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Nov 19, 2025; Blacksburg, VA, USA; Virginia Tech Athletic Director Whit Babcock speaks at the press conference announcing James Franklin as head coach at Cassell Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Brian Bishop-Imagn Images | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images
The feeling was that it wouldnāt be long after Timothy Sands announced his departure that Athletic Director Whit Babcock would throw in the towel before the 2026-2027 school year.
Babcock is hanging his Virginia Tech cap up and following University President Timothy Sands out the door and into retirement. The speed of the move is interesting, but it does allow for his continuation until the Softball and Baseball seasons end.
Babcock entered the labyrinth of Cassell, Jamerson, and Merryman at a time when the Virginia Tech Athletic Department was on a deep downward trough. The facilities were old, dated, and in poor shape. The baseball field (English Field) was barely above high school level and quality, and the softball team might not have even made most large secondary school ball fields. Whit managed to find quality coaching hires right off the bat with Buzz Williams rescuing the Menās Basketball team, Kenny Brooks taking on the Womenās team, and finding funding to turn English Field into Atlantic Union Bank Park. The practice field was supplemented with what became known as the Beamer Barn, and a new jumbotron installed at Lane Stadium.
What people forget is that Babcock hired the hottest football coach of 2015, Justin Fuente, and for the early years of his administration the world was looking up. The 2016 and 2017 football seasons were successful (but things were getting dicey). The Womenās Basketball Team was on a major upswing, and the Menās team went from nothing to a tournament team under Williams.
Babcock, who was a baseball player at JMU, hired Pete dāAmour to helm the Softball program, and John Szefc to take over the baseball team. Suddenly we had tournament playoffs in Blacksburg, for not only the softball program, but the baseball team, and womenās basketball. Hosting post season tournaments is a big deal for an athletic program.
Whit Babcock retired following the announcement of University President Timothy Sands' departure, indicating a transition in leadership.
Whit Babcock's retirement is effective before the 2026-2027 school year.
Babcock's retirement allows him to oversee the completion of the Softball and Baseball seasons before stepping down.
The successor for Whit Babcock as Virginia Tech Athletic Director has not yet been announced.
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But things just came unglued. As the court rulings continued to benefit and professionalize college athletes, the program began to struggle. The big problem was that the football team began to suffer talent deficits, and seasons quickly went from winning to par, to struggling just to win a few games. Fuente, who is no longer even coaching, was dismissed with a huge severance and the search for a first-rate coach bogged down into an offer for Penn Stateās defensive coordinator, Brent Pry, to take over the team. Pry is a great personality and good man, but the job of head coach just seemed to be beyond him and the team just never recovered from the doldrum spiral of the post Beamer era.
In college sports, any major administrator hanging on for 12 years is a pretty big run. Itās just time for a change, now and then, and with the hiring of James Franklin by the Board of Visitors with Whit only advising and then the retirement of Dr. Sands, it was pretty obvious that the Visitors were ready to move the University and Athletic Program in a different direction. Itās nice that Whitās been given the dignity of choosing to retire in good order.
Babcockās replacement will need to be sharp. The new world of paid athletes and free agency has changed the function of an Athletic Director into a CEO who has to run a profit-making company, not a non-profit charity. He made many beneficial changes to the south side of campus, and we wish him all the best. Heāll be a Hokie for Life, now.
We will be checking in to see who takes his place in Jamerson.