Earlier this morning, after reading the posts on here about season tickets, a message was formed to post here. The message was getting to be too much to type, and with other responsibilities to be done, the message was not finished. Upon returning here, there were messages about our schedule, and those were read. Also, and very disturbing to me, and probably most of our softball supporters, was the information about the facility improvements being made by our conference opponents, and that inspired me to form a new message, however much shorter in length that the original message. So, here it is, with two parts --- Spectaculars and Shortcomings. Spectaculars refers to the great success that our beloved softball team has had recently, and those spectaculars are too numerous to list, however we as softball program supporters know each and every one of the spectacular achievements of our team. The spectaculars are our players, coaches, fans, supporters, and what all of these people have accomplished. Shortcomings is the second part of this message, and some of the shortcomings are very real, and continue to be shortcomings, even with the spectaculars of our softball program, everybody included. The shortcomings seem to all be from one source, and that source is the athletic department administration. Tech Softball Park desperately needs improvements, and improvements soon, as in NOW. The press boxes are an embarrassment. There needs to be a cover for the seats behind home plate, and extending down the first base and third base sides. Our coaches need to be paid more money. We need to keep Pete and Doug at Virginia Tech. There needs to be a charge for attending the games. It is beyond belief that the issue of paying to watch games has not been addressed in a positive manner, and that points to the athletic administration again. Some of us who travel two hours to attend the games, and other softball supporters, would gladly purchase season tickets to the games. It would make attending games much more convenient for us, and it would generate some monetary support for the program. There needs to be many more Name, Image, Likeness opportunities for our players. Other schools nationally have deals for the players, and some of the deals are large amounts of money. What happened to the two NIL organizations that were formed for our athletes? After the big opening announcements, there has not been anything of substance reported to us about the business of the organizations. Our softball players need NIL deals. Chip is a wonderful diplomat for our softball team. There are many of us who contribute to the fund raising projects, and some of us contribute even when there is no special project. The efforts of Chip, and the supporters, seem to be the only real monetary support of the program from outside of the athletic department. The names of the supporters are too numerous to mention here, but we all know each other, if only from posts on the softball board. Patience is a virtue, but patience will soon end for some of us unless the athletic administration gets more involved with our softball program. In conclusion, softball is a successful athletic program, and maybe the most successful program at Virginia Tech, and the athletic administration is doing nothing of substance to support the team. Thank you for reading this message.