With University Hall scheduled for implosion this weekend, there have been plenty of articles making the rounds and that has stirred up memories for long-time Virginia fans.
Our own contributing writer Greg Waters is working on an article for the VAF magazine as well and that brought up some memories in this thread too. Spud Webb, Lefty Driesell, Drazen Petrovic, Barry Parkhill, Richard Morgan, and many more names filled the nostalgia wagon on that one. As for me, I watched games there as a student, covered games as media, coached games in AAU and otherwise, and played some pick-up basketball all inside U-Hall. I’ll be there for the implosion as well.
With fans looking back on years gone by, it’s time for the Fan Friday series. Let’s go!
Fan Take Of The Week
Poster HTrain90 shared this take about fundraising for the Virginia Athletics Master Plan in this thread:
Some input on the lingo
Proposal = this just means a formal ask has been made to a donor with a specific dollar amount attached. Someone has been identified as a prospective donor, and VAF has made a formal (and specific dollar amount) ask. Each proposal just means “I have asked Donor X for $(Specific Amount).”
Commitment = there is an agreement in-place the donor has committed to a specific dollar amount to be paid over a specific time frame. Commitments are usually paid over 5 years, but can be as few as 2-3 years.
The amount in proposals ($96M) is in addition to the $20M committed and raised.
It is important to note that $96M in proposals does not mean VAF has $96M in projected future commitments. There is no distinction between a proposal where the donor says “I will probably do that, but let’s wait 6 months for me to have some liquidity for me to sign the agreement” and another proposal where a donor says “I will consider it” but is only being polite because they don’t want to say “no” outright. As a fundraiser, I can tell you that those are two very different conversations – one is almost certainly going to result in a gift, and the other almost certainly will not. However, UVA logs these two donor conversations the same way (as a proposal). This is because fundraisers are measured on the amount of asks they make, so it’s important to log each one regardless how likely it is to come through.
Bottom line, VAF is not $116M down the road. VAF is currently $20M down the road (with $5M on-hand and $15M in future commitments), and VAF has another $96M in specific asks out to Athletics donors.
Or, in other words, there is still a LOOOOOOONG way to go.
Fan(s) Of The Week
Many parents built championship memories with their kids after Virginia won the National Championship.
Student Fan(s) Of The Week
Jerseys for the win!
Feature Photo Of The Week
It’s only fitting that in University Hall’s final week that Ralph Sampson holds down this spot!
Post Of The Week
With basketball on people’s minds this week, this post from SCWAHOO from one of the VAF stops this spring is a good one to read. The full thread is here.
Question Of The Week
The baseball team appears to be in dangerous bubble territory when it comes to NCAA Tournament selection. That could make it two years in a row that the Hoos miss out on the postseason after Brian O’Connor’s group made it for the first 14 years of his tenure. 1969Hoo posed a question that led to some good discussion on the baseball message board: “Why is baseball not as good? We were a national elite team, but now middle of the pack ACC team. Has recruiting fallen way off?”
