How important is continued success in the Directors Cup competition to the athletics department?
CL: I would say that it’s important as well to the University. In fact, in 2001, in the months following the aftershock of the task-force report [that recommended dividing sports into tiers], when the Board of Visitors was making its decisions and statements about the future of Virginia athletics, the idea was to be excellent in everything that you do, and to generate and provide the necessary resources to be good across the board in all 24 sports, soon to be 25 sports. We added women’s golf shortly thereafter. So I think we’ve been able to do that, to make our program one that has been competitive virtually across the board. What we have been trying to accomplish is the consistency in both football and basketball, and that’s the immediate challenge, to make sure that we are in a position to not just have a top-10 program, but a top-10 program that includes consistent success for the marquee sports. JW: In this economy, the Virginia Athletics Foundation’s job is that much more difficul
