Over the years, William & Mary Tribe Athletics has become known for its long-tenured coac

This mode of operation has allowed the school to develop a specific mindset, which has resulted in tremendous athletic success. A few coaches quickly come to mind: Jimmye Laycock (football, 37 years), Al Albert (soccer, 33 years), and Tony Shaver (basketball, 14 years), among countless other coaches throughout recent Tribe history.

All of this time spent at one school, our beloved William & Mary, allows Tribe coaches to develop a specific bond with the school like no other coach can. And with that bond comes the opportunity for said coaches to become synonymous with the school itself.

The potential to become legend. For example, after 33 years, 29 consecutive winning seasons, and 400+ victories later, Al Albert now has the soccer field named after him, Albert-Daley Field.

After 37 seasons and 200+ wins later, Jimmye Laycock now has an $11 million 30,000 square foot football facility in his name, the Laycock Center. And if Tony Shaver can bring our boys to the promised land, qualifying for the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament, who knows what’s in store for him.

Farewell to a Legend: Terry Driscoll

Throughout the aforementioned coaches’ historic tenures, there has always been a “lesser known” entity standing above them all: the William & Mary Athletics Director.

For the last 21 years, Terry Driscoll has been the man at the helm for your Green and Gold. And to say he has had an historic career would truly be an understatement.

In the last two decades, Driscoll has accomplished feats that no Tribe fan could have dreamed of before his hire way back in 1995. Below is just a taste of what has been accomplished under Driscoll’s leadership at William & Mary:

• 114 CAA Championships (best in the CAA)
• 118 W&M teams have had NCAA graduation rates of 100%
• 67 CAA Scholar Athlete of the Year Awards (26 more than the next highest school in the CAA, at arguably the most academic school in the CAA)
• 56 Phi Beta Kappa initiates
• 30 All-Americans
• The creation of Plumeri Park (baseball), Albert-Daly Field (lacrosse/soccer), and the Millie West Tennis Facility
• The renovation of Zable Stadium and the creation of a brand new Indoor Baseball practice facility

What stands out more to us than any of the CAA Championships is how Terry helped the school continue to produce at an academic caliber rivaled by few, if any, in the entire country. 

How many schools can say that they have 26 more Scholar Athlete of the Year awards than the school ranked #2? WOW.

Again, Driscoll has done more in the past two decades to not only elevate Tribe Athletics, but William & Mary as a whole, than perhaps anyone gives him credit for.

Too often when we head to a W&M game, we immediately think about the coaches and players; Driscoll’s time at William & Mary has reminded us to appreciate all that the Athletics Director must do to allow the school to maintain its academic integrity while producing quality student athletes on winning, Championship teams.

As he rides off into the sunset, we salute an all-time Tribe great — W&M Athletics Director, Terry Driscoll.

Introducing Samantha Huge

With Driscoll’s impending retirement, W&M recently introduced its newest member of the Tribe, soon-to-be Athletics Director Samantha K. Huge (pronounced Hue-Ghee, get used to it!).

With big shoes to fill, we at the W&M Sports Blog are incredibly excited about Huge’s hire, as she not only comes from a big-time sports program, but also fully understands the academic threshold required by W&M’s student athletes. Green and Gold fans everywhere should be whole-heartedly excited by this hire.

To learn a little more about Huge, let’s take a look at her bio on the Texas A&M website:

Samantha K. Huge was named Senior Associate Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator at Texas A&M in May 2014.

At Texas A&M her responsibilities include oversight of six sports programs including women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, and volleyball.  She also has supervision of sports performance.

Huge is the department’s primary liaison to the 12^th Man Foundation’s Major Gifts staff and the 1922 Fund. She is a member of the senior management team that provides leadership and management to all of Texas A&M Athletics.  She directs the department’s policy development and implementation as well as leading its equity and inclusion initiatives, while collaborating with the University as a member of Texas A&M’s Diversity Leadership Group.  Huge also serves on the SEC Commissioner’s Championships Working Group.

Huge came to College Station after five years at the University of Delaware, where she served in a variety of roles, most recently as the Deputy Director of Athletics and Recreation Services, and Special Assistant to the President.  During her tenure at Delaware, in addition to the oversight of several sport programs, Huge was responsible for the day-to-day business and administrative operations of the department, including external operations, fiscal management, capital projects, personnel and human resources. She held an appointment in the Office of the President of the University where she served as Special Assistant, providing counsel and assistance in a variety of areas related to athletics. Huge also served as Interim Director of Athletics in 2012.

Prior to Delaware, Huge held positions at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, as Associate Director of Athletics for Compliance and at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance. She began her career in collegiate athletics as the Compliance and Internal Affairs Assistant at the Southern Conference in Asheville, North Carolina, before moving to Assistant Compliance Coordinator at the University of Illinois and Compliance Coordinator at Michigan State University.

Huge received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, where she participated for four years on the women’s basketball team.  She earned her law degree from the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University in North Carolina.

Juris Doctor  (1997)
Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law
Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina

Bachelor of Arts  (1992)
Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts

Huge’s Official W&M Introduction

This past Wednesday, W&M officially introduced the new AD. It’s already hard not to like what we hear! Below are some quick quotes from Huge that has us really liking this hire:

• “I am truly humbled and honored to step into the rather large shoes of Terry Driscoll.”
• “The academic achievement of our students must be priority #1 for every member of the Tribe Athletics team.”
• “Winning Championships, and we will win Championships, is an important achievement…however, the day that a student athlete walks across that stage and receives his or her degree is the day that we truly celebrate success.”
• “We will conduct ourselves with integrity and we will win, ensuring a Championship experience for every student athlete and fan.”

Oh, and did we mention that her brother Chris played football at William & Mary from 1981-1983 under Jimmye Laycock? She’s already been to several games at Zable Stadium, and is quite literally connected to W&M through blood. Could we have found a better hire? We think not.

Looking Ahead

One of the biggest criteria in W&M’s search for a new AD was the ability for the incoming hire to fundraise.

As William & Mary has set ambitious fundraising goals, for both academic and athletic programs, a big role for Huge will be to assist in raising the $192 million to endow all athletic scholarships. This $192 million was a target set by Tribe Athletics’ 10 Year Plan, released in April of 2015. Full details on the 10-year can be found here, which includes several big-ticket items, such as:

• The aforementioned goal of endowing all athletics scholarships.
• Creating a new multi-sport indoor practice facility for the basketball and volleyball programs, independent from Kaplan Arena.
• Building an entirely new Kaplan Arena, or completely renovating the existing one.
• Installing a brand new, regulation Swimming Facility, which would allow W&M’s premier swim teams to bring back diving programs.
• Overall improvement of the fan experience for all W&M sporting events.
• And more.

Huge will now lead this effort in the hopes of taking W&M Athletics to the next level by 2025 and beyond. Terry Driscoll has carried the torch this far, and we’re incredibly excited to see where Huge takes it from here. Samantha, welcome to W&M, and LET’S GO TRIBE!!!