[ Silence ]
>> Craig: I'm the Director of Athletics
here at the University of Virginia.
I've been the Director of
Athletics since August 2001.
My background is in coaching a particular
aspect, the first 18 years or so of my career
as an assistant and head basketball
coach at major universities.
When I got out of coaching in 1990, I
remained here at the University of Virginia
and joined the administrative staff.
And I've held positions from Assistant AD,
Associate AD, Senior Associate AD, Interim AD,
and then, finally, in August 2001 as
the University's Director of Athletics.
>> Billy: Craig, can you kind of
touch on what your duties are and sort
of what the job entails being a Director
of Athletics at a university like Virginia?
>> Craig: The job of an AD is much like the job
of a president or CEO of a major university.
These positions, Directors of Athletic
positions, are about spreading the goodwill
of the department, its missions and goals
and a lot of external operations in terms
of fundraising, especially events and other
activities that would support the University
as a whole, so particularly now with
the economy, that's a little bit shaky,
and with greater pressure on
institutions, that are getting less
from their respective state governments.
A lot more is put on our plates
in terms of private fundraising
and generating revenues outside of
those traditional areas of support
to be able to make our program go.
We have a program that is
basically a $55 million operation.
We are greatly supported by our alums and our
donors and friends from around the country.
And we've raised about $11 million a year just
to support scholarships, another $1 million
that supports academic affairs, academic
services for our student athletes.
So it's a pretty big operation, and it does
require a lot of cultivation of our friends
and those that have an affinity
with the University of Virginia.
>> Billy: Craig, can you touch on some of
the things that you enjoy about the position,
and then also maybe some of the
challenges that come along with it?
>> Craig: The joys of the position come
with watching both the personal development
and personal success of our student athletes
over their four years or five years and as well
as watching the competitive successes
of our teams, as a program that aspires
to be a nationally competitive team, nationally
competitive program and all of our 25 sports.
So working with these student athletes,
working with the coaches to have a program
that reaches our stated goals is certainly
something that is highly motivating to me
and to the people that follow our program.
The challenges of the program relate to the
difficulty that we all have, of kind of keeping
up with the Joneses, if you will, and being
able to generate the types of resources needed
to fund our program, both from the standpoint of
scholarships and operational support, to provide
and allow for the academic success of
our student athletes of a classroom,
their personal development and their
success outside of what they do
as a student athlete and as a student.
It takes resources.
It takes people in order to do that.
And those are very, very challenging situations.
The most difficult thing that
we face administratively is
when we see a student athlete that is
having difficulty in any one of those areas,
and then it's our challenge to be able to find
the right resources, to find the right path
to enable that person to achieve success and
to fulfill their potential and their goals.
>> Billy: Craig, for the job that you
do, educational background, training,
personality type temperament, what do you
think it takes to be successful in this role?
>> Craig: Certainly, a person that has
a background that's respecting sport
and understands how college athletics can
blend, connect with and support the missions
of a university as a whole
at a university community.
Primarily, you see Directors of Athletics that
obviously have at least a Bachelors Degree.
Some have advanced degrees,
Master's Degree, some have MBA's,
some are coming from a business background,
some are coming with a legal background,
some are coming from private industry and some
are now coming from within the institution.
They may come out of the student services,
student affairs, all sorts of areas as well.
I think anybody that comes into
a position like this, Number One,
has to be a person that's willing
to work hard, work long hours.
It has to be a person of unquestioned integrity.
It has to be a person that
has a thick skin, I get.
And every other athletic director in
the country gets a lot of free advice.
And it's very difficult to be in
a position like this and to think
that you could ever please everybody.
But I think that you have to operate with a good
understanding of what the institution is about,
what its values, its mission is, what
its goals are, and then being able
to articulate how the athletic's
programs and its student athletes
and coaches can support the greater
goals and aspirations of the University.
>> Billy: Craig, one final question.
It seems to be an interesting balance between
needing to have, you know, the business sense
and you mentioned the fundraising.
But also I'm guessing you probably need
to have a love of sports to do this job.
Can you kind of touch on that a
little bit as a final thought?
>> Craig: Well, so much of our time
is spent in and around the teams,
the coaches and the student athletes.
I as an individual athletic director
usually work seven days a week.
I don't take a lot of vacation
time in the summer.
But I am a person, and many of my colleagues
are people that work on Thanksgiving.
We work on Christmas.
We work on Easter, New Year's.
You know, it's like the circus, the show must
go on or the mail having to be delivered.
So I think as we -- as I look at
this job as an Athletic's Director,
a person that loves sports is probably
going to be more inclined to be able
to sacrifice family time, personal time, to
be able to demonstrate his or her support
for its student athletes and for the
University's purposes as a whole.
>> Billy: Craig Littlepage, Athletic
Director, University of Virginia.
Craig, thanks so much for talking to us.
>> Craig: My pleasure, Billy.
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