January 31, 2021 marked the end of an over 45 year long career but, I wasn't finished telling stories.

David Braine laments the conference shake-ups and the commercialization of college athletics.

As the athletic director at Virginia Tech from 1988-97, David Braine was instrumental in helping the Hokies join the long sought-after Atlantic Coast Conference.

Who would think, some 25 years later, that the thrill would be gone, not necessarily for the ACC but for the college athletic landscape in general.

“I was shocked when I heard it,” Braine said of the announcement that Southern Cal and UCLA would be leaving the Pac-10 Conference to join the Big Ten.”Who would think that the Big-10 would go all the way to California?

“My feeling is that the face of college football has changed so much. We will never see college football again like we knew it back in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.

“It’s not going to be that way any more. Kids are getting paid now and coaches are making two and three and five and seven million dollars and it’s all about the money, period.”

So, how did it happen?

“It got out of hand and it only takes one or two schools to change that landscape. You try to keep up with the Joneses. It would be very interesting to know how many schools involved in all of these changes are really making money.

“I don’t know how they’re affording everything that they’re doing. I know the conference payouts are a whole lot more than they used to be. I go back to the time when, heck, I had to swallow hard when we started paying coaches a million dollars a year.

“That’s nothing. The coordinators are making that and more.”

On top of that, players can now make money through the NIL, which refers to an athletes’ ability to profit from use of their name, image or likeness.

“The portal came first,” said Braine, referring to the ease with which players changed schools. “Once the portal happened, kids had the opportunity to go where they wanted to go and without any penalty the first time.

“Now, with the NIL, they’re getting paid — at some schools more than others and it’s not like you and I used to know. It’s professional football in college.”

Is there a way to make it better?

“Not at all,” Braine said. “Maybe for the public, it might be better because what they do on the field might be better than it used to be. Still, these are kids. They still have to go to class. They’re there to get an education.

“There’s more pressure. They’re getting paid, so obviously a lot more is going to be demanded of then. To me, where I feel they suffer the most is the education. Colleges and universities were not built for football. It seems like that’s what it’s all about now.”

Basketball is no different. Braine heard Tech men’s basketball coach Mike Young speak Tuesday, when he said he will have eight new players this year.

Young, whose Hokies won the ACC championship this past winter, was quick to establish a bond with Braine, also an athletic director at Georgia Tech from 1996-2007, who lives in Blacksburg.

“It’s so easy, especially in basketball, to build a team overnight,” Braine said. “You don’t even have to recruit. You just go straight to the portal and get those kids.”

Braine, who turned 80 earlier in the month, follows the Tech programs intently.”That was my life for 22 years; he said. “You just don’t walk away. I’m following from afar. I’m just like any other guy out there now. I read the newspaper and listen to talk radio.”

Braine, originally from Grove City, Pa., played football at North Carolina and was an assistant coach at VMI, Richmond, Georgia Tech and UVa.

His first AD’s job was at Marshall from 1985-87 but he was a quick study at Tech.

“I stayed out of everybody’s hair,” he said. “When [Justin] Fuente was here as football coach, I wasn’t allowed to go to practice. So, for five years, I never went to football practice, but now that Brent [Pry] is here, I’ll start going back to practice.

“Mike Young, obviously, is a good friend. We’ve been good friends for a long time. I’ve really enjoyed watching how the program has gone.

” I think [athletic director] Whit Babcock has done a good job of hiring people. This past year probably has to be the best year in the history of Tech athletics.”

The Hokies won the ACC championship in men’s basketball, had standout seasons in softball, baseball, track and field, and wrestling and made numerous NCAA postseason appearances.

“I’m afraid it’s all going to change now,” Braine said. “God only knows how the Virginia Techs and schools like the Wake Forests and N.C. States are going to survive. I really don’t.”

Virginia Tech spent years trying to get into the ACC and, when it happened, it went smoothly in 2004. It was nothing like the current schools and athletes making changes around the clock.

Braine says two of the biggest things to happen to Virginia Tech were its selection to join in the Big East for all sports but football in 1987 and the performance of football star Michael Vick.

“Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it is, Notre Dame, obviously, is the next big stumbling block,” Braine said. “My feeling is, now that they’ve gone to California, what’s going to stop them from going to Florida. And, what’s going to stop them from going to North Carolina?

“Not that it’s going to stop ’em, but you take North Carolina and Miami and Florida State and Clemson into the Big Ten. Those schools are supposedly getting, if what you read is true, something around $100 million per year in TV revenue.”

“A hundred million dollars!”

“I thought [ACC commissioner] John Swofford was a genius when he tied up everybody through 2035, but if you joined the Big Ten and got a $100 million per year, you could buy your way out of any contract.”

Asked how he felt by a startled reporter, Braine seemed worried.

“Well, I am!” Braine said. “It isn’t finished. Whether Notre Dame will do anything or not, there’s money people out there a lot smarter than I am that are going to tell these schools, ‘Hey! If the Big Ten wants you, you’re going to be able to survive it. You’re going to be able to pay the $500 million because you’re going to get $100 million per year.’ “

“The alumni has got to come up with the money for the first five years, but, after that, you’re home free. But the whole deal is, the Big Ten now is on the West Coast. They cover the country now. Who are thy competing against? The SEC.

Do you want to get in their market? You’re going to have to go to get to Florida, Georgia, South Carolina in order to compete with them. I feel sorry for the schools like Virginia Tech and Virginia that have worked so hard to get where they are right now

“Through no fault of their own and nothing they can control, there’s a chance they could be left out in the cold and be a have-not again and they’re right back as a struggling entity. That might not happen and I hope it doesn’t happen.

“I hope people don’t read this and say ‘what the hell do you know,’ and so forth. But there’s so many schools out there. You think of Syracuse and Pitt, Iowa State, schools like that. Good schools academically. Good schools athletically. What are they going to do?”

It’s not the best of times.

“I wouldn’t want to be the commissioner of the ACC,” Braine said. “I don’t know Jim Phillips. Everything I hear about him is great. People say he’s smart and has an ace up his sleeve. I have no idea what the man can do to stop whatever is happening.”

That is, unless the ACC can wrap up Notre Dame for football.

“If they get Notre Dame, they’ve got it made,” Braine said. “Will they ever come to the ACC full-time? Hopefully, that would happen. I don’t know if it can or not. Just as an outsider, I don’t see how that can happen but stranger things have happened.

“That was a shock with UCLA and USC. I would have never bet on that. With that happening, other things could happen, too.”

DEBBIE RYAN'S THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE OF UVA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

Debbie Ryan was around for the emergence of Virginia women's basketball and she'd be more than happy to witness its resurgence under newly named head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton.

Ryan was the Cavaliers' head coach from 1977 until 2011, at which point she had won 739 games, still good enough for 17th on the all-time Division I list.

On top of that, Virginia had won 11 regular-season ACC championships, with Ryan chosen as the ACC coach of the year on seven occasions.

Starting in 1989, the UVa women reached the Final Four in three straight seasons, getting as far as the championship game before falling to Stanford in overtime, 66-65, in 1992.

That team finished 32-2 and was on a 19-game winning streak prior to the title game.

Ryan would continue as UVa's coach until the 2010-11 season, when it was announced that she had retired and would be succeeded by Joanne Boyle, a former Duke player who had played abroad before serving as the head coach at Richmond and California.

Boyle resigned as UVa coach after the 2017-18 season in order to devote more time to her adopted daughter Ngoty. By that time, Carla Williams had succeeded Craig Littlepage as athletic director and landed one of the elite players in women's history, Tina Thompson, as the Cavaliers' new coach.

Thompson, previously an assistant at Texas, had four losing seasons at UVa -- one shuttered by Covid 19 -- and it was announced March 3 that she would be relieved of her duties. She was 42-66 over four years, going 5-22 this past season.

Meanwhile, the best women's basketball coach in program history was watching from a distance.

"There always were conversations back and forth but I was not a part of the search per se," said Ryan, who had a 34-year record of 739-324 and was named to the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.

. "Carla and I have a great relationship, so we talk periodically about different things. I knew that she was talking to a broad range of people. She knew what she wanted and off she went. She moved pretty quickly."

Ryan attends or watches games on TV when her work for UVa health systems allows.

"It's been really fun for me because I meet or kind of know a lot of the people," she said in a recent interview. "I can really make a difference for a lot of people, including the investigators who need funding to continue their research."

So, basketball is on her back-burner? Not really.

""What I can't see [in real time] on either on TV or the Internet, I go back on the Internet and watch later," she said. " I've seen every single [UVa] game. I could coach the team.”

"That's not going to happen."

Ryan, who turns 70 in November, stays in touch with a group of former UVa players who have succeeded as college coaches -- Dawn Staley at South Carolina, Tammi Reiss at Rhode Island and Jenny Boucek, who coached the Seattle Storm of the WNBA and is an assistant to former UVa men's player Rick Carlisle with the Indiana Pacers.

"Dawn knew Amaka," Ryan said. "Dawn's really good with her relationships with other coaches, so she knows everybody. Dawn and I talked early on but we didn't talk about this particular selection.”

"Now that the Zoom generation has been born, we can Zoom and we can talk. We had a Zoom one night that lasted hours with players than went to three final fours. And that was just a hilarious.”

"I think Amaka will be welcomed and she will find out that our alumni will help her in any way she needs to be helped."

In her final season as UVa's coach, Ryan went 19-16 in 2010-11 and she left enough talented players that successor Boyle was 25-11 the next year.

Littlepage was the UVa athletic director at the time, with Jon Oliver as his top aide.

"I didn't really retire," Ryan said. "I just stopped coaching and I don't want to talk about that publically. I could write a book and I haven't started.”

"Craig was the one I dealt with. Jon was probably behind everything. I just don't know. I don't know how they operated. Especially in terms of me, I don't know."

A lengthy interview session would indicate that Ryan has moved past that. She's excited about the possibility of UVa women's basketball returning to its former heights.

"With Amaka, what I like about her is, she's humble," Ryan said. "She's not walking in and thinking, 'I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that.

" I think she's surveying the landscape and asking for help. All of us have to help her. We can't even imagine not helping her."

DOUGHTY ON SWIMMING

There was something unusual about the college swim meet conducted last week at the Christiansburg Aquatic Center, home to the Virginia Tech swim program.

It was the second year in a row that the Colonial Athletic Association, known as the CAA, has held its championship at the CAC.

William and Mary was the only team from Virginia in the meet.

It says a lot for the facilities in Christiansburg, where the Roanoke Valley Aquatic Association holds its summer championships.

One of those former RVAA swimmers, Patrick Henry High School graduate Brooke Knisely, is a sophomore at North Carolina-Wilmington.

She won the 500-yard freestyle on Wednesday night, then came back two days later to win the 1,650.

Her times in the 500 and 1,650 were UNCW records.

Other swimmers from southwestern Virginia include former Blacksburg High School teammates Julie Anderson, both swimming for William and Mary.

Cave Spring graduate Mills Harris is a sophomore on the William and Mary men's team. Micah Lowe, a William and Mary freshman, is a graduate of Faith Christian in Roanoke.

William and Mary won the women's meet and North Carolina-Wilmington took the men's title.

James Madison did not compete in the CAA swimming and diving championships this year because it is joining the Sun Belt Conference. The Dukes did participate in a November tri-meet in Wilmington, N.C., in which it defeated William and Mary, UNCW and Delaware, and William and Mary.

There was an eight-point spread between JMU and UNCW. Mills Harris' sister, Suzanne, swims for the Dukes.

MORE SWIMMING

• Both the Washington and Lee men and women won the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championships by wide margins. The W&L women put up 957 points, compared to 544 for runner-up Randolph-Macon and the men outscored Roanoke College 933.5 to 743.5 for second-place.

The Generals have a commitment from one of the top girls' swimmers in the Roanoke Valley, Morgan Smith from Patrick Henry.

• The defending National Champion, Virginia women’s swim team earned its third straight Atlantic Coast Conference Championship and 18th in program history toping NC State’s women 1418.5 to 1347. NC State’s men’s program won for the seventh time in eight years.