After serving 12 years as Virginia Tech's athletic director, Whit Babcock is retiring.
On Thursday, the Hokies announced that Babcock will move into an emeritus role on June 30, 2026, the latest in a series of sweeping changes atop both the school's athletic department and university leadership.
Babcock's emeritus role, which will be an advisory position to the university president and the new athletics director, starts on July 1 and lasts three years through June 30, 2029.
"Serving as Virginia Tech's director of athletics has been one of the greatest honors of my life," Babcock said in the release. "For me and my family, this wasn't just a career stop; it was my dream job and a homecoming of sorts. To return to Virginia, to serve this university and to be part of a community that lives and breathes Hokie sports has meant more than words can express.
"This place has given my family and me memories we'll cherish forever. The opportunity to raise our three sons in Blacksburg, the friendships, the fans, the community, Virginia Tech is unlike anywhere else. I love it. This is Home."
Babcock's departure comes on the heels of Tim Sands' announcement earlier this month that he will leave his role as university president as soon as a replacement is in place. Danny White, previously the head of the Hokie Club, moved over to an executive athletic director role last week. In a planned move, long-time administrator John Ballein, who's been on staff since 1987, is retiring at the end of June.
With both arriving in Blacksburg around the same time in late 2013/early 2014, Sands and Babcock were the longest-serving athletic director and school president pairing in the country at the Power Four level. Now, the school is looking to fill both positions.
"Whit Babcock's leadership has elevated Virginia Tech athletics in every way — competitively, academically and culturally,” Sands said. "He has been a loyal advocate for our student-athletes and a thoughtful steward of the Hokie experience. We are deeply grateful for his commitment to excellence and the lasting impact he has made on our university community."
Babcock's move comes a little after he finished his 12th year in charge of the Hokies’ athletic department, making him the second-longest-tenured athletic director in the ACC and the sixth-longest in the country.
In 2021, Babcock was given a contract extension through 2029. He was making north of $1 million annually in salary by the end of his run.
"I've always believed in giving everything you have to this role, and I'm proud of the commitment we've made to Virginia Tech over the years," Babcock said in the release. "While I had been considering this type of transition, likely next year, the demands of the role and the rapidly changing landscape of college athletics have required a lot of thoughtful reflection regarding my work-life balance, my desire to focus on family, my health and the next chapter for me.
"I know that now is the right time to retire as AD and allow new leadership and new energy to carry the momentum forward. When you can't continue to give it 100 percent every day, it [is] just time."
Babcock's tenure surely will draw mixed reactions from fans. While he made hires that revived or fueled programs (even if momentarily) in wrestling, men's and women's basketball, baseball and softball, the Hokies never could get over the hump in their most prominent sport, football, and have struggled to stay competitive in an ever-increasing NIL marketplace on the hardwood.
Babcock made two head coaching hires on the gridiron — Justin Fuente or Brent Pry — with neither working long-term. The Hokies parted ways with Fuente late in his sixth season in charge, while Pry was fired in September after an 0-3 start to the 2025 season.
"It weighs heavily on me that we have not yet reached the level of football success our fans so deeply deserve," Babcock said in the release. "This program means too much to too many for anything less. I am confident that with coach [James] Franklin, along with the Invest To Win support, the foundation is in place for our program to elevate and remain at a nationally-elite level.”
When Tech hired Franklin in November, Babcock didn't make the decision. Instead, he served largely in an advisory role by helping set up meetings with agents while a committee did much of the heavy lifting. Still, Franklin credited Babcock as part of the reason he came to Blacksburg.
"Simply put, I wouldn't be at Virginia Tech without Whit," Franklin said in the school's release. "The role he played in recruiting me, along with the way he engaged with my agent, was instrumental in my decision to come here. From the very beginning, he and the search committee presented a clear, aggressive vision for the future of Virginia Tech football, and that alignment made a significant impression on me."
Perhaps Babcock's most lasting contribution will be the presentation to the school's Board of Visitors he made last August, sounding the alarm for an athletic department underfunded compared to its ACC peers. His request for an additional $50 million annually in funding to make Virginia Tech competitive within the ACC spurred the Board of Visitors into action, launching a $229 million funding plan just a month later.
"On behalf of the Board of Visitors, I want to thank Whit for his exceptional leadership and service to Virginia Tech," said John Rocovich, the Board's rector. "His vision, integrity and dedication have strengthened our athletics program and positioned it for continued success. We appreciate all he has done for the Hokies and wish him the very best in his retirement."
Tech's next hire at athletic director will be just its third in the last 29 years. Babcock succeeded Jim Weaver, who held the role from 1997-2014.
The 55-year-old Babcock arrived from Cincinnati early in 2014 to take over an athletic department in need of a refresh.
His hires rejuvenated basketball programs that had stagnated — Buzz Williams, Kenny Brooks and Mike Young changed hoops fortunes in Blacksburg dramatically — and he found similar success in changes in baseball (John Szefc), softball (Pete D’Amour) and wrestling (Tony Robie's promotion from within).
Babcock spearheaded the "Drive for 25," bolstering Virginia Tech's lagging donation numbers. Hokie Club donors numbered fewer than 10,000 when the campaign was launched in 2016. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, Tech announced 25,185 contributors, among the most in the ACC.
Under Babcock's leadership, the Hokies won 33 ACC championships, with the most coming in wrestling (11), men’s indoor track and field (7) and women's indoor track and field (4). Both basketball programs earned championships too, the men with a spectacular run through the 2022 ACC Tournament and the women following a 2023 tournament title with a 2024 regular-season crown.
Football, however, was a different story, a consistent frustration for the last decade plus. Babcock presided over the final two years of Frank Beamer's run and seemed to handle the transition from a legend with aplomb, outmaneuvering other suitors to land an in-demand coach in Fuente and managing to keep long-time defensive coordinator Bud Foster on staff with what seemed like little animus.
The hire and marriage proved fruitful in Fuente's first two years, with the Hokies winning 19 games, claiming the 2016 Coastal Division title and giving eventual national champion Clemson all it could handle in that year's ACC championship game.
However, things deteriorated in 2018 and never really recovered. Cracks emerged in the program after an embarrassing 49-35 loss at Old Dominion, with the Hokies barely able to extend their famed bowl steak at the end of the year thanks to a miracle win against UVa and a makeshift December game against Marshall.
Things were close to turning in 2019, when Tech rallied from early disappointment to an 8-4 regular season record, but late-season losses to Virginia — the Hokies' first in 16 years — and in the Belk Bowl to Kentucky knocked things off track, along with Fuente flirting with the Baylor job in January.
He ended up staying, assured that a funding gap that had affected everything from staffing to facilities would be addressed, though the 2019 season marked the last time Virginia Tech football finished the regular season above .500.
Two middling seasons under Fuente, which included the end of the Hokies' bowl streak, led to his firing in 2021. Babcock's second football hire, Pry, failed to impress in three-plus seasons, scuffling to a 16-24 record, including a 3-8 mark in his debut season in 2022 — Tech's worst record since 1992. The squad's 0-3 start to the 2025 season was the first since 1987 — and led to Pry's dismissal.
What had the potential for a breakout 2024, when the Hokies returned among the most production in the country and were dubbed darkhorse ACC and playoff contenders, instead ended in another 6-6 disappointment in the regular season, with a 24-10 loss to Minnesota in the Duke's Mayo Bowl giving Tech its fourth losing season in five years.
Those struggles raised the stakes in 2025, a make-or-break season that drew greater focus following Babcock’s August presentation to the school’s Board of Visitors that outlined the Hokies’ lagging revenues relative to ACC peers.
Though Virginia Tech's revenue has grown drastically under Babcock's watch, from $80 million in 2014 to an estimated $144 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year, that still ranks at the bottom of the ACC's public schools. Babcock said ideally it would take $50 million more in annual funding for the Hokies to compete with the league's heavyweights, prompting the Board to go about making a plan that was put into effect in short order.
"This is a special place," Babcock said. "The foundation is strong and the future is bright. I'm grateful to have been a part of its journey. It's just time to pass it along to the next AD like Dave Braine and Jim Weaver did so gracefully to me. And I do so with great confidence in the people who will continue to lead the department forward. I look forward to following and supporting the continued success of all our teams and the university."
ACC championships under Whit Babcock (33)
• Baseball (1) — 2022 (co-regular season)
• Men’s basketball (1) – 2022 (tournament)
• Women’s basketball (2) – 2023 (tournament), 2024 (regular season)
• Women’s indoor track and field (4) — 2019-20, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24
• Men’s indoor track and field (7) — 2014-15, 2016-17, 2018-19, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2024-25
• Women’s outdoor track and field (1) — 2017
• Men’s outdoor track and field (3) — 2016, 2017, 2019
• Men’s swimming and diving (1) — 2013-14
• Softball (2) — 2019 (regular season), 2022 (regular season)
• Wrestling (11) — 2015 (regular season), 2016 (regular season), 2017 (regular season and tournament), 2018 (tournament), 2021 (regular season), 2023 (regular season), 2025 (regular season and tournament), 2026 (regular season and tournament)