AUDIO: VWU Alum Bob Valvano on WTAR with Kerry and Mike

"The fact that you won't even discuss it with us shows a complete lack of respect for the history and for the people themselves."

Kerry: Good morning. This is the Kerry and Mike show. And we have on the line with us, we're so honored to have you with us today, Bob Valvano.

Bob is a brother of everyone knows Jimmy Valvano. What a beloved figure he was. And welcome to our show. Good morning.

Record Bob Valvano on WTAR Talk Radio

24:18

Bob: Hey, you are speaking with the proud recipient of the 1979 WTAR Student Athlete Award. Oh, and also, Mike, I was the assistant basketball coach at one of your alma maters at Hofstra.

Mike: Outstanding. I got a second-rate law degree there.

Kerry: You did your homework!

Bob: Kerry, I'm good friends with Chris Beard, the basketball coach at Ole Miss.

Kerry: Oh my gosh.

Bob: Try to suck up to the host.

Kerry: Yes absolutely. And we love Chris Beard. I'm sure Mississippi... I'm telling you he's doing a great job down there. He's made it relevant again.

Bob: He's good guy. He's absolutely a good guy. Great to be with you guys.

Kerry: Well, you know, we have been talking about you. I know you're on here today. People may be wondering, how did you get such a great guest? Well, you are as concerned and probably more concerned than we are with the name change at Virginia Wesleyan. Correct?

Bob: Well, that's my goal is to get you as concerned as I am because, you know, there are things in life that go beyond, that make it anything beyond your political beliefs... This is a matter of right and wrong, and this is wrong on so many levels. But the more... it's one of those topics you guys must go through when you explore some of the, you know, political topics, like on the surface, you go, oh, there's something not right about that.

Then the deeper you dig into it, the more angry you get, the more offensive it is. And this is one of those things. This makes no sense. We had a 60-year brand name in Virginia Wesleyan, a very respected name. Everybody... I go across the country, I do. I work for ESPN as well as some of the stuff I do here in Louisville where I live.

And, you know, everybody knows the Wesleyan brand. They know the name. And, why would we change it? No disrespect to Mrs. Batten. I only met her once. She said nothing about personal, but (people) don't know what that means, they have no idea what (Batten) is outside the Tidewater area. Again, no disrespect, I don't know who that is. So that argument falls flat on its face.

The other argument that, well, "We have to do it for these initiatives we're doing." You know, they've got a campus now in Tokyo and they're going to put an art museum on campus. And I know when I was playing soccer at Virginia Wesleyan, we would constantly talk about that in the locker room (in a sarcastic tone) "You know, we need? We need a campus in Tokyo."

That was one of the things... I don't understand. So you could have done any of those things. Whether you want to debate the narrative or not, without changing the name. It just.... And then the third part of it is, you can tell I'm pretty fired up about it, the process by which they did it.

They didn't talk to anybody. They didn't talk to the alumni base. They didn't talk to the staff. They didn't talk to the faculty. I don't think they talked much about it in the community. They made this decision in February, kept it secret until they sprung it on everybody in the early part of the summer. And then the only response to people who ask, "Well, why are you doing this?", has been a bunch of self-congratulations and platitudes that don't explain anything.

And if they say something that makes you think, okay, well, that's their reason, and then you question them on it, they do one of two things: they need to move the goalposts, so now they talk about something else or they don't let you talk about it. There's a young woman named Kim Mayo who was on the alumni council and simply asked the question about, "Why are we doing this? What's with the name change?"

(She) got a memo from the school that said, we take your comments as a de facto resignation from our alumni board.

Mike: You're kidding.

Bob: Yeah, that that was that was what the letter actually said. De facto resignation. Mike, you're a lawyer. Are they making crap up?

Mike: Yeah, you have the facto means that you're resigned even though you didn't mean to.

Bob: Well, okay. She never talked to them. She didn't resign. She had no intention of resigning.

Mike: That's terrible.

Bob: It's just a very, very bad environment now. Again, I'm sorry to dominate (the conversation).

Mike: That's why you're here.

Kerry: we want you on because we're sick of talking about politics.

Mike: Yeah.

Bob: You guys can go get a pizza. (I could talk forever on this.) I'm good to go here. You know that's fine.

Kerry: This is something that annoyed me because I used to... I worked for the newspaper for 34 years. It was owned by the Batten family. So I'm very familiar with them, and they're very philanthropic, there's no doubt about it. But I didn't see any other schools that got loads of money from renaming their school and honoring the Battens.

Bob: Exactly. That's the whole point. And again, I don't think she would do this. You know, the pressure of having worked there. And if she came to them and said, "Look, I'm only going to give you this money if you name the place, name the whole joint after me," then you might have to say, all right, well, you know, explain that.

Well, you know, we need this money to go forward and so we're making this decision. But I don't think she's wired that way. I don't think she would do that. So if that's not the option, if that's not what the real motivation was, then why are they... why would they do it?

And not only will they not give us an answer, they won't even sit down and talk with us.

And we had, by the way guys, we have only 10,000 alumni in the school's history. It was only chartered in 1961, we had 10,000 and we have 6000 signatures on a petition protesting this name change. Now, not all of them, are alums. I'm saying some of them might be parents and kids who went there or whatever. But that's a lot of people.

And when you make a decision that is that unpopular, there's only 1 or 2 alternatives. You know, when I coached, I was a basketball coach for 20 years. You look at things and say, okay, we do this, they're going to do "A" or they're going to do "B" or and then you figure out okay what you're going to do from there.

So we made this decision. The A and B for him had to be everybody's going to hate it. I don't give a darn, I'm just doing it. Or he was so clueless that the reaction would be this vitriolic, he of course, the president Scott Miller, says he's completely befuddled by how irate everyone was. But in either case, I think the prudent course of leadership would be at least to say, "hey, let me sit down and talk to some people and find out what what they're thinking and how we can meet the objectives we're still trying to do without alienating, you know, of 60 years worth of heritage at our school."

And it's particularly painful for a place like ours, because when I got there, think about this, guys. When I got there, our basketball team used to have to change in the... I would laugh about it... in the service building. We had no gym.

Kerry: Oh my Gosh.

Bob: Change in the service building, then take a van, most usually to Norfolk Academy or sometimes to another area high school and practice there or play there.

I was speaking with a faculty member recently and he said, well, you know, you have in athletics, we had it in our teaching. We had one... this makes me laugh too.... We had one faculty secretary for the entire school. Not for each department. All of us had to type our own exams and mimeograph them. Remember mimeograph machines?

Kerry: Oh yeah.

Bob: Why did they all do it? Because they believed in something they were building. They had a spirit about building something. And in one fell swoop, you can say, "Well, what's a name? It's just a name."

It's not just a name. It represents all of those people's efforts. Staff, faculty, students, athletes and just wipes it out. And the fact that you won't even discuss it with us shows a complete lack of respect for the history and for the people themselves.

And so, yeah, I'm angry, and a lot of other people are very angry too.

Kerry: Who made the decision? The president didn't do this on his own. Is there a board of trustees there or a...

Bob: Yeah. Well, that's another story. Supposedly he loves to tell everybody it was a unanimous decision by the board of trustees. Well, I know for a fact at least one board member resigned before they could take the vote he was so upset about it.

And also, you know, it's he's done a pretty good job of surrounding himself with, "yes men." And I hate to say that because if they want to get offended, they can. But I find it hard to believe that nobody in that room would stand up and say, at least, hey, you know, we got to at least talk to people about this.

I mean, we are really alienating.... You know, and I use this all the time. It's a school. It's got a higher purpose. I understand that, but when push comes to shove, it's a business. And we are all their customers. They took 6000 of 10,000 their customers and just pissed them off. Basically.

Who would do that? It doesn't make any sense. You wouldn't do that if you ran a muffler shop, let alone a university. I don't think you would. If you would, then you wouldn't run the business very well. So, it doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense on any level. We've got no answers. Was the only way the money was going to keep coming from Mrs. Batten was to name the school after her?

I haven't heard any evidence to that, even if that's so, it doesn't mean that we have to do it. That's the first thing.

The second thing is all these initiatives that he's so proud of, they keep patting themselves on the back about, the Art museum and the campus in Tokyo and all these other things. Was that contingent on the name change?

I don't think so. You could still do them even though I don't know, particularly what the great value is, but okay. If they are... why are you going to change the name for all that?

Kerry: And the name change takes place next July 1st, 2026. Right. So you have that many months to protest.

Bob: I mean, I'm not doing this for people. to go, "Whoa...."

It's not about that at all. But July 1st, if it goes through, I will be asking them to take me out of the Virginia Wesleyan Hall of Fame. I was in the inaugural class of the Virginia Wesleyan Hall of Fame, and I don't see any reason to go into the Batten Hall of Fame. I didn't play for Batten. You might as well put me in the New York Yankees Hall of Fame.

Mike: That wouldn't be half bad.

So what if what if, Mrs. Batten...

Kerry: Could somebody talk to her?

Mike: What if she just decided to say, "Wait a minute. There's no.... maybe she could step in and say no, the name is fine." Her silence is puzzling.

Bob: Even just name it Virginia Wesleyan Batten University. How complicated is that? If you want to truly honor her and that, that's fine.

I don't think any alums would be upset about that. They are grateful for all of her generosity and her charitable initiative, there's no question but it's just... when you wipe out Virginia Wesleyan altogether, it's to me. I'll be honest, it looks like it's more than honoring Mrs. Batten as much as it is trying consciously to wipe out any history that happened before Scott Miller got here.

That's the perception he wants. That nothing good happened, and he constantly says, all the best days of Virginia Wesleyan are in the last ten years. Well guess what? That's when he got here. And I think he's not been very charitable in his comments to Billy Greer, who was the president before him and was tremendously popular. We were blessed with two extraordinary men as presidents, and Lambuth Clarke was the president when I was there.

That man was literally unbelievable in his ability. They put the right guy in the right place at the right time. That was him. And Billy Greer was wildly popular, and he (Scott Miller) seems to always want to denigrate that. And I think this is part of it. It's continuing this perception that he likes to refer to us as a sleepy little school.

I was there. We may have been little. We were never sleepy. We had brilliant professors back then, who were passionate about it. And the athletes were and the coaches were. That's really so disrespectful. And I hope you don't mind me bringing this up because when we talk religion, it sometimes alienates some people.

But I think if you hear what I have to say, you'll understand what I mean. It's Virginia Wesleyan College. It was tied at the hip with the Methodist church. I went to school with a lot of kids that went there, largely because they wanted to be closer. Many of them became pastors or preachers. Some of them just wanted to work within the Methodist church doing other things, that they could, you know, exercise their skills without going into being a preacher.

Well, I don't, and I always respected that. I was raised Roman Catholic. I'm Episcopalian now if you're keeping a scorecard, but the fact of the matter is, I never I never felt alienated. And I went to school with Jewish kids and, some Muslim kids, and I know kids from all faiths, and we all got welcomed. And we all respected the values that the Methodist Church has and, will incorporate into the community.

I mean, I, I'm going to sound like I'm doing a hallmark card, but it's true. It was one of compassion and cooperation and love and all those things. Now it's about building campuses in Tokyo and, you know, it's just it's a thing. They've lost their soul. And the people who worked 60 years to build that brand into a soul-filled and... a name that meant something, are angry.

And then and I don't blame them. I, you know, I hope it's something we can undo in the next year. But I don't know if we're going to be able to. We're trying. It's the right thing to do. So that's why we're doing it.

Mike: it's the globalist trend. They don't want Virginia on the label. When you have a Tokyo University, they, they want to de-Virginia, Virginia Wesleyan. They're doing it for a reason.

Bob: By the way, I love living in that part of the country. I defer to you in terms of, what they're trying to do in terms of their brand, your opinions are very valuable, but I don't try to figure out what they're doing.

I evaluate what they actually did, and what they're actually doing is everything I just said. Wiping out 60 years of history. Disrespecting the alums. Disrespecting their staff. Being disingenuous. You ask them a question, they just pat themselves on the back. They don't answer the question. If you say something, that looks like it's a little bit out of line, they threaten to get rid of you.

I mean, I'll be honest with you, I've probably spoken to... I'm going to guess conservatively, a dozen people that are very much... that are actively and still involved in the community, and we go, "Wow! Well, this is our initiative. Would you help us?"

And they all go, "No, no, no, I can't."

I mean, they are very much opposed. They don't want to say anything.

Why?

Well, you know, he could be convicted. We're afraid that he's going to do something. And I thought, well, of all places, especially a campus, which is supposed to be, you know, one of the bastions of exchanging ideas and thoughts. And it's been working under a regime now where you can't even say what you think.

So it's just baffling on so many levels. Oh, by the way, about this, let me give me one last nugget. I once heard the president of Yale speak and say that the relationship between a president and the alumni is this: the president is supposed to work every day to make your diploma, your graduation, that (much) more valuable than it was the year before.

And your job is to turn around and financially support the institution. Okay. I'll buy that. I just read a U.S. News and World report... I'm rounding the numbers. I think it's like 215 small liberal arts based colleges. Virginia Wesleyan ranks in the bottom 15%. You know, around 180. He's been there 10 years.

And you say, well, maybe there's you know, their evaluation is flawed. Well, here's what they used: 13 or 14 points, but the two main ones are your graduation rate and how you are perceived by your fellow institutions. And if we are in the bottom 15%, largely because those two categories, well that doesn't sound like he's making my diploma worth a lot more.

Kerry: Can you tell our listeners, Bob, how you came to to, go to Virginia Wesleyan? Was it was it for sports or was there another another thing that drew you?

Bob: It was for sports. But I think, Mike might appreciate this more than anybody. I'm also, you know, my grandparents were all born here, so I'm not first generation, but I'm (from an) Italian family. (Raised in) New York, grew up and never flown on a plane when I went to college. And my girlfriend, who's now my wife, we've known each other since seventh grade. She was going to school in Florida when I went to school at Seaford High School on Long Island. Go Vikings.

Mike: Yeah, exactly where it was.

Bob: She was going to school in Florida, so I wanted to go to school there. You know, to be near her.

Mike: Virginia was a little closer, Bob. It's only 18 hours, no problem.

Bob: Yeah, she was at The University of South Florida. I asked, "How far is Tampa from here? Like, three hours?"

She said, "If you have a helicopter, maybe."

Mike: Geography was not your major.

Bob: No, no, no, We were not big on the geography of the country. But yeah, sports was too and frankly radio. They had a very strong radio station and I wanted to... that was my major. And so I could play on a team and do a radio show right from when I got there, which I did.

And you know, you know, I, I love people, so I have no regrets. I have no regrets. I'm not one of those people. I look back on a lot of my life and say I wish I hadn't done that, I wish I hadn't said that, but the one thing in my life that I never regretted was going to Virginia Wesleyan College, and now this guy's come in and he's trying to wipe all that out.

And as far as I'm concerned, when they do, my school's DEAD. I mean, this is a I don't even know what this is, but it's not Virginia Wesleyan. So why would... I can't just sit by and watch him do it. There's no reason to do it. That's the biggest thing. There's the are not in financial trouble. It's not keeping the place afloat.

The money has been very helpful, Mrs. Batten, there's no question. But they're not on that watch list of schools that, you know, is in financial peril by the financial uncertainties. But he's just trying to convince everybody this is absolutely necessary. And again, my opinion is that that's by design. It's for a personal agenda, not for the good of the alumni or for the history of the school.

Kerry: How much money did they contribute? Do you know? Was it 25 million? I don't know.

Bob: It's a lot of money.

Kerry: It almost looks like.... OK, I'm going to be crass and just say it. Like she just bought herself a university.

Bob: Here's the thing.

Mike: Goodbye.

Bob: You know, we were raised in this country. Money gives you power, if that's the truth.

If you say, listen, we have a choice to make here, we can rename the joint, or we could say we're not taking your money anymore, and we chose to rename the joint. It would disappoint us. It would probably... it would not put her in the best of light, but at least we have an explanation for what's going on. It would take some real integrity to tell us the truth.

I find that hard to believe. She gives so much money to places and nobody else has named a school after her.

Kerry: That's true.

Bob: I don't think. I just can't see her, knowing her the little that I do, walking into Scott Miller's office and saying, "Hey, listen, the gravy train is over, pal, unless we name this place after me."

She doesn't seem wired that way. But again, we have no way of knowing because they won't tell us anything.

Kerry: You have made a great case for retaining (the name) Virginia Wesleyan College. I think that it is a beautiful little. Have you ever been there, Mike? It is such a beautiful little private school. It's a jewel here in Hampton Roads.

We have certainly, from the very beginning, when we heard it was going to be Batten University thought it was a bad idea. So you've given us some ammunition. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk to our listeners today and get them fired up.

So what can they do? They just sign petitions?

Bob: Yeah, you can go to the petition, which I was all prepared.

I don't have the petition address, but if you look up Save Virginia Wesleyan, it will take you two minutes to search, you'll find it. And, and I appreciate you guys giving us is you obviously have a lot of listeners to get, to get to have them here, but what's going through our mind. And we appreciate if you run with it, take the banner and run with it. We appreciate it.

Mike: A couple of plugs... I know you wrote a book, "The Gifts of Jimmy V: A Coach's Legacy", dedicated to your brother Jim Valvano. That that's available, and I'm sure it is. And you're also on the board of the Foundation for Cancer Research. Is that still current, sir?

Bob: Yeah, yeah. I mean, both those things are true.

We're in our third printing, which we're very excited about The V Foundation, I lose track but now we're up to probably $400 million, I think we've raised for cancer research and we've got some unbelievable scientists. That's something we're very proud of. We get a four-star rating from Charity navigator every year, which the people evaluate how, you know, conscientious you are about where the money you're spending when you raise it.

And, so we take that very much to heart. And we've got a local cancer arm here. It's called Kentuckiana Friends of V, that's the area around the Kentuckiana area in Louisville. And we, we've done a number of fundraisers. The other night, the University of Louisville, I'm the radio analyst for their games.

They played a game, for our charity, which I thought was extremely generous. And and, I was so excited about it. They played Bucknell in an exhibition game because my brother, James Hurst, it's a Division I head coaching job. And so they played. Bucknell. There was a bit of a symbolism there that, then we made some significant money for our cancer charity and we're excited about that.