Big South Meetings Hilton Head, SC

Greetings from Hilton Head Island, SC. I haven’t been here in close to 20 years but it is obvious that this place has maintained its status as a great resort island. We are staying at the Inn at Harbor Town which is a fantastic property. This weekend was a whirlwind of motion with the season kicking off and thousands of people descending on the island for Memorial Day Weekend. I am really impressed with all of the bikers at Sea Pines. They ride everywhere. This is a great thing for exercise and cost savings…$3.95 a gallon makes me want to ride my bike everyday!

This has been a particularly nice working week for me as my wife Mary joined me in Hilton Head. We have had a fun time exploring the island around our Big South meetings. We have had an especially great time with Dr. Betty Dore and her husband Dick. We are so fortunate at Radford to have Dr. Dore as our Faculty Athletics Representative. Betty is such a wonderful person and she has a great love for Radford University and the students. One would certainly be lucky to have the opportunity to take her class or be under her leadership preparing for a career in education. In addition, she and Dick are so fun to be around and Mary and I have had an absolute blast the past two evenings!

I am really excited about Thursday night’s Big South Conference Banquet where Radford tennis player Cassandra Price is being honored as this year’s recipient of the Christenberry Award. This is the top award given by the BSC honoring the top male and female student-athlete for their accomplishments in the classroom and in their respective sports. Cass is tremendously deserving of this award as she has been extremely successful on the court and in the classroom. She graduated from Radford with a 4.0 GPA and a double major in Finance and Economics. We are so very proud of Cass’s accomplishments and we look forward to following what will no doubt be a fantastic career in whatever line of work she chooses.

These are my first Big South spring meetings and they have certainly been very interesting. We have such an outstanding group of Presidents and athletic directors in this conference. Under this leadership, the BSC is poised to do a lot of great things. As an AD, I did spare the conference one important item today…I passed on the golf outing! I was asked on numerous occasions since I arrived if I was planning to play on one of the famous Hilton Head courses with my fellow ADs. To preserve the beauty of the courses here and out of respect for conference, I respectfully declined! Instead, I went to the beach for a good run and then spent the latter part of the day on the phone with our Associate AD Randy Butt going over planning and budget numbers. If you haven’t met Randy I encourage you to do so as you will not find a nicer person in the world. He is also the best financial guy in college athletics.

Best of luck to our track athletes who head to Florida State for the NCAA Regional Meet this weekend. These athletes continue to perform at a very high level.



Go Highlanders!