The College of William and Mary in Virginia

The Academics
Location: Williamsburg, VA
Type of School: Public
Total Student Population: 7,892
Undergrads: 5,850
Demographics: 8% Asian; 7% Black; 6% Hispanic; 76% White; 2% International
Sex Ratio: 45% male; 55% female
%age of Natives: 68% are Virginians
Ranking: 33rd among Full Research Universities
AVG SAT of admitted kids: 1350
Endowment: $580,037,127

CURRENT CONFERENCES: Colonial (all sports)
Football stadium capacity: 12,259
Men's Basketball capacity: 11,300*
Women's Basketball capacity: 11,300*
Most notable money sport: Football

*W&M's basketball officially holds 8,600, but there is an open side with no seats behind the basket. If bleachers are placed here which they are for some concerts, the arena holds 11,300.

The College of William and Mary is a public research university located in Williamsburg, VA, a portion of the campus is part of Colonial Williamsburg, the place where you see people in three cornered hats every day:



The College, as it is known among us Virginians, is one of the nine Colonial colleges, and along with Rutgers, are the only two not in the Ivy League, and are also now public universities. The College is the oldest higher education establishment in the country south of the Mason Dixon line, founded in 1693 as an Episcopalian school; only Harvard is older than W&M. The school became state operated in 1888, as a teachers college intended to be like another JMU, but by the 1900's, the school gradually became more research like as it is today, to an extent. Their signature building, the Wren Building was built by 1695 and classes are still being held there today and is the oldest building to hold classes in it in the US of A.

Academically, as you can see from the avg SAT scores and ranking, W&M gets some pretty damn smart kids. In fact, many in VA consider the College to have a better undergraduate program than UVA.

Why W&M Should Get in the ACC
W&M academically is another strong university and another public Ivy into the ACC where three schools (UVA, UNC, and GT) are already members. In fact of all the top 40 public universities ranked in US news, all are in an FBS Football conference except W&M. By default, just joining the ACC will give them more exposure and make them even more popular! You can say that W&M is a small school with less than 8,000 students total, especially when most public research universities are much larger, but Wake is even smaller at 7,000 (yes it's private), but unlike the correlation of manhood size to man's self esteem, student size won't affect W&M much in a major conference since it is decently sized as it is. It's just what direction they want to take as a university.

Athletically, W&M's strength has been in football, under the leadership of Jimmye Laycock for the last 30 years, where they have qualfied for the Division I playoffs 10 times, going to eight of them (two times they went to a special International Bowl in Japan); where the Tribe have made four trips to the quarterfinals, and two trips to the semifinals including this year where they will play Villanova and could win it all. Laycock has won 200 games as the Tribal Chief, more than any active coach right now in Division I except for Gramps Paterno, Pappy Bowden, and Beamer Man. That is pretty elite company, even if you've been in I-AA all this time. Laycock has been offered the keys to Duke, Virginia, Navy, and East Carolina, and every time, he has turned them down.. That takes some guts to do both 10 years ago and 20 years ago, and to keep W&M running like this is remarkable. If any coach can make a good transition from FCS to FBS, Laycock and his staff look like a great candidates for it. Basketball leaves something left to be desired however, overall. Both the men's and women's basketball teams have been fodder in the CAA most years, and neither team has been in the NCAA's ever. The men made one NIT in the early '80's, but that's it.

If W&M is horrible in basketball, they however are a CAA power in almost every other sport and have won more titles in the conference than any other school, period. Their soccer, tennis, track, XC, and swim teams are almost always at the top of the CAA, and many are ranked nationally every year.

Why Not
Like Villanova, football stadium size is a concern. Their football stadium is officially about 12,000 or so though 15,000+ regularly see the games on Saturdays. They will have to build a new football stadium in order to accomplish this. Unlike Nova however, W&M has the land. The university has gone under serious debates about whether to make the school more research-like (like UVA), or even more of a liberal arts college like atmosphere (like Richmond), and if they want to be the former, which is what most want the school, then a new football stadium AND ACC membership can help them get the exposure they are missing outside of Virginia and neighboring states, as there are a lot of misconceptions that the school is still Episcopalian, and is a little school secluded somewhere, and it's not really secluded. The cost to build a new stadium will be very expensive, and will the boosters want to do it? With some of their bigger time alums helping, this can happen but it's an uphill battle.

Basketball performance is pitiful historically, and ACC schools definitely want to see some results in those areas before taking in the Tribe as well. Fortunately in the last few years, the basketball teams have been closer to .500 and have made noise in the CAA. The men did make the CAA Finals last year, and the women have had 19 win seasons recently. But there still is work to be done. The olympic sports shouldn't have a problem with being ACC members, so that's a plus. This is a lighter issue, but in the ACC, W&M will have no true rivals though they are in ACC territory and are right next to the fertile crescent of football and basketball talent (Williamsburg is 20 minutes from Bad Newz, and half an hour from Hampton). You can call UVA a rival, because of the academic similarities, but UVA doesn't give a rat's ass about that little bible college out in the swamp.

Even if they build the new stadium, the ACC will have to pull more than a UConn off, phasing in W&M gradually from the CAA. The olympic sports can come immediately, but the basketball teams may still need a year or two of CAA in them before they come in. Football obviously gets a full four year independent transition. I don't know if the ACC wants to do this, but you need to pick the right school, not necessarily who can come in right away.

W&M Alumni
Thomas Jefferson (1762) - Writer of the Declaration of Independence; Founded the University of Virginia; 1st Secretary of State; 2nd Vice President; of course, he was our 3rd President

Robert Gates (1965) - Former CIA Chief during Bush I years; Former President at Texas A&M University; Current Secretary of Defense

General David D. McKiernan (1972) - Former Commander of US Forces Afghanistan

Glenn Close (1972) - Tony Award Winning Actress and nominated 5x for Oscars; was Cruella Deville in the 1996 101 Dalmatians Movie

Jon Stewart (1984) - Then Jon Leibowitz, was a Soccer Player, we know him today as a comedian, and host of the Daily Show

Mike Tomlin (1995) - All Conference WR and left as all time leader in TD catches; now the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers where he won the Super Bowl last year

Darren Sharper (1998) - All American Safety; 4 time All Pro and Pro Bowl Safety now with the New Orleans Saints


Your Take
W&M is a true class act institution academically and holds its own athletically in many sports. But can they actually be decent in basketball, and can they build a new football stadium? I think JMU has a better chance to be here than the College, because they ARE building a stadium.

So do you want to see Mr. Jefferson's college take on Mr. Jefferson's University? Or not?

can't see this happening and helping either W&M or the ACC.

I know it's your alma matter but sorry just my view

To be honest, I am throwing W&M out of my ass KONJ, but I did the same with Navy, Nova, U of R, and to a degree JMU and WVU. However, I looked for any and almost every feasible option as an ACC school that would be worth giving a shot, and I think I did a good job for that. As it is most of these schools wouldn't benefit the ACC much, some at all, but I think the FCS schools minus Nova esp. would benefit from the ACC affiliation.

Remember the Big East took in USF which no one cared about less than 10 years ago, and they're now not that bad in football at least.

You did do a great job on this.

West Virginia,Pittsburgh,Rutgers,Penn State,and definately Villanova are interesting cases.

I remember South Florida and they've done pretty well in Football. In basketball South Florida is atrocious and is in the bottom 2 of the Big East every year.

I sent you a PM about this too