Craig Littlepage guided the Virginia Athletics Department to a No. 3 Directors’ Cup finish.

When Craig Littlepage slipped into the Virginia Athletics Director chair in the last decade, he was taking a seat at the helm of a department headed in a new direction.

Instead of dropping or tiering sports, recommended possibilities from the Virginia 2020 Strategic Planning Task Force for the Department of Athletics in 2001 as discussed in a Sabre article last week, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors and other leaders decided that athletics should pursue the national level of excellence achieved by many of the school’s other departments. Leonard W. Sandridge, the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the University, said in July 2001 at a BOV committees meeting that “the goals of the Athletics Department are academic excellence, athletic excellence, compliance and adequate funding.”

Talk, as they say, is cheap. The general outline of “excellence” in both academics and athletics is a good one. For the school to achieve at a higher level in athletics, however, the Cavaliers needed more than desire. They needed a plan.

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