…and we do seem to do that quite a bit around here, what with all that turnover on the football staff and our questions now about who fills Tom Bradley’s space in the media guide, so let’s look in another corner of the athletic department.

WVU’s fundraising arm, the Mountaineer Athletic Club, lost two major gift officers last spring, right before the end of the fiscal year. The overall number for the year checked in at about $20 million, not as high as it has been before and not as high as the MAC wants it to be. This is not to say one has everything to do with the other, but rather to show that turnover matters wherever it occurs.

The MAC filled its spots in the July and hit the fiscal road running. Through the first seven months of this fiscal year, the MAC has set four single-month records and is past record-setting paces for its annual fund and overall giving.

“We lost two guys who had built strong relationships with donors in the areas they were working, and replacing that immediately is impossible,” Borman said. “We were fully staffed in August and had people back on the road building those relationships again.”

It’s much like when a football program loses an assistant coach to another school. The team has to find a new assistant who can coach the position, but also has to find a way to make sure the team keeps recruiting the area the departing coach worked.

WVU hired M.G. Bailey from George Washington and put him in charge of Washington, D.C., and the metropolitan New York area. Jacob Kirkham came to WVU from Utah and works throughout Virginia and south Florida, but he’s also spending time in places he knows in California.

Ben Murray, the associate athletic director in charge of major gifts, covers Texas. Wheeling native Kevin Miller, the assistant athletic director in charge of annual fund, came to WVU from Georgia State and handles Atlanta. Mike Gilstorf manages Phoenix and north Florida.

All five have their own regions in West Virginia.

“We really have a history in a majority of the areas that have a high concentration of alumni,” Borman said. “If the WVU Foundation or the Alumni Association suddenly realizes we’ve got a lot more donors in a certain area we haven’t been too active in, we’ll be out there trying to add new areas. Moving to the Big 12, we focused a little more on Texas and the additional opportunities to reach out to donors and give them opportunities they haven’t had before.”