VTScoop

year's National Runner up team....The schools that those 5 starters came from: Georgia State, George Mason, North Dakota State, Iowa Central CC, and Stony Brook. Fortunately, in baseball, the schools aren't necessarily indicative of success from an individual standpoint. Many other successful programs take kids from the same type of schools. Hopefully many will contribute at a high level here.

who left to take over as the Pitching Coach for Lamar (back in Texas). Reynolds is backfilling this role and is the Director of Pitching Performance and Baseball Analytics. This is a support role for the pitching coach.

more for sure (just like when comparing men's basketball to women's basketball when head to head versus each sport's peer group). Baseball is just more expensive to operate than softball (at any school at this level). However, when comparing VT baseball resources (including salaries) to ACC baseball peers, it is not remotely close to the top of the league. When comparing VT softball resources (including salaries) to ACC softball peers, softball is near the very top. And this year's scholarship allocation to VT baseball was lower (relative to the league's peers and overall roster limit) than softball's was relative to their roster size and league's peers. So operationally, when considering the support given to both, softball is much better funded relative to their softball counterparts than baseball is......hopefully both will continue to be better funded starting with this next academic year and that appears to be the case. It would be nice if softball had an improved stadium concourse/press box/overhang.....but they definitely have a beautiful practice facility....it is fun for Hokies Spring sports when both are winning!!

are being strongly encouraged to enter the portal by their representation/agent. This is especially the case with pitching prospects. Unfortunately, that is just where things are right now and the portal provides baselines (monetary) for competitive negotiations when/if picked. Despite his lack of time on the mound, I think our staff has felt pretty strongly he will be drafted this year. Where he ultimately ends up (draft, another school, or VT), will be interesting to watch.

ACC coaches poll. We finished in 7th place and are the number 32 overall seed in the NCAA tournament. We didn't even end up being a bubble team this year. We also did this in a year of significant financial transition. We will be well prepared to head West. We have already done that this year, so travel adjustment won't be an issue. We certainly won't be intimidated. We have played teams that are similar to UCLA. GT should have been the overall number 1 seed in this tournament and we've won there (when we weren't playing particularly well). None of that guarantees any wins, of course. UCLA is very very good. We could go anywhere from 0-2 to winning the regional. Don't know until the games are played. UCLA's environment won't be nearly as intimidating as others we could have gone to. Not even close. Overall the regional is not daunting (outside of UCLA). We will be the underdogs to the Bruins of course (as we should). I like the chance to go play some other schools. It was fun to watch our team grow and mature throughout this season. This is a big opportunity to go play well and see what happens.

the House settlement) is able to have scholarships up to each respective sport's roster limits. Baseball's roster limit is 34 and that is how they have the ability to have up to 34 scholarships. Many (most) schools can't fund the full 34. But some do (or prioritize this sport over others and choose to fund these amounts). ** Edited by VTScoop at 5/22/2026, 10:20:04 PM

pack assessment of our current athletics department.....I do think in this case, baseball substantially exceeded expectations (more on this later in the post). And yes, Carolina is a better team top to bottom. And a legit National Title contender. I would also say, they had to use pitchers 1A and 1B today to beat us, and this was a tournament where we never used our best arm. Today was what I would call a "3 play game." And I never ever call out individual players in college (on message boards) and some on this board don't believe in that concept, unfortunately. Because of that, I won't name the two plays. The third play was a play Carolina made at a key moment that kept them in the game. In our case, the other two cost us six runs. I made a post on the Subscribers Board earlier in the week when someone asked about our baseball NIL relative to UVA. Not going to get into that in a public forum other than to say Szefc raises all of the NIL money himself. So, here is a plug as to help baseball with NIL. Anyone can go to The Hokie Way and direct the donation be used for baseball. Then let baseball know you have done that (email the director of baseball ops). That is how anyone can help. I have seen some references of we need to keep "player x and player y" Well, that is how we can make an impact there. Back to the initial response to your post (which is very fair) and this was addressed in my earlier this week post on the subscriber board. Baseball had 17 scholarships this year. 17. Carolina (along with Clemson from last weekend) had 34 scholarships this year. 34. So, when you have literally half of the scholarships as today's opponent, and you have one hand tied behind your back, baseball feels like a substantial overachievement. NINE schools in the league had between 25-34 scholarships. Again we had 17. Fortunately our kids worked very hard and our staff did a great job of putting us in the best possible positions to win (as much as any staff can control). It took a little while to get going this year, but they got going. We do have some good talent (and we have some holes). We are just not as deep and that is where the scholarships difference makes a huge impact. We are increasing our scholarship number next year. That is very good news. This is a very good group of guys that want to do well. They are easy to root for. Again, some on this board run to post some pathetic "stuff" about some of these guys at the first sign of trouble. Some of our players have been asked to play out of position (for the good of the team) and yet we have competed at a high level in the ACC's best sport (top to bottom). Those that continually moan and groan have no idea what we had to work with this year financially. It is quite an accomplishment that we are in a position to be selected for the NCAA tournament and we finished in 7th place by ourselves. Each sport at VT has a different benchmark they are measured against with respect to what is considered a successful season. Again, your post (on the whole) is pretty accurate. Baseball is one sport this year at VT that had a very good year relative to expectations! Monday should bring good news for this program!

in contributions, which is close to being almost 2 1/2 times the softball contributions of $235K (FY 25). From an official donations (through the school) for contributions to each sport's operating budgets, women's basketball was 3rd just behind football and baseball. Yes, it was officially ahead of men's hoops for that year. Followed by wrestling and then softball. Now, wrestling deserves an asterisk beside them since SERTC is an unofficial supplement (at a high level). And so is NIL for football and men's basketball. Women's hoops has a super booster group called Center Court. The minimum donation amount for that is $25K per year (I believe that is correct). A few sports raise their own money. It just isn't done very publicly. Football has Team First, Men's Basketball has Front Court. And even baseball has a group that helps out a lot from Szefc's outreach. And some coaches will ask contributions go to The Hokie Way to help with NIL (if you give to them and specify which sport, it will be used accordingly). So several sports do some of their own outreach. Just depends on the coach's personal philosophy on those things.

unlimited full scholarships (up to the roster limit), a school can only use up to $2.5M of the $20.5M for revenue sharing to go towards scholarships. So, this current academic year, VT has to use at least $18M for "salary purposes." And yes, if the school wants to fund additional scholarships they can do that, but they can't use more than $2.5M from the revenue sharing pot. That is obviously designed for the money to go towards those athletes doing the vast majority of revenue earning for the school (and those sports mainly football and basketball already have full scholarships for those athletes anyways). In the wrestling example, Tony got bumped up to 15 full scholarships this current academic year. So, that gave him another 5 full scholarships to work with. If all of those scholarships go to out of state wrestlers (which is highly likely), that essentially provided him with roughly another $300K of revenue from VT for his program. That is significant. So, it is sort of a 6 of 1, 1 /2 dozen scenario. It accomplishes the same thing for now. To your overall point, if VT can fund the majority of the scholarships they wish to add (and we are increasing more for next year for programs) outside of the rev share pot, then you could use the entire revenue sharing for true salary payment. That is what Carolina is pretty much doing, as they have built their endowment to the point to cover many scholarships in perpetuity. They are pretty much paying football and men's basketball a true salary, with a tad for women's hoops and baseball. We will see how this looks over the years. We need clarity on our approach so many donors/supporters can help assist in some tactical thinking. This will help us compete across many sports.

approximately 65% football and 35% men's basketball. They allocated $13M to football this past year and $7M to men's basketball. They had a token $250K to women's basketball and $250K to baseball. That is this current year's $20.5M. This does NOT include NIL. So, right off the bat, you can pretty much determine the priority of the school/athletics department when you see this breakdown. Index that $20.5M up 4% for the 2026-2027 year and that brings a school's rev share to $21.32M. That means Carolina basketball will have close to $7.5M in men's basketball revenue sharing this year alone. Contrast that with VT. Our current year's revenue sharing model is approximately 75% football ($15M plus), 15% men's basketball ($3M), 5% women's basketball ($1M), and 5% (another $1M) spread amongst other Olympic sports (the Olympic sports rev share are all in the form of additional scholarships). So, we are well ahead of Carolina in football, and women's basketball. Well behind in men's basketball. So, indexed up, we will have approximately $3.2M this year (26-27) in men's basketball revenue sharing. Again, this is not NIL money. BUT, one can see where NIL priority is placed (privately) when you see these percentages in print. Not saying it matches perfectly, but it paints a pretty decent picture for the general public. So, where (and how) we choose to compete is as much of an indicator as anything. But, yes, we probably aren't ever going to allocate resources like a Carolina, Duke, Louisville, etc. for basketball. That doesn't mean we should not try, to compete at a higher level, however. But, as of today, we are allocating a lot more to football than a Carolina, but they will get us pretty good in hoops. I am never in the camp of not being to be pretty good in both, but messaging plays a big part in how we accumulate donor resources (for NIL). And in fairness, Carolina basketball makes significantly more money (revenue) than VT does in hoops, so that isn't exactly shocking. Plus, in the end, it is what their support base wishes to be best at.

addressing the timelines right now...and I don't know how baseball will go. This is a transition year financially here...What is going on this year (and I don't wish to talk super specifics) is that we are seeing the first year of unlimited scholarships (up to 34 for the entire roster). So, there is a wide disparity this year with some schools. Baseball did get a few additional scholarships (as part of the overall 45 or so the department shared across all sports back in the Fall), but as of right now (this year), they are a long way off from many of their competitors. So, our NIL dollars (which are actually pretty decent), are having to help some with scholarship offset as best as possible. But, hopefully that will be addressed for next year (as part of the enhanced scholarships coming from the increased budget). If that happens some, as expected, it will allow NIL dollars to make more of a difference. As you might imagine, all of this impacts roster building immensely. So, that is something to keep in mind, and if we ever changed coaches, that will need to be addressed before anyone new takes any job. So, the transition year is impacting some of what we are doing, and hopefully it becomes stable moving forward. Hope that helps a little....maybe :-)????

the baseball board reads it as well!

University President has dropped precipitously over the last 20 years. University presidents used to average 8-9 years at the helm and that is all the way down to under 6 years now. Lots of issues to navigate in a major university setting. He has some nice accomplishments here. And it has also gotten to the point of the inevitable stale state. That is not unusual, or necessarily an individual problem, but the time has come to move to a fresh approach. This will mean a different approach to athletics when the dust settles. That is not an ominous comment at all. We should embrace this opportunity. I would imagine the BOV will ask about experience with athletics when the interview process begins. And I would imagine fundraising experience will also be explored/emphasized (and Sands' tenure from an overall university perspective has been good with fundraising). VT, as an institution, is embarking on a journey to break the $300M goal of fundraising in the very short term. And longer term, we would love to hit $500M. That is beyond transformative. But to get to those numbers, athletics fundraising will be pivotal to achieving those goals. That means the new president will probably be more "in tune" with athletics fundraising moving forward, and the methodology behind the operation. As a closing comment, President Sands wasn't a "natural" with major college athletics. He does like them and has come to appreciate the significance of them at VT. And tried to help as best he knew how. He probably has learned over the last few years how quickly things can change with management of college athletics and how you can't just accept the status quo from the AD on how things are going relative to industry changes. You have to take some time and study yourself and I guess it could have been more of a "trust but verify" situation here than it was. An example is the "Invest to Win" campaign that was just announced 9 months ago. There was supposed to be a donor/alumni/supporter wide initiative (to share the messaging/strategy) that was to be rolled out within a month of James Franklin's hiring. Didn't happen. Then, it really, really was supposed to be released in February!!! And now, it is the eve of April 10. Still nothing. That is the kind of thing that just can't happen. We had loads and loads of momentum, and it isn't too late in the grand scheme of things, but it is unexplainable and something a President (who supported going to bat to the BOV) has to ask his AD, "what is going on?" Sharing that message with 30-40 donors isn't the answer. Lots and lots and lots of strong donors below the top 30-40. We can thank the President for his time and service. But a new day will soon be upon us, and hopefully we can capture a great fit for all things VT, including a thriving athletics department.

just received a $20M donation in December. And we are expecting a few more very large athletics gifts later this year.

that is big spending on their Hoops programs. Hurley and Geno's salaries alone are over $12M of that spending. But those aren't NIL dollars at all. And I knew the minute I saw $20M for football, that there was no way that was NIL :-). I didn't mean to "come at you" with my original response either. It just seems to have gotten out of hand with the NIL "numbers" that circulate the news cycles literally every day now. Most all of the figures we all see, and read about, are very much exaggerated.

if the "rev share" allows for some minor use on VT's behalf. But just don't know the technicality of that. Good question and will ask about that next go around with some folks.

at UCONN has raised (through fundraising) from their donors. Those monies would help with operating and scholarship dollars (for the most part). They have averaged raising $30M per year. I should have stated it, but that is not a lot by major college athletic department standards (that have football and basketball and are large state schools).

wise) for those sports. Their actual operating budget of staff salaries, recruiting, travel, etc. of those sports. That has to be what they are speaking about. Not NIL dollars. If the articles aren't talking about that, the Football dollar amount alone discredits the site/article. But I am pretty sure they must be talking about operating expenses.

amounts seem to grow by the hour, much less by the day. UCONN has nowhere near $50M in NIL for their three big sports. No where even in the stratosphere of that number :-). Not close. UCONN athletics has raised $149M total over the last five fiscal years. That is $30M per year from approximately 9,300 donors. They aren't raising $2 of NIL for every $1 of regular fundraising gifts. Yikes!!

Operating Revenue for softball for FY 25 was $517,005. The four biggest sources of the revenue: Contributions $235,434 Royalties, Licensing, Advertisement, Sponsorships $195,586 In Kind $12,769 Concessions/Novelty $23,665 VT Softball had a reported 22 participants (officially on the roster).

begin until July 1, 2025. So the 2026 softball season will be the first playing season for with that. You should see all of the House expenses in these budgets moving forward. Certainly, AT THE MINIMUM, you will see the scholarship portion of the house settlement (Revenue Sharing) included, as budgets do include the scholarship dollars attributed to each sport. And almost all sports (with the exception of men's and women's hoops and football) had their House Settlement/Rev Share payments in the form of scholarships (if the sport got additional scholarships). A few schools shrunk the amount of women's hoops Rev Share and added a little to baseball (not here at VT but some others have done that). But I think all Revenue sharing costs (whether cash or scholarship) will be reflected in said sports budgets starting with the next FY reporting. For the difference in some of these budgets, it can be as simple as two or three in state athletes instead of out of state athletes on a roster (or vice versa), simple game day operations expenses, or even one more flight trip in a year versus another. Scheduling with these massive leagues now, by itself, could swing a budget by several hundred thousand. Also, looking at Mississippi State as 21st in those budgets, for example, they spent roughly $200K more than us. In looking at their home schedule (as an example), they play 28 home games compared to 13 for VT. So, their game day operations costs could easily bridge that $200K. And I am not here stirring up VT's gameday experience versus other schools :-). Just wanted to share some food for thought on some of these things when it can swing a few hundred thousand from one year to the next. ** Edited by VTScoop at 4/2/2026, 2:47:33 PM

(behind the scenes) that do yeoman's work that don't ever seek credit/public recognition. There are also several that have made relentless recommendations over and over and over again, and they simply fall on deaf ears. I will also be very careful, but this is going to go down as an example of lack of communication, messaging, and intentionality. Most don't know what goes on with these conversations, but many would jump in to help if properly motivated and shown the impact. But reluctancy to embrace moving forward with outward messaging rears its ugly head again. It could be as simple as saying (this whole winter) that we feel like we are in a good place with football. "So, we need to raise another "x" amount to help with basketball." And it probably would happen. By saying another "X" amount, you never give away how much you actually have, so no trade secrets are shared. We just don't have a public voice that will do that right now. ** Edited by VTScoop at 3/31/2026, 5:28:52 PM

made it known. Baseball staff has nothing to do with finding naming rights to the stadium. You simply have no idea what you are talking about. Not sure what Wrestling has to do with this at all, especially since they wrestle in the facility where the cameras are presently stationed. Good gosh, and it is only Monday.......

should.

communications, broadcasts/video/ACC Network, brand advancement, in game experiences, etc. are all under his purview. He oversees all external operations for VT Athletics. Ironically, fan development also falls in this category as well. I don't wish to pile on, but this one was a bad call. No other way to put it. In a day and age, when the product has to be taken to people all over (outside of Blacksburg and we have capability of doing so), and we hope to create "memorable experiences," this should not be happening. Hard to have it both ways, on one hand asking for help from supporters and, on the other hand, not putting forth a better effort. That is probably stronger than I should say in this setting. Apologies....

non SEC schools, so they don't play each other. So, in theory, we will see A&M's Friday night starter, Mississippi State's Saturday starter, and Tennessee's Sunday starter. We will see one each of those team's weekend starters. So strong pitching (at least on paper). Good field.

the equipment until the season is done. That decision has been a disappointment to lots of folks.

other revenue sources for basketball (i.e. club seats and suites--I know we have some courtside tables but two of those aren't real revenue or a larger capacity arena), we need to generate more revenue to help with the men's operating budget. We don't spend like our competitors (and we aren't ever going to spend like probably 3 or 4, as basketball for those schools is their identity). Your example is a good one of the rare season ticket holder that does not also have football tickets, so you are already doing your part!! I do think the new overall $200M athletic budget is going to insert some more needed money into our men's program moving forward, which will be good.

referring to the later point of the willingness for the donor base to pay a separate "per seat" donation to buy basketball tickets. Other schools do that and it shows the commitment of the support base. We are riding the per seat for football and allowing that to dictate the ability to buy tickets. Which is hurting the basketball bottom line and creates some "unserious" basketball ticket holders. Sorry, should have piggybacked those two better in my post. And I completely agree with your last statement ! Well put!

is going to solve itself pretty soon. You are correct on Ballein being a supporter of Mike. That whole situation came about from a local third party (I will keep the name off the board--hope you understand). In fact, the whole thing was the result of the Ballein relationships with the third party more than anything. Certainly, Mike was aware of VT and local affinity, but the sausage was made with the other situation I described. One can say Ballein got Brent Pry hired and Mike Young hired. ** Edited by VTScoop at 2/19/2026, 11:54:15 AM

gone and then some :-). Like you and I have discussed before, the public "budget" that has been floated out there by some folks was just the starting point, if you will. Which, on one hand is good, but just shows how it is also never a stationary number.

Men's basketball. I wouldn't necessarily look at the Giving Day as the true indicator (for any sport really). Many of the sports Giving Day leaders come from parents/friends/relatives of those particular teams rosters and is never where the big solicitations come from nor the everyday solicitations. You're correct on the "unwilling" portion of your comment of many grassroots "fans." Here is the thing with basketball, it is up to "us" to dictate what level of support we want and what subsequent results come from said support. There are many people that often say "we need to invest more," but that is code for others doing the actual investing not those actually saying it. I have also said it for years, but VT needs to have the "per seat" ticket model separate football "per seat" dollars from covering the ability to buy basketball tickets. Basketball needs their own per seat model. Two reasons for that. One, it will add significantly more money to basketball and not come from any significant football coffers (all sports get some from football coffers to some degree). And two, it will eliminate those buying tickets just to buy tickets. In other words, it will get people there that really want to be there. I haven't had the ticket holders on one side of me attend one game this year (and my seats are quite good meaning they would be very attractive to most anyone). Would those people take up those seats if they were also paying a "per seat" gift. Lastly, and I will be careful how I say this, but VT Basketball needs an accommodating Chief of Staff. You can interpret what you want from that. But it is not a good situation when it comes to outreach and donor relations.

now a VT Commit. Sam is a high level guy that will have a chance to be a two way player here if it works out (pitch and play). Will be interesting to watch their development!

have to count in the ranking. Most every school that has football pretty much had to have volleyball (since it used to be a headcount sport) to help offset the scholarship disparity. Not all schools have baseball and not all have women's soccer. But if a school has those, they have to count. Hope that makes sense.

it is one of the five mandatory sports that have to be included in the scoring (up to 19 sports are included). The mandatory five are women's volleyball, baseball, both basketballs, and women's soccer. Then the next best 14 after those five make up the official scoring. So, you are on the right path with your thinking. ** Edited by VTScoop at 12/19/2025, 3:37:54 PM

See the link!

link for the release of Clemson's giving year.....

the Athletic Fee technically was raised by $295, the school also lowered (to offset the movement of money to athletics) the Students Services Fee and the Student Activity Fee by $53.50 and $19.50 each semester (respectively). So they, intentionally, offset the athletic fee increase by $146 each year. So, the actual NET increase to the students was ~$149 per year. While that is an increase, it didn't net out to anything close to $295 either.

as a negative as to what we thought we would have. More of a compliment to what is coming back that wasn't a given (especially one guy). Could be very very deep on the mound with some very high end stuff from multiple guys. Very very strong up the middle on defense now. And a different level of leadership this year. Obviously health always factors in, and there are a few question marks in a couple of spots. But a different caliber of team with some guys that love VT and have played a lot of college baseball. The trajectory of this next team has changed quite a bit now!

than a fair ranking. You could move Liberty behind us, but using this logic, you would have to move LSU in front of us (after beating us twice). So, if you flip Liberty and LSU, that still puts us at 18th. Even if A&M doesn't drop as far (which I don't necessarily disagree with you at all there), they still are (should be in front of us) ranked higher than 18. So, in the end, 18th is where we are and probably should be. There is no one else in front of us that we "should" be ranked higher than. I guess I take a different line of thought after being around college athletics for a while. We do get the credit we are due. We are very well respected in the softball world. And the degree of separation from, say number 3 or 4, to number 18 is not very large (and closer than ever). Subjective rankings are extremely hard to do, and pollsters don't examine one school versus the other on a head to head basis (when you get down past winner/loser of the National Championship series). In Liberty's case, they went on the road to the number 1 overall seed and did something that hasn't been done before (first number 1 not to advance past regionals). We are a firmly entrenched ranked softball program. We have hosted in recent years (all the way through Supers), and we have been on the road (coming close to hosting). We do have to find a way to take that next step to garner whatever "lack of respect" some think we are missing. I find that, on the whole, you have to earn that respect of an elite program on the field. We are pretty much right there, but it isn't going to be given to us. Programs that eventually become "elite" have to win a few when they aren't supposed to win. We are battling a lot of schools that are right there with us. And hopefully, we have the resources needed to continue our climb. But, I think when it comes to supporters mindsets, we need to move past this thinking that we are not getting the respect that is due. That just isn't the case. Hopefully next year will be another strong year for Hokie Softball. Our people need to continue to get behind the program and look ahead not behind. We have a very good softball brand and should feel good about it (but wishing to continue growing). Time to keep getting better. Rest assured, all of those other ranked programs are saying those things to their core support groups right now as well!

the women's finals last year averaged 2M viewers over the course of the three game finals. The men's finals averaged 2.82M last year. Both tournaments this year have been really strong and entertaining. Will be interesting to see where they fall after both tournaments conclude this year.

dollars that went into the team's operational budget. So, yes it should be most of the donor dollars. Things like capital projects or endowment donations would not be included (although any endowment spin off to help with operations/scholarship bills would be the indirect benefit with those donations).

than they do for baseball here (comparatively). In other words, we are much closer to the top of softball financially than we are for baseball spending. And we are at the top (for the most part) of our league in softball and that is simply not the case in baseball. Baseball, in general, has a much larger operation to pay for and yes, the salaries are higher for baseball as well. Just different in a lot of ways. Smaller rosters for baseball moving forward will help with that expense some.

on the writers part??

think we don't spend much?? Here is a screenshot of the rest after FSU (which is the last school in the link you provided). As we can see we spent almost $3.4M for FY 2023-2024. As with some other sports at VT (not all), we are pretty competitive. Certainly not at the top, but are hanging in there better than most think.

your past comments. I will say, the NIL has gotten to be pretty decent in the last year. Significantly better at least. It is not on the high end for sure but it is not bad. And think baseball is getting some decent proceeds in the scholarship allocation from VT (rev share). But your post is very good and add in that the pedigree of the baseball programs in the ACC is tough to crack into.

eventual Gamecock National Championship team. But a very good squad. Pete did a great job here. Especially considering the lack of overall facilities we had at that point. VT Baseball was crushed during the Atlantic 10/Big East timeframe. We were on a different planet when we first entered the ACC. Unfortunately, the Pat Mason era set back the progress that Pete had made and we were in a similar state (as when we entered the ACC) when Szefc arrived. Ironically, Pete's overall ACC winning percentage (while at VT) has not been as good as Szefc's, but their overall winning percentage (while at VT) is almost identical.

season. That is when Fecteau joined the staff at Maryland. Rob Vaughn was the guy that stayed behind to take the head job when Szefc came here. And yes, he is at Clemson now.

follow him here. He stayed to become the head coach there. He is now the head coach at Alabama.

you don't earn the opportunity to "lose" big games without winning big games. It is the constant moving target. Tough loss, but it is a crazy mindset. The fact that anyone suggests that we get "once in 10 years anything successful" is simply lost, confused, or both. Never have understood the urge to run to a message board after a loss and rip everything about your (presumably) school as if it is therapuetic. Send yourself an email if that helps (others may wish to take this advice during games as well)! Can't even get Whit's quote correct. Understand real disappointment, as we all have and will have again.