Drive for 25 Goal Passed!

Over 25,000 donors. Back in December of 2016, the Drive for 25 sounded like an unreachable goal. With close to 9,800 donors at the time, the idea of gaining more than 15,000 donors seemed a little unrealistic. Not that the university didn’t need the infusion of them. In fact, to keep up with the Clemson’s, Miami’s, and UNC’s out there 25,000 donors are exactly what the sports department at Virginia Tech needed.

If we just look at the football team back in 2016, it seemed to be the right time to go for something as ambitious as gaining more than 15,000 donors. After going 10-4, with a Coastal Division Championship and a very close ACC Championship game against Clemson, things were looking up. We had a new coach in Justin Fuente who had immediate success and the program looked to be on the rise. The infusion of new donors looked to be all that was needed to bring the Hokies back to prominence.

Amazingly, even though the football program went in the wrong direction after the 2016 season, the Drive for 25 kept being more and more successful. Buzz Williams and the Men’s Basketball program definitely helped. Cassell began to rock hard over the next few seasons and the Drive was humming. Then the unthinkable, but probable happened, and Buzz left for Texas A&M.

A football program that was losing and a basketball team that had lost its winning coach. Not the best time for the major revenue sports at VT. Over the last few seasons things bottomed out. Loses piled up against bad teams and good teams alike. But things are looking up. We get our popcorn ready with an improved basketball team lead by local Mike Young. And now we are celebrating the honeymoon period with Brent Pry and a rejuvenated football team.

It couldn’t have been a better time to hit 25,000 donors and have the Drive for 25 find success. Now we see how this victory passes to those on the field and court.