office would convince any prospective donor of the Tribe’s need for money.
True that. And true that an athletic program admirable for its success, integrity and depth has for far too long operated on the cheap.
How to remedy? A 29-page report commissioned by William and Mary president W. Taylor Reveley, and written by the department’s Committee on Competitive Excellence, offers answers.
The overarching solution is cash. Truckloads of it.
For routine expenses such as scholarships, salaries and operating budgets, W&M hopes to increase annual giving to athletics by $8.1 million a year. Not immediately, mind you. Gradually. But given that the Tribe raised about $4.7 million last year, it’s a big ask regardless.
For transformative projects such as facilities and endowed scholarships, we’re talking nine figures: $125 million for the practice complex ($20-25 million), pool ($15-20 million) and basketball arena ($60-75 million) — a mere arena renovation would cost only $22-28 million; $192 million to endow all scholarships.
“The end product is very good,” football coach Jimmye Laycock said Thursday of the report, “but the fact that they did it is even better. That they really sat down and made a point to do this, I’m very optimistic about it. … To put it out there in the public and make a statement about it, I think is significant.”
Echoing the report, Driscoll applauded the generosity of the Tribe’s current donors but said approximately 10,000 untapped prospects have been identified. The report, available online, is the first step in showing potential boosters exactly what William and Mary offers its athletes and how the school hopes to enhance their experiences.
Such transparency is wise and puts the Tribe in good company. Costs are escalating at every level, and since the new year Virginia Tech and Virginia also have revealed how much new revenue they will need.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Driscoll said during an hour-long interview. “We put the numbers out there. You need a context. … It’s going to take some good things coming together for us. We don’t have people sitting around writing $20 million checks very often, but we’ve gotten this far.”
Often in spite of themselves. As even most ardent Tribe supporters concede, William and Mary often moves glacially, and that’s been especially true in athletics.
Sure, the football support complex that opened in 2008 is top-shelf. But soon-to-be renovated Zable Stadium has been antiquated for decades, Kaplan Arena has too many seats and too few amenities, and the swimming teams don’t even have a, uh, pool.
Yet Tribe football remains nationally relevant, men’s basketball has reached two consecutive Colonial Athletic Association championship games, and Olympic sports often thrive. Indeed, men’s swimming won the 2015 CAA title, even though the Tribe forfeits diving points because the campus recreation pool in which it practices doesn’t accommodate diving.
The report says that since the CAA’s 1985 founding, William and Mary has won 116 league championships, 39 more than runner-up James Madison’s 77. But, the report acknowledges, more than half those championships have come in three sports: men’s and women’s cross country, and women’s tennis.
The Tribe bankrolls 23 sports for 6,200 undergraduates, Virginia 25 for more than 14,000, Virginia Tech 22 for more than 23,000, JMU 17 for 19,100 students, Old Dominion 18 for 19,800. So William and Mary’s range is, to say the least, bold.
“I think we start with the basic premise that this athletic program is supposed to be part of the educational mission,” Driscoll said, “and the opportunities for leadership, the opportunities for participation were generated by having a broad-based program. …
“There may be a point in time where that has to change, but right now our goal is to try to get each one of these sports the chance to be involved (in NCAA postseason) and be successful.”
Driscoll emphasized that the report, and his department’s approach, is flexible, allowing for ever-fluid NCAA legislation and individual sports’ needs — a scholarship in field hockey or a pay hike in baseball, for example.
“We’re on the lower side of compensation for most of our sports,” Driscoll said, comparing William and Mary to CAA peers. “We have a few sports that are OK. Assistants probably worse than head coaches. And then operating budgets … we’ve got a way to go. But in spite of all that, we’ve been able to move forward.
“For example, we needed to have more summer school available for our basketball programs, and that began three or four years ago, and it’s become a larger and larger portion of what we’re doing because the NCAA has made it, you almost have to offer summer school now or the kids can’t work out (as the NCAA allows). …
“We took our (men’s) basketball team down to the Dominican Republic two years ago because for that team, with all the freshmen coming in … it was an opportunity to get them together, get a couple weeks of practice and have them begin that team-building experience. … So we were able to do that. … We’re going to do things selectively. We’re not trying to be anybody else. We’re trying to say, here’s who we are within our structure. What can we do? … We have to look at where we are and where we’re maybe a little different and where we’re lacking and try to address those things as best as we can. There’s some things we’re never going to change and some things we can modify a little bit.”
What’s never going to change are the college’s admissions standards, which aren’t dumbed-down for athletes. The stance is ideal but makes competing against institutions with varying missions problematic.
Driscoll compared W&M to the kid on the playground with the funny haircut. His goals are like his friends’ — he’s just a bit different.
The good news is admissions and athletics appreciate rather than resent one another. In fact, admissions is trying to streamline some of its decisions to get the most academically qualified athletes admitted earlier, which can only help recruiting.
William and Mary wants each of its athletes to graduate and to compete in NCAA postseason at least once. The Tribe has not approached such excellence and will not, absent what the report outlines.
“This isn’t about trying to get to the Final Four,” Driscoll said. “This is more about, we’ve got 23 sports, how do we make this the richest and best experience we can, staying consistent with what our mission is here at William and Mary? It doesn’t mean we want to be any less competitive, but the reality of it is … it’s all about resources. …
“It’s a great plan. All we have to do is execute it.”
David Teel can be reached at 757-247-4636 or by email at dteel@dailypress.com. For more from Teel, read his blog at dailypress.com/teeltime and follow him at twitter.com/DavidTeelatDP.
