Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage took time Monday to check in from a jet-set week.
He spent the day in Palo Alto, Calif., at the NCAA tennis tournament at Stanford, one of four tournaments he hopes to visit before Memorial Day.
Also on his itinerary are Durham for ACC baseball, Baltimore for NCAA lacrosse and Sacramento for NCAA rowing.
"It's a great way to end the academic year," Littlepage said. "It brings attention to the university and its athletic teams."
Spring sports success is nothing new at U.Va., where many of the teams are perennial title contenders. That wasn't always the case, though. Asked about the growth of the program, Littlepage cited a decision by the U.Va. Board of Visitors in 2001.
A task force report had suggested "tiers" for the sporting programs, offering limited resources to a few and cutting scholarship support to others — among them baseball, men's golf and men's tennis. The board rejected the suggestion, and those programs have thrived.
"It's been a concerted effort on the part of a lot of people," Littlepage said. "But I think it started with the leadership of the board of visitors, with its decision that excellence at the university was going to include all aspects of everything we do."
One of the programs spared from that cut is the hottest ticket on campus now. The baseball team has expanded Davenport Field to more than 5,000 seats, all of which are expected to be sold for next weekend's NCAA regional.
Littlepage hopes that bump will come next to the track and field program. The current track is being torn up as construction begins on a new facility in time for next year's ACC championships. Littlepage said the project's first phase will be completed in time for the event.
"The initial phase will be primarily the track itself, and some of the landscaping around the facility," he said. "The things in Phase II will provide more of a stadium and the bells and whistles needed to have a great facility."
Another contending team would mean another place for Littlepage to be each spring — which wouldn't bother him at all.
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