William & Mary’s campus is familiar to Samantha Huge, although she was introduced as the Tribe’s incoming athletics director Wednesday.
She visited W&M several times to watch her brother, Chris, play offensive tackle for the Tribe in the early 1980s.
Huge (HOO-ghee) officially will start work in May and collaborate with outgoing AD Terry Driscoll until his June departure. Driscoll has been the athletics director for 21 years.
Huge said she remembers being “amazed by the passion and energy surrounding the stadium, the fans in the stands, the players on the field, the pageantry surrounding the game. To return to William & Mary is a full-circle dream come true.”
About 10 percent of Division I athletics directors are women, according to various sources.
Huge, who comes to W&M after working as the senior associate AD at Texas A&M, graduated from Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., in 1992. She began her career in athletics administration as an intern in the Southern Conference office and also worked at Illinois, Michigan State, Wake Forest, Georgetown and Delaware.
She said she was eager to return to the East Coast, but not necessarily as an AD. Huge was comfortable in a supportive role until a mentor challenged her not to deprive an athletics department of her leadership skills.
“That got the wheels turning,” Huge said.
