“It finally felt like the administration was listening”

By MARTY O'BRIEN, The Virginian-Pilot

William & Mary gymnast Christian Marsh was leading a class discussion on Contemporary Political Theory in a breakout room in Zoom on Thursday morning, when an email from interim director of athletics Jeremy Martin flashed on his computer screen.

Marsh was crestfallen. He remembered the email from then-athletics director Samantha Huge, alerting him to a Zoom in which he learned the gymnastics team would be eliminated.

“We had less than one hour’s notice and then she cut seven teams and didn’t even say goodbye,” he recalled.

Then he flashed back to the Oct. 19 email from Huge’s successor, Martin, informing him that three of the women’s teams that had been cut (gymnastics, swimming and volleyball) were reinstated, but that men’s gymnastics, men’s indoor and outdoor track and field, and men’s swimming remained on the chopping block.

“I was upset at first,” he said, “but then I saw a news article they were, in fact, continuing gymnastics to at least 2022 and I was absolutely elated.”

The feeling of relief was apparent for athletes who echoed Marsh in saying the loss of the sports made for “the worst eight or nine weeks of my life.” And like Marsh, all were appreciative that Martin, W&M President Katherine Rowe and others in administration listened to their voices and those of team alumni and supporters opposing elimination.

“The efforts that I’ve seen from the Tribe swimming community, beyond the team itself, (including) tons and tons of people with affiliations to Tribe swimming, they came together immediately and put together a very well-thought plan and executed it to perfection,” Pfuhl said.

That included a social media campaign and generating about $3.5 million in donation pledges to the program — the latter effort led by alumni and supporters under the Save Tribe Swimming moniker. Women’s swimmers, insistent that a companion program was a key to their success, were instrumental as well.

“It was a little hard to believe at first, but after I processed it, I was very excited we’d been listened to,” Tribe female distance runner Lauren Finkiotis said. “We felt really bad (about the men’s team’s planned elimination), but at the same time, we knew if we wanted to make a change, we had to get over the initial shock of it all and do it quickly.”

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